2014 Taste of California - Oscar/Wine Pairing Party

This year's participants.  The last wine is the label-less Que Será Syrah that Jimmy and I made.  Because 8 was NOT enough.

So every year for the past six years we've had a wine tasting party.  They started out very casual and slapdash and evolved into something with a little more structure.  You can read more about the evolution of it "here" if you wish.

About six months ago or so Leslie and I decided the theme for this year's party would be the Academy Awards.  She and I figured it would dovetail nicely with the region (California).  We fine-tuned how it would all work and then kept the theme secret until we sent the official invitations out (about four or five weeks before the event).  Prior to that she'd done some ground work with determining schedules, so it's not like we just said, "Hey, you're invited," and hoped everyone could make it.  But it was "formalized" a few weeks in advance.

The general guidelines for the party are as follows:
1)  Wines are assigned randomly to the participants.
2)  Participants research their wines and create some sort of presentation, educational/entertaining.
3)  Participants research a dish that pairs well with their wine.
4)  Leslie sets up the menu once all the wines and dishes are announced.
5)  Commence to partyin'.

She puts one of these at each place setting, sort of like a program.

This year, with the theme being the Academy Awards, Leslie's invitation read "Black tie optional".  I donned my black suit and purchased a bow tie, for example.  More on that painful process "here."

We rolled out a red carpet, festooned the walls with stars, cordoned off the front door with a velvet rope, got swag bags for the visiting VIPs, purchased "trophies", and decked a couple of the participants daughters in fancy evening gowns to act as presenters.

The idea was the girls would read an envelope of nominees and then award, for example, the best Cabernet Sauvignon, to a participant.  The participant(s) would then rise to the acknowledging cheers of his peers and the presentation would essentially be the acceptance speech.

The other girls aren't pixelated in real life.  That's just a camera effect.

It was great.  And classy.  But drunken.  Too drunken.  Probably we'll have to make some changes moving forward.  People lose track of the fact that there are eight wines to get through, and the pours get a little 'too full' to make it to the end safely.  By the third course I was more than tipsy.  By the 7th, you couldn't hear the presentations over the sound of drunken heckling.  By the 9th*, well...no arrests were made.  But it was a close thing.

*Officially there were 8 courses, but we cracked open a bottle of the wine we made in November.  That was the fabled one-too-many.

so classy

Leslie and I were randomly assigned Cabernet Sauvignon.  We paired it with filet mignon sliders done two ways...one with a chimichurri sauce and stone ground mustard on artisan bread, and the other a Gorgonzola and Porcini cream sauce on artisan bread.  We then cut the sliders in half so that each person got half of each recipe...or one whole slider.  But seriously, with eight courses nobody leaves hungry.

Here was our presentation for this year's party...

2011 Dreaming Tree Cabernet Sauvignon

Dreaming Tree is owned by Dave Matthews and some wine guy.  Yes, that Dave Matthews.  Dreaming Tree’s website assured us that the wine guy’s credentials were beyond reproach, and that Dave Matthews also knew some stuff.  Liking wine, for example, was listed on his resume.

Dreaming Tree itself is named after a Dave Matthews Band song…”Dreaming Tree”.  But “What Would You Say” if we were to stand here in “The Space Between” “You & Me” and start interjecting Dave Matthews Band puns throughout our presentation?  Doubtless you’d lose patience and “Crash into Me” in your haste to “Say Goodbye” and, like “Ants Marching” we’d lose the lot of you and be left crying, “Where Are you Going?” we have “So Much to Say!” 

But we’re not cliché like that. 

Dreaming Tree’s website is selling a story about their wine.  More so than the wine itself it seems, because while I’m not positive what the wine itself is supposed to be like from their website, I do know, for example, that Tino is an old local guy who doesn’t want to retire, and that Dale is a local fisherman who offered Dave a beer once.  And so on.  Charming stories about the people and places around the vineyard, and of course, back story about why Dave Matthews is a wine expert all litter their webpage along with charming photographs of Dave drinking wine with people, or staring into the middle distance, a visionary wine…liker…guy.  In the background are hand drawn sketches of fish and people and houses and things.  But still no ideas what Dreaming Tree Cabernet Sauvignon is supposed to taste like. 

After much digging I came up with this:  The wine “shows abundant fruit with notes of cherry, blackberry, anise and vanilla. It's soft and with a lush texture that makes it great match for everyday foods.”

I’m not sure that we agree about “everyday foods” But…it is soft, definitely softer than your typical high tannin Cabernet.  It makes it smooth and drinkable and easier to pair with food than the first wine we considered…more about that in a moment.

We also know is that it’s from California.  We know that because Dreaming Tree was as I mentioned, our number two selection for reasons.  For starters, number one did not pair particularly well with the first dish we tried, was a only a little better with the second, but not great with the third (a pumpkin cheesecake recipe that Leslie insisted we start at 10:30 at night and I was still waiting to cool at 1:00 a.m.).   Upon failing this last test, and with mounting panic, Leslie said, “Why don’t you see what their website says pairs well with it.”  So I went.  It turned out that our first selection was a wine from Oregon.  Drunk, we turned instead to a wine that we were relatively sure was not from Oregon, and quite possibly was from California.    

Yes!!  Dreaming Tree is from California!

From our general research on wine pairings with Cabernet we have some nice bullet-point memorizables:

• 1.      Cabernet’s high tannin content lends itself to grilled meats…steaks, chops, and other red meat.  The char on the meat mirrors the bitterness of the tannin.
• 2.      Black pepper counters the bitterness
• 3.      Bitter foods…mustard greens, endive, eggplant
• 4.      Cabernet counters fatty, buttery foods nicely.
• 5.      Earthy herby flavors, dark mushrooms, fresh herbs.

Taking all of the above into consideration we tried five recipes (including those we sampled with the Oregon wine) and were left with two that we felt really paired well.  Instead of settling on one, we have prepared for you…

Petite filet sliders done two ways:  filet with chimichurri sauce and stone ground mustard, and filet with Gorgonzola and Porcini mushroom sauce both served on lightly toasted artisan bread.  

We each felt that one of the preparations paired better than the other.  We’re curious what you’ll find.  Do the herbs and pepper of the chimichurri pair better than the fatty Gorgonzola and earthy Porcini flavors of the cream sauce?

Bon Apetit!

We took an Ellen Degeneres-style Oscar selfie, but without the consent of the other participants I'm reluctant to share it here.  That said, here's a teaser...

Leslie said, "Did we do a selfie?" the following day.  She didn't remember anything after the 6th course. 

I seem more serious than I really was.  My lopsided grin is away from the camera so it's hidden.  I was happy.  Sooooooo happy.

Lily dressed up but was designated driver.

Gordian Knot

I bought a bow tie for the wine tasting we're hosting this weekend.  I don't really know how to tie a bow tie, but they give you instructions on how to tie them in the box with the bow tie.  They look more or less like this:

I pulled that off someone's blog, but essentially, they're the identical instructions that came on a card in the box into which my new bow tie was elegantly stuffed.

I won't ask you to read through the steps, but, well, no, go ahead and read through as much as you can.  I think somewhere around instruction 2 or possibly 3 is where the words started sliding over each other.  I can't think of a better way to describe it, but the instructions should be easy enough to follow, and for some reason I just couldn't wrap my head around them.  I got all swimmy and confuzzled.  I found myself reading the instructions aloud and very slowly performing the actions as I read.  Emma, curious, watched from behind me.

"Can I try?" she asked.

"In a minute, Em," I mumbled, "I need to figure this out for myself."

She waited in what was her version of 'patiently'.

The bow tie was a wad of fabric vaguely globe-shaped as I completed the instructions.  It fell to rest against my shirt shapelessly.  I extracted its component parts from the weave into which I'd contorted it and gave the tie to Emma, busying myself making lunches and grumbling to myself.

Leslie called from the family room.  "Emma, you need to study for your tests."  Emma dejectedly set aside her work with the tie and collected her papers to study, the tie just as unvanquished by her youth and enthusiasm as it had been by my aged experience. 

"I almost had the shape right," she muttered.

Later we both revisited the project, this time with a few Youtube videos.  I searched for "How to tie a bow tie."  There were many.  One tutorial was ten minutes long.  Ten.  I watched it.  I made it perhaps through six minutes before I was overwhelmed and set the project aside once more.  Emma picked up where I left off, fresh from having correctly answered all the questions I had asked her from her study guides, and therefore fulfilling her commitment to "study for her tests."

We both eventually went to our respective beds that night unsuccessful.

This morning I again revisited the project.  I watched a shorter, but much less technical version of "how to tie a bow tie".  Although the video was shorter, and the person in the video hadn't paid enough attention to allowing his pupils a clear view of the tie he was tying as he was tying it, I had some success following his directions, which were simpler.

I practiced while waiting for Lily's bus to come pick her up.  Lily was swinging the cat by its tail, or hitting baseballs through the TV or playing in the street or something, it's not terribly clear to me, so consuming was my need to overcome this hurdle.  At last...

...so, a passable bow.  I don't mind the folded knot.  I don't mind the asymmetry of the two sides.  In my head it sort of gives the bow tie character.  It shows it off as "hand tied" vs. "clip on".  I'm not saying I'm standing pat with that effort.  I still have some work to do, but it's a bow, and it's tied correctly.  Or...is it?

So this thing occurs when you tie the tie as I tied it.  The right side is a loop.  The left side is the tail of the loop.  In my head I thought that couldn't be right.  In my head a properly tied bow tie has a bow and a bow...loop and loop in front, tail and tail in back:  bow/tail on the left, bow/tail tail on the right.  I asked around.  There was general agreement among the equally uninformed.  I tried googling this:  "Top view of a bow tie".  It was really hard to find.  Nonexistent even.

WHY ARE THERE NO TOP VIEW SCHEMATICS OF BOW TIES???  This was the thought that entered my head.  Caps required.  I was passionate about this lack of important information.  The question in my head amounted essentially to this:

And this is a big deal.  The people who go to these parties, they're friends.  And if you're my friend, it might be assumed that my friends are somewhat similar to me.  And if it can be assumed that they are somewhat similar to me it should logically follow that by showing up with my bow tie improperly tied I would be subjecting myself to loss of face and public shaming in perpetuity.  I'm not saying my friends are assholes.  I'm just saying that the friendships of men are like feudal Japan, exhausting and filled with hidden rules and codes and etiquette and I'm not throwing myself on that sword willingly.  One friend allegedly* caught the table on fire three years ago and is still subjected to "keep the candles on this end of the table"-style jokes to this day.  Last year Leslie put a fire extinguisher next to his fork.

*He denies it to this day using the "it wasn't me" defense.
 
I did a lot of digging.  A loooooooooooot of digging.  Almost every picture of a bow tie is from the front.  It's impossible to tell if I had my tie correctly tied.  I revisited the how-tos.  I watched videos, combed pictures, asked my boss.  It wasn't clear.  But everyone with whom I spoke on the matter agreed...two bows in front, two tails in back.

Despite this, I soldiered on until I came across this diagram:

If you look closely, really closely, the tie appears to be bow in front, with tail behind on the right, then tail in front with bow behind on the left.

Then I came across this diagram:

Both diagrams show bow/tail/tail/bow, and I was psyched in a way that was so illogically relieving that I struggle to describe it.  It's such a stupid little "problem" to have that the relief from finding its solution seems similarly stupid.  It definitely merits a place among other worthy First World Problems:  "Can't tell whether my black tie should be tied with both bows in front".  But I felt like the color picture definitely showed the pink side of the tie completely in front; both bows couldn't be in front in that case.

Had I possessed the above diagram yesterday none of this would have been an issue.  Or maybe it would have been a different issue, because without words I challenge any reader who is still hanging in there despite the subject matter to tie a bow tie using the above diagram and no explanation. 

I informed my boss of my findings, but he remained unconvinced.

"Google Bill Nye," he suggested.

I did so.  Nestled among the thousands of pictures of "The Science Guy" and his signature bow tie were clearly visible examples that when Bill Nye ties his bow tie, like the old cliche says:  he does it just like the rest of us, bow/tail/tail/bow.  Case closed.

Do other men know this?  Other men who don't wear bow ties, I mean?

In my Google travels, I came across a how-to video from Howdini.  The caption of the how-to was, "Knowing how to tie a bow tie is one of those skills a woman should know, so she can help her man when the need arises."  And I thought, "Why is my wife so useless in bow tie matters?" and resolved to punish her with icy stares and stony silences while she fetches my slippers and pipe when we finish the home-cooked meal she prepares me after she's done working full time today.

Today at work, Emma texted me a picture of herself wearing my bow tie, neatly tied.  "Look daddy, I did it."  I'm almost positive she suffered no qualms regarding the relative locations of the bows and their tails in relation to one another.