LOVELESS: Russia

PLOT: An estranged Russian couple going through a brutal divorce both have new partners and want to start over until their 12-year-old son disappears after witnessing one of their fights.

PAIRING: Vodka of course. From Russia.

ON BODY AND SOUL: Hungary

PLOT: When a man and woman who meet at work begin to know each other, they discover that they have the same dreams at night, and they decide to make them come true.

PAIRING: Nimrod Wines NJK. SRP $55. This red wine blend from Hungary that I tasted at World Of Pinot Noir this past weekend. I know, I know, it’s not Pinot Noir, and while I loved their pinot noir, I think their red blend is surreal and magical and unusual and definitely Hungarian– just like this film. The wine has the initials of the gentleman pictured above, Mr. Nimrod J. Kovacs. Read his amazing story here– this man should have a movie made about him!   It’s spicy and brambly — really unusual and fun to have in contrast to all of the pinot! It’s a blend of :

So what should you toast this year’s best picture nominees with?

The Academy is going to be drinking Coppola’s Director’s Cut, a fitting wine for sure, and a solid people pleasing cherry oaky wine, very American, and very animated!

We have three sparkling wines from around the world to suggest:

• Pata Negra – Cava – Made with Organic Grapes – Brut 11.5% alcohol
  
• Santa Marghererita – Brut Rose – Vino Spumante – 11.5% alcohol
  
• 2015 BLANC DE BLANCS ESTATE VINEYARD ANDERSON VALLEY 12.5% alcohol
  SRP $60 (purchased at winery)

to pair with the Best Picture Nominees for the Oscars:

• Call Me by Your Name – Peter Spears, Luca Guadagnino, Emilie Georges, and Marco Morabito
• Darkest Hour – Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce, Anthony McCarten, and Douglas Urbanski
• Dunkirk – Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan
• Get Out – Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Edward H. Hamm Jr., and Jordan Peele
• Lady Bird – Scott Rudin, Eli Bush, and Evelyn O’Neill
• Phantom Thread – JoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson, Megan Ellison and Daniel Lupi
• The Post – Amy Pascal, Steven Spielberg, and Kristie Macosko Krieger
• The Shape of Water – Guillermo del Toro and J. Miles Dale
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, and Martin McDonagh

AND THE WINNER SHOULD BE:

According to my friend Ron Wells Ranked Annotated List Films of 2017: The Top 3 which I published on my Art Predator blog:

Here are three sparkling wines from around the world worthy of those Oscar toasts:

Pata Negra – Cava – Made with Organic Grapes – Brut 11.5% alcohol

This is a very nice Cava that’s very food friendly.

Bubbles and color – medium bubbles, not an abundance of bubbles, nice and light

Nose – citrus and grass, apples, really fresh, mildly yeasty

Palate – clean crisp, fresh,  nice and dry, some yeasty qualities, make sure there is some allouette cheese on your cheese tray. It pairs beautifully with this wine. Kind of a caramel apple as it opens up.

The Cava went beautifully with our Ceasar Salad, This would be so easy for a Oscar party — you could even buy a pre packaged Ceasar Salad mix and it would be a hit with this wine.

It doesn’t have to be that complicated to make a fabulous event where you can also sit and enjoy the company with the wine.

This wine is totally a winner for us. A nice flashy label, good, distinct, great cocktail or mimosa bubbles,  not particularly over powering so it will blend well. If this was at a party and this was being served, both of us would not turn up our noses, either by the glass or as a cocktail. Add some orange flavored sparkling water and gran marnier for a lovely cocktail.

This wine went fine with our berry pie, but was much better with the cheese plate, appetizers, oysters, and salad. This wine was so much better with  the savory items; we thought that another item that might do well with this food line up is quiche bites, because you could make them in advance, and they are fine eating at a chilled temperature.

Santa Marghererita – Brut Rose – Vino Spumante – 11.5% alcohol

When someone says Spumante Sue thinks of Sweet sparkling that her father loves for holiday brunch mimosas; thank goodness this is not necessarily that wine. While it is fruit forward and floral, it’s not sweet. There are other flavors going leading us to believe this would be the perfect pairing with our berry pie.

This comes in a really beautiful bottle…

Color and bubbles: Very pretty pink, rose – gold, delicate, foamy

Nose: I noticed the strawberries as soon as the cork was popped. This wine yearns for a creamy brie or LaTur, or Mascarpone on a piece of bread. It’d be fantastic with a berry, or grilled peach salad with burrata. It is however very nice on its own.

Try dropping a raspberry or strawberry in it for sipping during a movie party.

Palate: This is not the food wine that the cava is. It did not go well with the caesar salad.  This wine was best on its own this evening making us think that maybe it should be served first as an appetitive  to begin the evening with or consider using it in a cocktail like with a splash of St Germain.

2015 HANDLEY BLANC DE BLANCS ESTATE VINEYARD ANDERSON VALLEY
12.5% alcohol $60

Sue and John just got back from a get away to the Anderson Valley. While Sue enjoyed all of the quaint lovely wineries that she visited, it was the sparkling houses that had her super excited. Handley was one of those places. John decided to share a bottle of Handley Blanc de Blancs that they bought on their recent trip for the occasion.

We found this wine to be so lovely to sip and a great for a toast when your best of picture has won and you really want to have a special toast. Or have it at the door to greet your guests!

Nose  – Sue found a lovely brioche yeasty quality to the wine and I picked out the apple qualities on the nose of this wine. Edie felt that if this were aged it would be fantastic! The nose on this wine is beautiful. It would be fabulous with oysters, lemon, and lemon curd; the salinity made this a wonderful wine for food.

Palate – Edie found green apple on the palate. super pleasurable now, but wait till the next year’s Oscar celebration to open this wine and be even more impressed. Be impressed now, and be even more impressed in a year or two.

We all enjoyed this wine a great deal. It offers so much more than the Cava or the rose; there are so many more subtle complexities to this wine.

CCOF certified organic estate vineyard grapes comprised of 100% Chardonnay planted in 1987 with cuttings selected from Ordway Valley Foothills Vineyard, some of the first vines planted in Anderson Valley and some of the first vines planted on the Handley Estate property. Anderson Valley was a relatively unknown wine region at the time so Milla Handley sought out plant material that was already proven to succeed here. The vineyard is a cold spot on the valley floor exposed to afternoon winds which delays sugar accumulation and maintains acidity while developing ripe fruit characters making them ideal for making sparkling wine. A very small dosage of sugar was added at disgorging to soften the wine’s crisp acidity.

Enjoy these wine and movie pairings!