There’s a wine for every food
and a food for every wine!
The secret is in the sauce… and the preparation!
While some insist drink what you like, and pair the wine you like with the food you like BUT while you MAY like it, and everybody’s chemistry is different, some pairings are A+, others awful, and some just all right.
What I like isn’t always what Sue likes. She loves jalapeƱos, onions, celery; I don’t. In fact, I have a hard time digesting green peppers and onions. I’m not fond of celery, and I really find that celery seed has a strong flavor that hangs around and doesn’t do well with wine.
Over the years of pairing and writing about food and wine pairings has taught us a few tricks– especially when pairing wines with vegetarian dishes.
WINE PREDATOR’S TOP 10 TRICKS FOR FOOD AND WINE PAIRINGContinue reading →
To be honest, I’m swimming in samples of wine. It is, after all, sample season: it gets too warm to ship over the summer. I don’t say this to brag. It’s just a fact, a fact that I am very grateful for, and that I’ve worked hard to achieve. I’m on a lot of lists and I’m offered many amazing opportunities to taste wonderful wines from around the world.
But that’s what I did with Oregon’s A to Z Wineworks: I asked for samples. Like I needed any more wine to write about…. but I had to. I needed to know more.
“Instead of pruning, how about a pick up party?” I asked Steve Zambrano as we climbed into my car with my dog Cisco.
Steve is always interested in having new experiences and learning more about just about everything under the sun– and the moon and the stars! I’ve known Steve for at least 25 years as we both moved around the Ventura art scene, especially around Art City. He’d helped me with broadsides at Kinkos, he was a regular at poetry and other events I put on, and more. Last month he joined in the rose bottling party at Clos des Amis— where he helped bottle under the tutelage of one of his former Ventura College art instructors, Bruce Freeman.
Give it to Steve, asking him to a pick up party didn’t phase him one bit. In fact Steve is the kind of guy who hangs out in Hollywood with a porn star with a huge handmade sign hawking fake “Maps to the Homes of (Porn) Stars” just to get a response.Ā
And while they all share certain Chardonnay characteristics, each one is different and resonant of the vintage, place or origin, and the winemaker’s intent.
Following our foray into Burgundy with the Winophiles (where we were sadly flummoxed by premox), we decided to explore six different regions in California– Sonoma, Napa, Santa Lucia Highlands, Lodi, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties– for this year’s Chardonnay Day extravaganza today.
For the past few years in May, we’ve focused on Chardonnay from France and Oregon, with a particular fascination for dry farmed wines. For example:
