Sunday, April 3, 2011

Expressions

Hey folks, I'm back.

Over at Writer's Blanc, there's been some interesting opinion polls that are varietally specific: taking two varietals, either white or red, and asking wine enthusiasts all over to vote on their favourite.

Historically, I've taken on a "no two varietals are created equal" stance on my wine enjoyment (not just because I'll drink pretty much anything).  It has been pretty fun to choose a favourite from each selection, though!  It's always good to see the generation of enthusiasm from the simple request of input on a topic.  It's always been hard for me to pick a favourite anything, but this time I had a chance to think about why, and Joel Wilcox does really nice work in his descriptions of each variety's merits in the posts.  The choice avoids becoming arbitrary when the person asking you to vote puts care into the presentation.

I suppose that along this line, I've had some thoughts on varietal expression with regards to winemaking practices, and how it affects the drinking preferences of wine industry folks.  


On Modes of Expression

When I was taking the Winery and Viticulture program at Niagara, I had quite an enlightening lecturer by the name of Dave Hulley.  This guy is awesome to have a class with, because he's equal parts engaging and informative.  Also, even when side-splitting hilarity ensues, the passion can always be redirected at the topic, so the concepts really stuck with me.  

One of the classes where he spoke on winemaking to suit the needs of the varietal, he did a really good run-down on the differences between making Riesling and making Chardonnay.  These two varieties are pretty focal in Niagara, as I've probably mentioned before, and I do tend to lean more towards Riesling as a wine drinker.  The point that Dave brought up was that Riesling is a wine that doesn't need to be messed with.  It handles its own character and expression of terroir (ooh, this spooky realm again).  Pretty much, as a winemaker, you step back from the élévage process a little bit; that varietal isn't one that needs your creative  augmentation.  The winemaker has Chardonnay for their artist's canvas.  Chardonnay can involve so many more selective winemaking processes that you can identify the wine with who made it, even if they're consulting in a different country. 

Taking Dave's wisdom into consideration, this is where I get a little tripped up with the voting process that's involved with Marc Madness.  It was easier for me to choose the red varietals, because I have a definitive like/dislike for tannin and oak management decisions when it comes to varietal expressions.  I tend to like Canadian Syrah to be feminine and lighter in style; if I'm drinking from the Rhône Syrah I like it to come across as fuller and more peppery but with silky tannins; and bigger tannic styles can come from the hotter climate New World wine producers.  It just depends on the itch that I need scratched.

Whites are home base for me, my first love of wine, and of course they're regionally appropriate.  While all wine's expression depends on great care in the vineyard, that has to stay a focal point right through to the bottling.  It's not that I believe that oak treatments and fining and maceration considerations detract from the terroir expression--they certainly don't in the well-made stuff.  It's just such a fragile aspect of the aromatic white that I find it difficult to think of myself adding the personal flourishes that I'd like to do with barrel-aged whites and reds.

This is really where the key point to my voting preferences drew focus: if I had to choose one white variety over another, how much attention am I putting towards what I could do with it in the cellar?  I think it's a part of the vote that can't be overlooked, as we are artists as well as consumers.  Would I choose Riesling for its pure translation of the world around the vine?  One would argue that Chardonnay does the same thing when in the right hands, but I think it needs that bit of extra embellishment in the cellar to really make it outstanding.  I'm not a fan of Canadian un-oaked Chardonnay, and while I've had some Chablis that I've really enjoyed, it's never made it into my top list.  Thinking of how the varietal expresses itself without help was probably a lot of what drove my decision.


Bit of a Bender

I guess that this is a philosophical mind-fuck for the simple fact that commercial winemaking at a certain case production can't be non-interventionist.  Smaller craft wineries can do things like minimal movements, additions, and use of indigenous yeast for primary fermentation.  These still allow you to choose what to not do to the wine to allow for it's mode of expression, while with a bigger scale production you can browse a catalogue of active dry cultures and oak influences and fining agents.  There's just different ways to drive that varietal character creatively.

So in either way, the people making the wine put their distinctive mark on it, regardless of how little or how many things you do to make that mark.  How to choose one variety or style from just one other, when there's so much personality to take into account, on both the grape and production's parts?

My preferences aren't just driven by what I like to taste in the glass, they're also built around the sort of 'marks of my own' that I'd like to put on a vinous canvas.  What I'm influenced by on a creative level just doesn't compare some days to my hedonic impressions.  It'd be nice to hear reviews from those who voted, just to see how they were making that decision.  In general, my choices for reds were governed mostly by hedonics, and my choices for whites were governed by my own vinification ideas.


Diff'rent Strokes and All

Another point of interest to this idea of wine preference comes back to combining different tasters in the same room and get them to decide on a favourite from a flight of the same varietal.  "Why do you like that one?" is met with anything from "it's just damn tasty," to "I like cool-climate Chardonnay more than warm," to "the oak integration is seamless here, compared to the rest," and so on.  I guess that practicing sensory analysis makes preference a patchwork; combined with a patchwork of tasters there's really any number of influences that can drive a trend.

I attended a tasting in Erin, Ontario last weekend, hosted by the one and only Allison Vidug.  I'm never disappointed by the lineup of examples that she can produce--she'll be announcing more events on her site, so check them out if you'd like a good wine experience.  About 12 of us tasted seven wines in two flights.  Here are some notes!  We warmed up with a really lovely Cremant de Bourgogne produced by Vitteaut-Alberti (near Rully).  I do love good bubbles.

Flight #1

Wine #1: 2008 Coyote's Run Unoaked Chardonnay (Niagara, Canada)

Nose is clean, aromas of ripe Golden Delicious apple and Bosc pear, some fresh cream--MLF here.  Dry with medium intensity aromas of the apple and pear, finishing with a light nougat note.  Fresh and easy-drinking.

Wine #2: 2008 Wynn's Coonawarra Estate Chardonnay (Coonawarra, Australia)

Nose is clean with vanilla, sweet hay, cream, lemon curd and pie crust characters.  Dry, nice weight, lots of candied lemon and pineapple on the palate.  Some oiliness on the finish; finishes medium with some blanched almond notes. 

Wine #3: 2007 Millton Opou Vineyard Chardonnay (Gisborne, New Zealand)

Clean nose, focused aromas of vanilla and candied pineapple, candied lemon peel, tangerine.  Opens up to nice carmel and oaky scents, marmalade in the background.  Dry palate with the caramel revisted, vanilla, lots of preserved citrus and candied fruit flavours.  Nice acidity on the finish and the focus remains throughout.  This one has lots going for it!  A biodynamic NZ Chardonnay for $23? Seems worth it for sure.

Wine #4: 2007 Talana Hill Vriesenhof Vineyards Chardonnay (Stellenbosch, South Africa)

Nose is clean.  Some dusty hay/dry grass aromas up front, rubber glove, tropical fruit.  On the palate, similar fruit aromas revisited and some old wood/charred flavours.  Cheesy tones on the finish, roasted onions.  Definitely brings the funk.

Flight #2

Wine #5: 2009 Speck Family Reserve Chardonnay (Niagara, Canada)

Nose is clean, lots of crisp ripe green apple.  Sweet hay, fresh stone fruit and light vanilla cream flavours come out with aeration.  Finishes medium-long and has some nice, clean oak notes harmonizing with the fruit.  Showing elegance in its youth, will definitely improve with age.

Wine #6: 2007 Maison Francois Martenot "Les Hauts Bois" (Meursault, France)

Nose is clean, fresh and floral (tree blossoms rather than garden aromatics).  Wet gravel stoniness, creamy aromas.  White iris with aeration.  On the palate: full flavours with rich characters of cream, ripe apples and pears and flinty minerality underlying all.  Develops the florality with air, certainly has a lot of interest as it continues to change.  Fantastic example, and a joy to drink.  My favourite of the tasting; well worth the $42.

Wine #7: 2008 Heitz Cellar Chardonnay (Napa Valley, U.S.A.)

Nose is clean, grassy with clovers, lemon candies, apple skins, and ruby grapefruit.  Palate is heavy on the citrus with a bit of residual sugar, nice acidity that integrates with the grapefruit character.  Refreshing to drink but finishes a little too quickly.


This was a really nice, global tasting of a popular white variety.  Seeing the range of styles and discussing them with people with a wide range of tasting experience and wine knowledge was interesting alongside the preferences.  It was nice to discuss the favourites from each taster.

I think that what I like about doing tastings of a single varietal from various regions and vineyards allows for that aspect of personality behind the wine preference to be explored.  The added effect of the personalities surrounding you as a taster simply compounds the enjoyment of the experience.  It was definitely a great night, and thanks to Allison and the Bistro Riviere in Erin for hosting such a great event.

Cheers everybody!  Get out and drink some Chardonnay!

Melissa

A patchwork of passions










Thursday, March 17, 2011

Synchronicity

Hey all,

My friend Allison Vidug, who I've mentioned before, has also been taking the WSET course, just in a different place.  We've been writing about a lot of the same things!  Here's her fantastic Riesling article to enjoy.

She also covered The Other King, a free industry Cabernet Franc tasting that I hosted last weekend at Vineland Estates Winery.  I thought I should also post about it, since we all got into some great discussions while putting the variety under the scope.

Who Reigns in the Cellar?

As I've gotten more and more into wine and tried to evolve as a taster, it's been a pleasure to go to wineries and taste things from a couple of different vintages.  Some places offer back-vintage wines to taste, the ones with on-site restaurants usually have things that have been stored, but I do get a lot out of trying a lineup of things from the same producer.  When the selection is expanded to include the same vintages from other producers and then further out to completely different regions producing the same varietal, we can establish a clearer picture of the many expressions of the variety or style.  I'm working on building up a collection, but it's still fun to have to search a little bit for the older stuff.

This is what I tried to do with the The Other King, focusing on a variety that plays a supporting role in some of the world's most famous premium reds from Bordeaux.  Here, its crown bears some polish because we can do a different things with it: dry red, rosé, Icewine and late harvest.

I'm sure I've written about it before: we face issues with ripening fruit and overwintering vines, and Cabernet Franc is no exception.  It does have some edge in the second category, but in cool years we find ourselves extending hang time into November, hoping like hell that the sugars will climb to meet standards.  Or, we could make rosé wines.  Sadly, these aren't as popular as big reds.

I like looking at Cabernet Franc as a kind of time capsule for wineries and regions.  Because of its later ripening, wines can be so differently structured between years.  There's always something that points to the vineyard site and winemaking process, and it's also interesting to try and pick out Winemaker A's Cabernet Franc in a blind lineup.  You can tell how they update their technique as they experience more and more vintages at a place, as well.  

The variety prompts me to learn more about bottle aging as well.  Once you've completed the winery stage of élévage, all that's left to do is bottle it.  Winemakers entrust that wine to that bottle and closure, we are at the mercy of the glass and cork.  I'm not talking too much about alternative packaging here: as always different vessels serve different purposes.  I've seen plenty of successful wine aging under screwcap too.  Over time, the tannin structure will collapse, new levels of scent and flavour develop, and the only way to see what it's doing is to open that bottle, ending the process and finishing a spell to be cast on the senses.

Where is this wine going?  Everyone has different opinions on what to do with these wines, and predictions about the development, and that really comes with experience and tasting.  It's always exciting to see something evolve.  It's romantic to buy a few bottles from a time or place significant to you, and keep them during the days that you each change, and then meet back up at a single point. 

Synchronizing Assessment

Within the wine industry, you can choose from such a variety of jobs.  At an event, combining people that work in retail with people that work in production is always interesting; adding enthusiasts that work in other fields also adds to the mix.  If I could take each's perceptions of the wine and chart them, I would have additional dimensions of tasting the wine; it provides a 360-degree view of the glass (as long as it's not corked).  Where are my blind spots as a taster?  Where is my own focus, and why do I focus preferentially on these specific elements?  Now, what aspects did I not consider before discussion?  Extending a wine tasting experience outside of just your own perceptions is a very rewarding thing.  Wines should be made to promote discussion, and this helps facilitate the exchange and expansion of ideas.

We've talked a lot about "calibration" in WSET, too, seeing where our sensitivities lie as tasters and how we can write up tasting notes that are a little more standardized.  My medium acidity is someone else's medium-minus acidity; maybe I'm just more sensitive to it.  My perception of the alcohol in hot-climate reds is something that I usually find to be out of balance; to someone more familiar with the style this can seem perfectly integrated--in relation to the other elements.  There isn't an absolute "medium" tannin, but we can kind of get close to establishing one as we taste in a group and discuss where on the scale we each have placed a characteristic.

Here are some things that I jotted down while doing the blind lineup on Saturday.

The Other King

Flight #1

Wine #1  2009 Pondview Rosé (Niagara)

Nose is clean, fresh strawberries open up to give strawberry-rhubarb pie notes with underlying floral qualities.  Clean, zippy acidity, florality and juiciness with lots of fresh mixed-berry flavours and a little added weight on the palate.  Finishes medium with jam and fruit tart flavours.

Wine #2  1995 Henry of Pelham Cabernet Franc (Niagara)

This was the only large-format bottle in the tasting at 1500 mL.

Nose is clean, with coffee ground and cedar aromas leading to cooked dark fruit, tea, BBQ spices, with the oak carrying through to the finish, medium length.  Tannins have softened, but structure remains clean.  Pretty much drinking at peak.  

Wine #3  2002 Vineland Estates Reserve Cabernet Franc (Niagara)

Nose is clean, plentiful raspberry and chocolate notes, cake spices, lots of oak-derived flavours, cocoa powder and nice dry tannins (skin tannins, aged).  Faint violet notes too.  Very pretty wine, this was one of my favourites from the lineup.

Flight #2

Wine #4  2007 Rafael Cabernet Franc (Long Island)

Nose is clean, vegetal aromas dominate (leafy).  Dried cranberry and oak dominate the palate.  Drying tannins (skin, stem and wood, young).  Finishes with the leafy aromatics revisited and tarragon.

Wine #5  2009 Domaine de Matabrune (Bourgueil)

Nose is clean.  Carbonic characters of candy apple/maraschino cherries.  Pleasing acidity and bright red currant fruit; this one's fun and approachable, very different varietal expression.  Finishes shorter, kind to the palate (washes away some excess tannins).  Acidity definitely "driving the bus", nice cleanser between wines.

Wine #6  2007 Henry of Pelham Cabernet Franc (Niagara)

Clean nose that is smoky and serious.  Oak spices dominate but blackberry fruit appears mid-palate to finish, vanilla and chocolate flavours, very drying tannin structure.  Wrestles with me now, certainly has aging potential.  Pleasing extract, focused ripeness and length.  I may have a bit of a lean to this wine anyway, but a lot of tasters tonight agreed that it also was a favourite.

Wine #7  2007 Vineland Estates Reserve Cabernet Franc (Niagara)

Clean nose with roasted tomato (ripe) and tarragon.  To me this wine has a lot of the hallmark Cabernet Franc herbaceousness, with nice spicy oak and appealing red bell pepper aromas.  Later: here we discussed the aspect of volatile acidity and how it lifts aromatics at some thresholds, while appearing as a fault at others.  This always varies between tasters.  I didn't find the volatility to be offensive in this case.

Flight #3

Wine #8  2005 Henry of Pelham Cabernet Franc (Niagara)

This one was faulted with cork taint; going to re-taste at the next event.

Wine #9  2008 Santa Margherita Cabernet Franc (Veneto)

Nose is clean.  Nice complexity here, fresh and fried fruit aromas both appearing, spicy, focused and intense.  Nice texture, tannins are smooth in spite of youth; there's a pleasing little burst of acidity right on the finish with a hint of florality.  Some coffee bean and whole white peppercorn coming around on the nose now, luscious raspberry fruit.  This one is delicious!  Later: This one had lots of fans, and is a hell of a steal at $13 a bottle.  I was really happy with how it showed.

Wine #10  2005 Vineland Estates Cabernet Franc (Niagara)

Nose is clean.  Chocolate, orange peel aromas and noticeable legs.  Chocolate cherry flavours, complex with fruit, oak and faintly animal scents and flavours (clean, leathery).  Nice mid-palate weight and the structure shows some potential for further holding.  It's smoky on the finish (on the longer side of medium); smoked meat aromas some out with some darker fruit.

Capping Off the Weekend



Of course, my weekend couldn't have been a complete Cabernet Franc overload without matching a fresh bottle of the 2005 Henry of Pelham Cabernet Franc to a gigantic stuffed red bell pepper, topped with bacon and dressed up with balsamic vinegar and cracked black pepper.  I can't wait to pour this one for those of you who attended Saturday, so I'll keep my tasting notes until then!

Thanks for reading!  Cheers,

Melissa

Totally Lives on Red Peppers



Monday, March 14, 2011

Requiescat in pace

Dear food processor:

I was careless.  I'm sorry.  You left this world too soon.

--Melissa


Some more information:  It fell off my freezer because of a thin layer of water and my slopey apartment floor.  The container's handle shattered into tiny pieces, simultaneously breaking my heart and laying out a destructive field of plastic shrapnel with a taste for the vulnerable skin of fresh, pink-bottomed feet.  My new hand blender has a blade + processor container, but it's just not the same.  We had so many good times pulverizing things together (mostly white beans with olive oil and asiago cheese). 

So, here's to my Black & Decker countertop food mulcher.  May you turn many things into delicious paste in the appliance afterlife.

Love,

LabGirl with Beetle Hair

Thursday, March 10, 2011

My Love-Hate Relationships

Hey everyone,

In class on Tuesday, we tasted through what I lovingly refer to as the "unpronounceables," wines from Germany, Austria, Hungary and Greece.

These ones usually send wine consumers running back into the warm, comfortable arms of California Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz from Australia--but they're missing out.  Very tentative acceptance has been occuring for wines like Gruner Veltliner and Xinomavro outside of the connoisseur circles, but sometimes wines are still a tough sell if you can't even say the name properly.  Gewurztraminer still hasn't really gained momentum because of that, no matter how they've been matched up with trendy Thai and Vietnamese dishes touted in magazines--and these rarely even breathe a word about its versatility with cheeses in the case of medium-alcohol examples.

The thing is, these wines are usually quite stellar examples of that mysterious concept of terroir, the loosely translated French term for "sense of place," which in southern Ontario we equate with steely, minerally whites that show off that limestone-bedrock-derived flavour profile.  I can see how tasting gravel in the glass may not be winning too many folks over, either.


A Word on Varieties 

The world of wine has seen so many viticultural innovations over the years that we can plant almost anything almost anywhere.  In 1985, plenty of vinifera were still being summarily executed each winter by Mother Nature, and Syrah (Shiraz) was incredibly bad at surviving more than five years.  Sadly, it still struggles in the more brutal winters.  As with anything agricultural, we just had to see what worked, and where.  It cost us a lot of money in the region.   Growers were forced to replant and rely on crop insurance in poor years.  We tried to take a competitive stance in the $12 and under price category with Baco Noir, Vidal, Marechal Foch, and Seyval Blanc, but we admittedly didn't initially know how to make these well either.  Most of our issues came down to cropping level--how much fruit we left to ripen on the vine--and also winemaking techniques.  Few wanted to spend the money on these varieties even if they could--they were acidic, one dimensional and structurally fell apart over just a few years.  That isn't something that you want to happen in a wine that sells slowly.

Just as it's kind of hard to define "traditional Canadian cuisine," it's also hard to call one particular grape variety our own.  We in Niagara still don't really want to take ownership for Baco Noir, it has a recovering reputation that still attracts sneers from even the most "open-minded" wine consumers.

We do make some varieties consistently well, however, and the top white is certainly Riesling.  It ages well, can handle the cold, and does not need to hang in the field for a long time to accumulate sugar.  It makes gorgeous wine in every style--sparkling, Icewine, late harvest, dry and off-dry table wines--I've tasted some that were older than me, and still alive and kicking in bottle.

While I can parade around all day with my Niagara Riesling banner, I have to say that German Rieslings express something which I can only refer to as terroir maturity--these vines have been in the ground for a long time, and those vineyard sites tell stories that span generations.  German wineries have been crafting Riesling at its best for hundreds of years--the first documented usage of the grape occuring there in the 1400s.  The winemakers know their site, their soil; these wines have layers and dimensions that one may not expect to be found in an aromatic white.

When I say "ageability," I'm not joking--mid-priced German Rieslings that have had 7 or 8 years of age still retain fresh, bright citrus characters ranging from fresh lime juice to confit lemon peel to grapefruit rind.  All forms of tree fruit: quince, Granny Smith and Golden Delcious apple, Bartlett and Bosc pear, clingstone peach; again ranging from peel and flesh flavours to baked, poached, caramelized flavours.  There's more mysterious aromatics too: gunflint, honeycomb, candlewax, petroleum, lamp oil or kerosene, latex.  You can see almost anything in a glass of Riesling, it's an entire world. The well-made ones will play with you: in the first sniff citrus may dominate; five minutes later it's a pretty, floral, honeyed creature; a couple minutes after that, wet gravel and apples.  It's hard to talk over a wine like this: it draws contemplation (of course no two are created equal--and that's the best part).

I would like to talk about Austria in another post, because I need to taste some more Gruner Veltliner, the main white variety.  This is one of my favourite aromatic whites, and luckily it's recently become fashionable, so we'll finally be getting more examples in the LCBO (...maybe...?).


A Little Love-Hate 

There is one part of the class that I had an issue with, and that was when we got to Greece.  I did a lot of reading on the wine-producing areas of the country before class, and since it was last up we didn't really get a chance to talk about it very much.  I did get a lot of valuable information from the instructor, but I was pretty disappointed by the red that we tried, a variety called Xinomavro.

Characteristic of hot-climate reds is high alcohol due to high sugar accumulation in the berry.  There's lots of sunshine, and as sugars load, acids can in turn drop quickly.  This one had luckily retained the acidity, but oh man, did that booze ever burn.  The fruit I found there wasn't plush, and lively; it was dried and straining even from the background.  I tasted asphalt, cigarettes, and smoked meat.  I didn't have a very good impression of it.  I've tried some really neat Greek wines, and an aromatic white called Assyrtiko is also reportedly a fantastic terroir grape, but the Xinomavro just wasn't doing it for me.

Part of our tasting note is a comment on the development of the wine, starting with its current state and finishing with a note on where we think it's going.  The question is, if that fruit flavour is already in this dried-out stage, where can it go?  I didn't know, and my enthusiasm for what was in glass had kind of burned out.  Part of the notes that I took in class read, "long elevage in barrel and bottle," which means that the wine had some oxidation and likely a lot of oak contact before it reached critical me, and it showed in the flavour characteristics.  I still can't rule this out as a failure by any means, just because the winemaking style doesn't fit in with my own approach, or those that I've worked with.  It's extremely rare for me to actually dislike a wine style, and instead of tossing the hot climate reds off the ledge, I should be stepping up to them and getting to know where they've come from--then I think I can see where they may be headed. 

I may take a few reds to cellar and assess them over a few years in order to get to the bottom of it--the only thing I could see carrying this one any further in the cellar would have been the acid.  Would the alcohol dominate even more as it aged?  Everything I that know about aging reds could not paint me a picture for this wine's future--admittedly, I haven't tasted tons of aged reds, and those I have tried have been almost entirely older Bordeaux and Niagara Cabernets.  So, I graded it harshly.  My instructor was really forgiving towards me for that, but pointed out that he thought it was interesting because it wasn't just a big fat fruit bomb, or entirely predictable in the terms of a cool climate frame of reference for aging, which I've taken to heart.

I think I can certainly get behind these ideas, and it does give me ambition towards discovering my blind spots as a taster.  I'm here to learn about this as much as I can, and part of that is taking the plunge into the great unknown bottles, even if I don't "get it" at first.  I used to hate Sauvignon Blanc too, and I didn't even "get" that wine until I actually made it under the instruction of a winemaker from South Africa--a place where this variety appears in the upper echelons of quality and popularity.

My encouragement for all of you, then, is to take a wine; a region, variety or style that turns you off, and try to understand what may be going on behind the bottle.  There may be a discovery lurking beneath that cork, so don't write it off right away.

Slainte!
Melissa

Explorer of Worlds of Wine


Thursday, January 20, 2011

A Link or Two

Hey folks,

While I'm working on the next installment of Beer 101 (or 10000001, if I had it myyyyyyy wayyy...) here's a couple interesting food things I found today.  These aren't cooking blogs, but I've been thinking about the diversity of dietary choices lately.  Check the articles here and here.

ALSO I have been totally obsessed with lentils.  This week, I've made three different red lentil dishes already.  Tonight, I took a break from the lentils in the interest of frying up some pierogies from the deli across the street, and also of not-getting-sick-of-lentils.

They're so versatile!  They really appeal to the non-recipe-ist in me.  You can add ANYTHING to them and the dish will be wonderful, as long as you balance the spices in a way that makes sense (NEVER combine cinnamon and oregano.  Or do, and get back to me on how that works out for you).  Always add yogurt, it makes for a delightful texture.  Blah, blah, blah; I love the legumes in the winter.

I can never quite decide the spelling that I should use for yogourt...yogurt...or yoghurt.  I also can't say it too much or it becomes totally alien to me.  The solution is to just eat it already, dammit. 

Earlier, I roasted some red peppers and shoved them all into a jar with oil, salt and pepper, to help with breakneck cooking that I have to do during the week.  They're tasty, and will probably keep for a little while in the fridge! 

Why do I have to do speedy cooking?  Well, I've just started taking the Level 3 Wine Spirit Education & Trust (WSET) course at Brock.  I've totally taken up swing dancing on Monday nights, too.  Quite fun stuff!  So not only am I broke, but the first two days of the week, I have to come home, eat something and then immediately fly out the door--not my favourite way of treating dinner. 

Short update.  More to come next week!

Thanks for reading,

Melissa

Sunday, January 16, 2011

The Flavourful First Adventures of the Novice Home Brewer

Hey readers,

Last week, I met up with a friend of mine for coffee while killing some time downtown. He invited me over to his place that night to help brew up some beer.  Of course, I happily accepted the invitation!

I've been obsessing about brewing beer for a while, pretty much since I started working full-time in the wine industry. As soon as you see wine all day, every day, and it's all over you and it's all you can smell, sometimes you just want a beer at the end of the day. Seriously. I think I'm actually becoming wine.

So I went over, drank some brews and just kind of watched everything he did, throwing questions at him the entire time. I missed some of the prep work since I was a bit late getting there, but I'm going to collect some of the introductory concepts of brewing here.

Some Terms Worth Knowing

Malt: Usually barley that's been soaked in water, allowed to start germination, is then stopped by kiln-drying the grains. The malting process helps develop the enzymes that become active during the mash.

Mashing/mash tun: The process of mixing the malted grain with hot water and maintaining a stable temperature for enzymatic (amylase) activity to occur. The mash tun is more of an industrial consideration—it allows for consistent mixing and insulation. The “home” mash tun is a big clean pot, clean spoon, a reliable heat source, and you. Mashing takes about 60-90 minutes—this is why it's good to have people around.

Wort: The resulting liquid from the enzymatic conversion of starches in the grain to fermentable sugars.

Sparging: In order to get more of the wort separated from the grain, brewers rinse the grain after the initial straining, and then strain it again. Too much sparging results in a weaker beer, so this is something that the brewer has to determine (the quantity/quality balance).

My First Taste of the Homebrew

The first thing I was told was basically “keep it clean”. Beer has a significantly higher pH than wine and is therefore less forgiving to spoilage microorganisms. If you don't remember what's been sanitized and what hasn't, sanitize it again. Having a well-organized space, even if it's not a lot of space, makes sanitation a lot easier.

You can make beer if you have a pail, a strainer, a racking stick, and a big pot. Get applicable equipment if you feel comfortable (or if you're looking to invest in this for a while), but as is the case with home winemaking, start-up cost can be quite a lot. Check out the existing equipment you already have in your place before dropping mad coin on fancy stuff.

The basic idea of beer brewing is to heat the malted grain of choice in order to convert starches to fermentable sugars, extracting them to the wort. Hops are included for preservation (I'm interested in experimenting with honey in my home brews too). Use a mix of different malts! There are lots.

Watch temperatures closely while you're “mashing” the malt. Too low a temperature, and not enough enzymatic activity will occur in order to make available sugars for the yeast to ferment. Too high a temperature results in denatured enzymes and therefore also less available fermentable sugars. I was given a range of 140 - 160 F (approximately 60 - 75 C).  The mash also has to stay around the same temperature for about an hour, so you can find a way to insulate it for that period of time, and overshoot 150 F--a little bit--in order to not fall below 140 F. Since this post is meant to be introductory, I'm just including what I picked up in my first session, plus things from a little extra reading of interest.  If you want to check them out, hit up the Beer Advocate, or even the Wiki entry for a decent historical background. 

Anything can really be done with beer (add flavouring by way of fruit, spices, honey, oak...) and if it's made well it can definitely age! During our session, we cracked open a honey brown ale that one of the guys had made a couple years prior, and it was fantastic.

Familiarizing with Style

Literally hundreds of different styles of beer exist all over the world. As usual, my recommendation is to taste everything available! Something I do is a kind of “beer roulette”: I go into the liquor store, and pick 6-10 singles of various styles, from as many different places as I can. I always include one or two that I know and love. I also found this page, The German Beer Institute website, and even if it's a slightly overwhelming list, it's a fun site to browse for styles.

The basic qualitative aspects of style are these: bitterness, sweetness, alcohol content, colour, weight (viscosity), and the inclusion flavouring agents like fruit, spices or honey. This is still incredibly general, but it's a start.

Next, categorically beer breaks down from generally “ale” into things like lagers, pale ales, wheat beers, dark lagers, porters...and so on.

Ale colouration is influenced by drying method: pale ales from kiln-dried, darker ales from fire roasted malt. Red, brown, and dark ales usually have flavour profiles featuring smoke, caramel, toffee, coffee, and chocolate. In this respect, it's just like the differing toasting levels on wine barrels lending different flavours: how the malt is toasted yields a variety of flavours and colours.

Opacity (“cloudiness” frequently found in yeasty wheat beers) is related to fining and clarification. “Lager” usually refers to cold fermentation and storage, which results in a crisp, clear, steely and refreshing style of beer.

Stouts and porters are related in their history: “stout” came first as generically a strong, dark style of beer made from heavily roasted malt. The “porter” as we know it is also a dark and heavy beer; usually the differentiation is specific to a brewing company and the “stout” is the heavier/stronger/more bitter beer. It's said that porters (carriers) liked this kind of brew, and the name “Porter” for the beer style came from the association. 

As beer continues to grow in popularity, we'll see even more differentiation in the styles, and that's why it's good to get out and try these things: much of the stylistic considerations just evolved from a proprietary recipe or regional method. For now, this is just a primer.
 
For now, I have a mountain of books, guides and websites to look at on the topic. I'm glad I'm surrounded by patient teachers, too.  I'm going to get brewing, and these entries will become more detailed as I learn about it. I'll be sure to keep sharing.

Cheers!

Melissa

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Feeding Your Soul, Tuning Your Senses

Hey everyone,

First, I've got another link to put up here, because it's an interesting read that matches up with some concepts that I'll be working with.  There's some nicely written articles on the pleasures of comfort and soul food here.  I'm not vegan, but in the interest of exploring how people experience food, dietary choices can't be outside my sphere.  I like the experimentation and creativity that emerges from trying out these regimes, even if it's only for a little while.  True gourmands say, "Can we do this?  How can we do it?"  They become the masters of food chemistry and enjoy a depth of understanding of how cooking works; using emulsions, infusions, leavening, drying and preservation.

Regarding the article: how we connect to comfort food is something I've talked a little bit about before. Tasting is linked to memory in several ways, so first I'll show you the pathway of descriptive taste development that I've come to envision.  My aim is to match this up with concepts associated with the development of both the olfactory bulb and memory/pattern recognition in the brain.

The Model of Descriptive Taste Development

1.  "I can taste it, but I don't recognize it."

2.  "I can taste it, and I can recognize it, but I don't know how."

3.  "I can taste it, I definitely recognize it in the ways a, b, and c, but I don't know what that means."

4.  "I taste and recognize it in these ways a, b, and c; it means 'this'."


An example, using alcohol content in wine.

1.  "I'm experiencing a slight burning feeling in my nose and throat."

2.  "I learned that alcohol content gives that impression of heat in wines."

3.  "This is a higher alcohol wine, indicated by the burning sensation and 'legs' on the sides of the glass."

4.  "This wine is 'hot'.  The alcohol is out of balance towards the high side, it causes the sensations in nose and throat of heat; this indicates that the grape must's initial sugar content was high."

This is how I can see descriptive taste development progressing.  The second and third points often work together.  The transition between the four points can be shortened by guided tasting experiences.  As I'm just introducing this here, I will expand on how we develop sensitivity to qualities as I continue to learn about the olfactory system.

Barbara Leslie, author of Canadian Wine for Dummies and one of my professors at NC, taught the first tasting class I've ever taken.  I was overwhelmed at first, with people saying that they smelled oranges, apples, cat's pee, and socks, when I could pretty much just identify that what I had in my glass was, in fact, wine.  I was definitely not alone, and the piece of advice she gave to first-time tasters was this: "Go home, and smell everything.  Smell the fruit that you have in your lunch.  Smell your spice cupboard.  Most importantly, pay attention to what you're smelling and assign that memory to your nose."

The movement from perception to recognition certainly takes focused effort.  After a while, the recognition of apples and oranges still exists, but the new aromatic elements that you're looking to define will take up the space in your attention.  For example, a taster learns how to recognize oak in wines as having woody, smoky, caramel or vanilla aromas (this is only a short list of the associated characteristics; I could carry on about eugenol, vanillin and octo-lactones, but that's a bit more specificity than needed).  Then, as the taster familiarizes with the concept of oak, they can start to differentiate between American, French and Hungarian oak.  As they continue to taste, they further differentiate American oak into sub-categories such as Appalachian oak, Missouri oak, Minnesota oak, and so on.  How complex does the spectrum need to be?  This depends on the interest level of the taster, of course.  To most consumers, they may not care that much if the oak tree that grew in Missouri went on to be coopered into a barrel, in which the winery then chose to vinify the Chardonnay that they are enjoying... My point here is more that we can practice specifying tastes to increase the familiarity of elements, which can lead to a fulfilling and multi-leveled taste experience.

Next time you taste a wine, try this. Give it a good couple sniffs, and decide on the dominant fruit flavour that stands out the most; say it's cherries if you're tasting a red.  Then, see if you can be more specific.  Is the fruit sour, candied, dried, rotten, juicy?  That's all you have to do to start familiarizing with aromas.

The next "level" is to find out how these characteristics relate to fruit condition before fermentation, which could lead to clues about climate conditions, or vintage variation...

This is why I feel that unraveling the mysteries of wine is incredibly fun.

Cheers, and happy perception and recognition.

Melissa

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

How to Recover from Illness

Purchase bottle.  Open (in whatever way is appropriate).  Pour into glass.  Observe, sniff and swirl.  Jot a few notes!  Bring a friend!

Oh, don't forget to keep trying new ones.

I have some cool stuff to share with you:

I'd first like to introduce you to Allison Vidug.  She's a fellow graduate of NC, and without the experiences we shared together then, my wine life would certainly have been a lot slower to develop!  The NYE dinner she's posted about looks totally exquisite.  Check out her stuff! 

Also, while browsing around today I found an interesting article about incorporating sustainability into the first-world lifestyle.  I thought it was a good read for a lot of reasons: I still live like I'm kinda broke, so the world of re-use can sometimes reveal little treasures (like, making soup stock out of scraps, shells, bones, etc is the most fulfilling second-use of food that I can imagine, as well as being a wonderful way to fragrance the apartment).  I've watched my parents slowly build a vegetable patch in the backyard (my dad very happily takes an old fruit basket out to pluck out herbs and little golden and red tomatoes from the vine).  To me, once the pleasure of caring for your food becomes apparent, all that "hard work" doesn't seem to be that difficult.  After a while, cooking for a couple hours instead of a scant 30 minutes, taking the time to can or prepare for freezing the bounty of harvest, or even making soup from scratch when you're not feeling well can feel perfectly in place with your daily activities.

More on this last point: I ducked and I dodged, but finally I was conquered by a brutal cold that had been going around work (only a couple days before New Year's Eve, too)!  I took a few days of sleep and tea (I avoid over-the-counter drugs unless I absolutely need them--it's one part stubbornness, one part doubt that they work at all, and one part the bloody cost of the things).  As I was puttering around at home, not doing much of anything, I decided that I wanted to make jambalaya.  I had the appropriate veggies, spices, rice and some shrimp, so I set to work combining things for the dish, throwing peels and scraps of onions, celery, carrots and peppers in my stock pot.  I wanted to roast some tomatoes for the jambalaya to really bring out their flavour, so I had taken some of those to add as well... Before long I had three different things going, including stock using the shells from the shrimp in a little saucepan which turned out to be very tasty!

From the first minute that I'd set to dicing onions and peeling carrots, I was feeling like myself again.  Hanging out in front of my stove, cooking aromas floating up to my face, it was both a comforting and satisfying activity to do.  My apartment smelled quite "home-y" which further added to the impression of comfort--as if the very aroma were another blanket around my shoulders and warm mug of tea with honey, cupped in hands.

I think it'd be interesting to suggest using the sheer act of cooking as therapy.  This does not necessarily mean "using food as a remedy for depression," obviously any therapy has to be suited to the individual.  All I know is that when I'm not feeling altogether like myself, I consciously make the effort to get into the kitchen and just cook it out of my system.  It'd be nice if this worked for someone else too.

Here's what I did for the jambalaya:

Cook 1 cup (dry) of white or basmati rice in 2 cups of water--I know I'm a rogue with my measurements, but I've messed up enough rice for this to have become a necessity over the years.

Peel a half a medium white or gold onion and dice it; two medium carrots, peel and slice into coins; clean three pieces of celery, trimming ends, and slice.  Saute in a good amount of butter (like, a couple tablespoons) over medium heat in a deep skillet.  Mince two medium cloves of garlic and add to the pan.  This will smell really, really good!

 Clean and dice a half of each a yellow pepper and red pepper, add to pan once the previous veggies have softened and onions are translucent.

Add peeled cleaned shrimp (about 15-20) and cook until they are pink.  Dice roasted plum tomatoes and add to pan.  Add a healthy amount of each: coarsely ground black pepper, coarse sea salt, hot hungarian paprika, cayenne pepper, ground coriander, ground cumin and a pinch of each ground white pepper, and cinnamon (for everything except the last two, I'd estimate about a quarter teaspoon--but this is to taste). Add a splash of rose or white wine and let the alcohol steam off.  Stir in the rice and let it absorb any liquid that may be left.

Enjoy!  It may not be totally traditional, but most one-pot meals are pretty forgiving of alterations.  When I'm sick, I take advantage of my stunted palate and eat some of the spicy things that I'd love to love, but can't usually handle.


Thanks for reading!  Cheers.

Melissa