Open for tasting today (Saturday) – the eco-friendly, organic and delicious Yellow & Blue (makes green) Malbec from Mendoza, Argentina. Perfect for autumn back-packing, picnics and tailgating! Check out the press in this article from the Free Lance Star.

Drink environmentally-responsibly…cheers!

We have some great stuff for those of you looking for something new to try. First, we received a very limited quantity (actually the only quantity at all in this area) of the Southern Tier Cuvee Series 1. Southern Tier is a brewery based in upstate New York whose other beers we have carried for a while now. The Cuvee series is a one-off set of beers they are brewing that are aged in oak casks. Series #2 comes out later this year and #3 next year. Series #1 is aged in French oak and actually gets flavors from the oak, especially vanilla and coconut, rather than tasting like wood. It’s rich and creamy and hides its 11% abv well. Get one and split it with a friend.

Next is the winter seasonal from New Holland Brewery called Cabin Fever brown ale. A rich brown ale to savor on the colder days ahead. Now that Halloween is behind us the winter beers are starting to appear.

Which leads me to the next beer, Bell’s Winter White. We had this one last year. It’s a Belgian White Ale (same style as Blue Moon, although this one is way better), which is usually a summer beer but Bell’s decided to make a more robust version of the style and sell it as a winter ale.

Last night was amazing. What a historic evening for the good ole’ USA. I covered the official watch party for the Democratic Party of Virginia. My assignment was to get photos of Mark Warner’s victory speech for his new U.S. Senate position and overall…

VP candidate Sarah Palin came for a rally in downtown Fredericksburg. It’s the typical political madness of the day, I suppose. I’ve never covered one of these before, but it’s always fun to try new things and see history unfold.

Every once in a while I give myself culinary missions and yesterday I succeeded in a particularly difficult one – making Coq au Vin the proper way, out of rooster. As the recipe I used noted, “Coq au Vin isn’t chicken cooked in cheap wine, it’s rooster cooked in wine good enough to drink.” The good enough to drink part was easy, it was getting the rooster that was the problem. As the recipe conceded, getting a rooster to cook is almost impossible in the U.S. Lucky for me I know Kyle, who knew somebody who knew a poultry farmer. So for my birthday Kyle got me a rooster, plucked and everything. Not a conventional gift, but a thoughtful one.

So off I went to make my coq au vin. I used this recipe from Saveur magazine, because the recipe is designed to be made with rooster where most coq au vin recipes assume you are cooking chicken. Pictured right is the result, which we enjoyed with a bottle of Domaine de la Vougeraie Vougeot Monopole, a red Burgundy. When you make Coq au Vin, red Burgundy is your best option for pairing (all red Burgundies are pinot noirs). The wine was fantastic and reminded me why Burgundy is considered one of the best wine producing regions in the world. And to toot my own horn a bit, Rebecca said my Coq au Vin was better than the one she had in France.

If you wish to try the recipe for yourself but don’t know a poultry farmer, here are a few tips. One is cut down the cooking time from 1.5 hours to 45 minutes. Rooster is tough and requires more cooking to soften it, but cooking chicken for that long will overcook it. Second, use dark meat only, because white meat will overcook. Third, you can skip the step about pouring cognac over it and lighting it with a match because that step is there to burn off extra hairs on the rooster. Fourth, don’t be tempted to use anything to cook the chicken in but Pinot Noir. I used the Cooper Hill Pinot Noir from Oregon because it’s not super expensive but still true to the varietal. Finally, don’t be tempted to keep the vegetables that you cook with the meat. The vegetables are there to flavor the sauce. This is French cooking, and it’s all about the sauce, so discard the vegetables. But if you wish for there to be more vegetables in the final product you can add more to the mushrooms. I added pearl onions. If anybody wants any more tips on this dish you can email me directly at matt@kybecca.com.

WWII planes on display in Stafford, Va.

Today Columbia Gas Arrives and hooked up the new, larger meter. Thanks Fellas!!

What’s that mean for us?

First we now have our heaters on outside.

Secondly, once we finish the hood and a few more items we can turn on the stove.

More later,
Kyle

Pinot Noir is a popular but misunderstood grape. Wine enthusiasts, restaurateurs, and retailers like us love it. More casual wine drinkers have a sense that they should love it but usually don’t. So what’s the deal?

For a start, Pinot Noir (or just Pinot for short. But don’t say Pinot when you mean Pinot Grigio) is quite a light-bodied wine compared to other wines commonly drunk, such as Cabernet Sauvignon. Next to Shiraz, Pinot seems more like water than wine. This is because it is a delicate and thin-skinned grape. When wine drinkers commonly drink shiraz and other full-bodied wines, Pinot’s lightness can seem like a flaw when really it’s a different style.

Second, the price tag is a bit high compared to other grapes. I can’t tell you how many times people have asked me for a red Burgundy (Burgundy is a wine-making region in France where the only red grape produced is Pinot) to cook with only to hear my explanation that red Burgundies start at $20 on the low end, which is a bit expensive for a wine you don’t intend to drink. Speaking of which, if there are any cookbook editors out there can you please stop recommending cooking wines that were cheap in the 1970s? Anyway, Pinots under $20 that are good are out there but not in the same quantity is other types of wine.

So what’s so great about Pinot, you ask? Its versatility, for one. If you prefer red wines by themselves then Pinot is a good option because the tannin is very low making for a smooth drink. However, they also make great food wines since Cabernet and most other reds are too heavy for everyday fare. But most Pinot enthusiasts will tell you what they love most about it is its complexity of flavor. When you get a great bottle it really is a flavor experience like no other. Red and black cherries, cola, mushrooms, dried herbs, lavender, and ginseng are just some of the descriptors commonly given to better Pinot.

Pinot, like fine Scotch, is an acquired taste that reaps great rewards once you get past the initial impression. Enjoying Pinot is like enjoying black and white films. When you’re young you hate them because they don’t give the sensory stimulation of color films. But as you mature you realize that some of the best films ever made are black and white. If a $50 Australian Shiraz is The Dark Knight, a $50 Pinot is Casablanca.

If you’re more of a Cabernet/Merlot/Shiraz person, I recommend going outside of your comfort zone and the next time you have a special occasion get yourself a nice bottle of Pinot. Keep an open mind and you might find yourself a bona fide Pinot enthusiast.

One of the perks of this line of work is that sometimes you get invited to wine tastings where they give you food. Yesterday I got to enjoy a particularly nice one in Charlottesville at The Clifton Inn (pictured right), a very nice countryside inn and restaurant. The hosts were Charlottesville-based importer and distributor Simon N Cellars, where we get much of our French wine, the Linden wines and Tantara wines.

We were there to taste the wines of Jean Luc Thunevin, a Bordeaux producer and Negociant who is one of the leaders of the garagiste movement – producers of “vins de garage”, or garage wines. This movement started in the 1990s as a reaction to the traditional style of Bordeaux wines which tend to be very tannic and require long periods of aging. Garagiste producers wanted to make more accessible wines, so they made them less tannic, more fruit forward and sometimes with higher alcohol. In other words, wines very well suited to the American palate. Wine critic Robert Parker called Jean Luc Thunevin the ‘bad boy’ of Bordeaux, which led to him making his Bad Boy Bordeaux, available for $29.99 and extremely delicious.

But back to the dinner. After eating at the Clifton Inn for the first time I have nothing but the highest praise for their chef (whose name I don’t know). That dinner easily falls into my top ten most memorable meals. The first course was scallops with a butternut squash puree paired with No 2 Blac de Valandraud, a white Bordeaux made by Mr. Thunevin. True to the garage style it had much more fruit than a typical white Bordeaux, which tend to be citrus-dominted. This one had flavors of ripe melon and grapefruit along with some herbaceous notes. Next up was an arugula and fig salad with shaved foie gras and a duck prosciutto made by the chef. This was paired with two red Bordeaux wines which didn’t make a great pairing but one of the wines, Lalande-Couturier, is very affordable at under $20 and quite tasty. Next up was the main course. The menu said “Ribeye of Beef, Roasted Garlic Mushrooms & Fingerling Potatoes” but that description really doesn’t do it justice. It was the best steak I’ve ever had – perfectly seasoned, almost no fat and extremely tender. It made an ideal pairing for the pricey but delicious No 3 de Valandraud, another red Bordeaux. Last was a cheese course paired with the star of the show, Chateau Valandraud 1999. Chateau Valandraud started off not terribly expensive, but in 1995 Robert Parker rated it higher than the famous Chateau Petrus and after that it became a collector’s item. This 1999 sells for a heart-stopping $440. It was most certainly the best wine of the night and extremely complex, with at least 8 different flavors that don’t even make themselves apparent until after you’ve swallowed. Still, I felt the price was a bit high if I were a consumer.

All in all a great experience. It usually is when you get to eat expensive food with expensive wine for free. But again I can’t emphasize enough the quality of the Clifton Inn. If you’re ever looking for a weekend trip go stay there and eat at their restaurant.