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What happens when five guys get together to celebrate the promotion of a friend? The above! Last Monday, I was invited to one of the best kept secrets in the Bay Area food scene, TK's Bucco, to celebrate the promotion of a friend from Associate to Partner of Cooper, White & Cooper LLP.
I hope everyone had a safe and happy Christmas and enjoyed at least a few good glasses of wine. Enjoy the long weekend and keep pulling corks to keep warm and cozy.
Unlike Garth Brooks, Shauna and I have got friends in the right places. Last Monday Shauna and I had the pleasure of dining with these well placed friends of ours at NOPA.The right place is Puglia and the friends are winemakers/owners of A-Mano: Mark Shannon and Elvie Sbalchiero.
Continue reading "I've got Friends in the Right Places..." »
75 years ago today the 18th Amendment of the US Constitution was repealed! So, thank your lucky stars that you are able to go to your local grocery store, corner store, bar or restaurant and order your favorite drink.
I'm off to open a bottle! To thank Congress for getting it right. So here's to the 21st Amendment! It may not be as poignant as the first 10 but it sure means a ton to me!
The image to the left is a print from 1873 asserting the values of the German-American community of the time. The quote at the bottom says, "Who does not love wine, wife, and song will be a fool for his life long." I could not agree more!
Every Thanksgiving I spend the holiday with my in-laws in Los Angeles. They love Thanksgiving and pull out all the stops. Since Shauna and I drive down very early on Thanksgiving Day our addition to the family feast is wine. Each year we average about 20 people, so I bring a lot of wine (16 bottles this year). Needless to say we never go through all of the bottles but I always believe it is worse to run out than to have too much.
This year I brought all the wines that I recommended in the "What's for Thanksgiving" post but I also added a bottle of really special wine but we ended not drinking it. Thanks to Shauna's mom having a ton of left-overs we had Thanksgiving Part II and were able to enjoy a really good bottle of wine on Sunday. I purchased this wine at Ponzi Vineyards' retail wine shop in Dundee, Oregon. The wine shop does not just sell Ponzi's wines but highlights many of the boutique producers of the Willamette Valley. I had one of the wine specialists pick out a mixed case of producers he liked and this was the first of the case that I tried.
I highly recommend wines from the Willamette Valley in Oregon. The valley is known for growing beautiful Piont Noir, but also grows Pinot Gris, Chardonnay and a hodge-podge of other grapes. The Pinot Noirs range the spectrum of styles from elegant to brooding. Yet even the most intense Pinot Noir generally have an elegance and balance that drives me to seek them out. Here is a list of some producers that you should be able to find in better grocery stores or wine shops: Adelsheim Vineyards, Bethel Heights**, Chehalem***, Domaine Drouhin, Elk Cove, Erath, The Eyrie Vineyards***, Ponzi Vineyards**, and Rex Hill Vineyards**. For more information on the Willamette Valley please visit the Willametter Valley Wineries Association.
Now for the wine! This week's wine is de Lancellotti Family Vineyards Estate Pinot Noir. To be honest, I was a bit apprehensive about this wine. It is in an obnoxious bottle (it is really heavy, without wine, it has a punt that is almost 3 inches deep) and is quite high in alcohol, 14.2% is stated on the label. An alcohol percentage of 14.2 for a Pinot Noir from a cool climate is tough to comprehend but I still wanted to try it.
Wine: de Lancellotti Family Vineyards Estate
Region: Chehalem Mountain AVA, Oregon
Vintage: 2006
Grape: Pinot Noir
Retail: $65.00
Website: http://www.delancellottifamilyvineyards.com
FunFact: The de Lancellotti family practice biodynamic farming. They only produce one wine and there were only 150 cases of the 2006 vintage produced (that is not very much)
Tasting Notes: The wine was not the color I imagined it would be. The majority of the Pinot Noirs that I have tasted that are in the +14% range are generally opaque and really inky (because most of them blend in Syrah....more on that in a later post) but this wine is a real Pinot Noir color: translucent ruby red. The nose at first was closed but as the wine began to breath it was very lovely. The wine spends 18 months in barrel, but the spcie from the oak was not the primary aroma. The fruit really shined in this wine. There were hints of ripe cherries, red currents, cranberries, red plums, dried leafs, a touch of freshly turned earth and baking spices. Each aroma lead to the next but none over powered the wine. The palate was an exact replica of the nose with subtle texture, fine tannins and a very long finish. The alcohol was present but did not have the traditional high alcohol burn (think doing a shot of whiskey or tequila). I was really astouned by the balance and harmony of this wine. This wine is very lovely and if you want to shell out the money it is worth it. de Lancellotti is a small family estate that is growing its vines with love and minimal intervention, so you are supporting a good cause. I will be joining the mailing list to make sure I secure a few bottles each year. As for the food pairings, it did a bang up job with Thanksgiving Part II. I could also see this wine going very well with roast duck, lamb, anything with mushrooms or an earthy flavor.
