making a list

The 11-day office closure that I've been looking forward to has already been interrupted by work and is expected to be interrupted by further work next week. In an effort not to succumb to bad mood bears, I've made a list of all of the fun and relaxing things to do when not working.

1. Read about Roosevelt and the Night Circus.

2. Make many cookies.

3. Practice Moroccan recipes for January's cookbook club.

4. Listen to Buble's Christmas.

5. Eat some oysters and see A Christmas Carol.

6. Taste wine. This is a separate blog post in and of itself. After spending hours of research time on tripadvisor, my Sonoma wine country itinerary is a thing of pride.

We Are Scientists present ... the rules of wine

We Are Scientists present ... the rules of wine

There are two basic types, or "varietals", of wine: red and yellow. Not surprisingly, there are different words for red and yellow wine in different countries. The French call them "bordeaux" and "sancerre", respectively. The Australians say "shiraz" and "chardonnay"; Italians, "nero d'avolo" and "pinot grigio." Germans, refreshingly, call everything "riesling". 

Study these rules while listening to WAS' new album, Barbara.

Mulled wine

Prague Old Town, December 2008

Tonight's experiments with the stove made me nostalgic for walking around the Christmas Market in Prague with a steaming cup of mulled wine, spicy and sweet. And by nostalgic, I mean I remembered the one time in my life that I have ever done that.

The mulled wine I made tonight was from a recipe a la Food Network/Ina Garten, found here. If you are too lazy to click on the link, the following is what you need to do to recreate your own Prague Old Town Square in December feeling:

4 cups apple cider
1 bottle red wine (she mentions a Cabernet Sauvignon, which is what I used -- an $8-$9 bottle)
1/4 cup honey
2 cinnamon sticks
1 orange zested and juiced (I got lazy with the juicing and just used 1/3 cup orange juice)
4 whole cloves
3 star anise (being very suspicious of the licorice-like smell, I only used one)
4 oranges peeled for garnish (I skipped the garnishing step entirely, meh)

Combine the cider, wine, honey, cinnamon sticks, zest, juice, cloves and star anise in a large saucepan, bring to a boil and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes. Pour into mugs, add an orange peel to each and serve.

It's too easy. Every night in November and December can easily be Prague Old Town Square night around here.

300th Post POD

This glorious scene comes from Bluemont Vineyard in Bluemont,VA. Today the weather was beautiful, the leaves were all different shades of gold, and as I leisurely picked at warm bread and fresh cheese and sipped a refreshing peach wine, I decided that if I ever get married, it might as well be here.

In fact, here is my pre-engagement photo:

In which I host a wine tasting

This weekend I hosted a wine tasting for some Finer Things Club members. We attempted a horizontal wine tasting, trying six Zinfandels with a 2006 vintage. Towards the end, they all seemed the same, because shockingly, my sense of smell and taste buds are not sophisticated enough to decipher the "coconut after-taste on the long finish" or the vanilla oak aromas. Also because I was fairly generous with the pouring. It was fun though, and in my preparation I learned some good facts about wine tasting and Zinfandel.

• A horizontal wine tasting means to taste one wine varietal from a single year but from multiple producers.
• Zinfandel is a clone of the Croatian variety Crljenak and a genetic twin of the Italian Primitivo grape. Zinfandel is now considered indigenous to California.
  
• Don't be foolish, there isn't a grape called "white Zinfandel".
• Zinfandel is a component of most California "jug" wines since it is one of the most widely planted red wine grapes. Case in point -- the Menage.
  
• Zinfandel is probably best enjoyed in its youth, within 3-5 years of the vintage. With age, the fruit taste drops and the wine can show the "hot" taste of higher alcohol levels.
• Other than bold flavored cheeses, popular pairings include grilled steak and hamburgers. We made do with pastrami.
  
• We may need to work on sophisticating our senses of smell and taste.

Although I was told that the best Zinfandels don't make it to Virginia from California, the nice man at Total Wine gave me some suggestions of decent wineries that would probably have grown/produced/bottled decent Zinfandels. Here is a virtual taste card for each:

1. Macchia Zinfandel Lodi Old Vine Mischievous 2006
Macchia is Italian for "the spot". This deep-hued wine is a blend from five different old vine Zinfandel vineyards. The rich, ripe berry flavors are highlighted with a subtle hint of soft-vanilla oak. This one was my favorite and a general crowd pleaser.

2. Titus Zinfandel Napa Valley 2006
Aromas of blackberry jam and spicy oak leading to superbly concentrated flavors of bing cherries, raspberry and peppered spice, with just a hint of coconut on the finish. Sounds delicious and I had high hopes for this one, but it was the most expensive in the group and not worth the money.

3. Sobon Estate Rezerve Amador County Primitivo 2006
Big, rich and full bodied; with toasty, jammy aromas and forward fruity flavors. Genetically related to Zinfandel, but strikingly different in balance and intensity. My notes say: not liking it!

4. Sobon Estate Zinfandel Rocky Top Amador County 2006
Bouquet of crushed raspberries leads to tiers of wild berry, raspberry, plum and smoky vanilla flavors that are rich, ripe and jammy. Supple texture with notes of spice on the long finish. This wine had less alcohol than all the others, was less "hot", and probably an OK choice for a hot summer.

5. Napa Wine Co. Zinfandel 2006
No information on this one, and the girls said that label and name seemed fake. Not a crowd pleaser. Do not buy in the future.

6. Pacific Edge Hell n Back Zinfandel 2006
Bold blackberry, cherry, crushed pepper aromas and flavors. Brazen finish is softened by the fruit and is round, satisfying and spicy. For only nine bucks this wine was pretty awesome, went down smooth, and had just the right amount of sweet.

Great success! In some spare moments I took photos, look here.

New love of my life

Forget everything I've ever said about the Menage. It's over. I have a new lover. Meet Layer Cake Zinfandel. Layer Cake keeps me from studying and lulls me to sleep way too early in the evening, but no hard feelings, I go to the gym and feel better. Our love affair continues tomorrow.

The Finer Things Club Visits the Jersey Shore and Atlantic City

This weekend, Dana, Christine, Jackie, and I visited the Jerz. Dana's family generously opened up the doors of their shore house at Stone Harbor for our rest and relaxation, while the Borgata opened its doors for our entertainment.

A word on gambling. I had never been to the casinos as an adult. The only other time I had been in a casino, I was 14 years old and not allowed to stop and look at anything or make eye contact with the people dressed up as gladiators at Caesar's Palace. So after our enormous dinner at Bobby Flay's and a disastrous key lime pie dessert, I was let loose. As we are high rollers and the one-cent and two-cent slot machines are beneath us, we made a beeline for the five-cent slot machines. At the "Amazon Queen" I put in five dollars and in a few moments I cashed out with $10.70! The envy of all, next I tried my luck at "Russian Treasure" thinking, hey, this is going to be very lucky for me. In a matter of minutes I was down $25 and thinking that this machine was very realistic and completely Mother Russia-like -- there IS no treasure, and it takes all of your money and spits in your face, figuratively. The loss of my original earnings of a whopping five dollars is still a sore subject, although I still loved the Borgata because its background music included Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, and DEPECHE MODE in its rotation. It's almost as if the casino knew I would be in attendance.

After Christine and Jackie left on Saturday afternoon, Dana and I spent the rest of the time at Stone Harbor. Here are some pictures that I enjoy:


The view from Dana's porch. We sat and read here when it wasn't too cold. I loved the house and adopted it as my own.


Late Saturday afternoon/early evening, there was a huge storm. Towards the end of the storm we drove around the entire island and looked at all of the houses and condos. This one was a Katya pick. I probably liked it only because it looked bright and pretty in the rain. Otherwise, it isn't really in the same style as all of the cute shore houses.


We also drove around for about twenty minutes, breaking all sorts of traffic laws, to get a good shot of the Stone Harbor water tower. Sadly, this is the best I got.


Sunset on Dana's street.


Sunset on the bay.


I snuck a picture of some random people in front of the sunset.

In addition to house hunting, we spent a significant amount of time in the center of town. I made poor Dana go into town with me for shopping at least four times. My favorite shop was called the Frog and Toad and it just sells STUFF, a lot of STUFF. I felt inspired to purchase this kids' sketchbook:



The sales lady asked me if I was an artist or art student, to which I replied no, I just thought the book was really cute, but secretly my soul was smiling. Maybe I will start a new blog section called "I dabble" where I share pages of said sketchbook. You've already seen my dabbling in photography with the point-and-shoot. Wait until you see me dabble with Crayola markers.

My other glorious purchase was a book on Frank Lloyd Wright's favorite furnishings. It makes me really want to go visit Fallingwater sometime this summer or fall. My parents took me there too, but of course I was too young to appreciate it.

On the way back from the shore, to pick up our spirits and also delay coming back home, we made a few pit stops. In addition to two farmer's markets, we stopped at a random winery, Auburn Road. We were only in there for ten minutes, but tried two wines and walked away with some bottles of Pinot Grigio. Great success!

Thanks again to Dana and her family for a fantastic weekend!

Sobon Estate Zinfandel

One of my wine selections from Total Wine (see post below) was the Sobon Estate 2006 Amador County Zinfandel Hillside. This particular Zin was recommended at Total Wine, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon (also I was totally and completely overwhelmed, so when a sign said "Editor's Pick", I just grabbed and moved on, grabbed and moved on).

This wine is supposed to suggest hints of blackberries, cherries, and cocoa. I am not sure that my currently dulled palate can make any of those out. If I concentrate really hard, I may be getting some of the blackberry hint. It is light; much lighter than the Menage (see post below), so maybe white wine drinkers would be able to at least tolerate it. The wine is meant to be paired with roasts, steak, rich sauces, and aged, full flavored cheeses.

I award it bonus points for being made with organically grown grapes and having a screw top. Although, Mike and I collect corks and put them in a dish, so I love it when wine bottles have cool corks. I guess that means that I am undecided about the cork/screw top situation.

Total Wine

Today on our lunch break, Dana introduced me and Caroline to Total Wine in McLean. The store is probably the size of a small/medium Giant, but every single shelf is stocked with wine (there's also a beer section). I walked in and I couldn't stop saying "oh my god, oh my god", and when I stopped saying it out loud after a few minutes, I was still thinking it in my head. Later, as I had time to reflect, I told Dana that going there for me was the same as going to a bookstore and wanting to read every single book on the shelf or looking at supplies at Staples. Meaning, I can barely contain my glee and yearning.

My selections were a bottle of the Menage (see post below), a bottle of Zin, and a bottle of Pinot Noir. I also wanted a bottle of Rioja, but because of a horrible case of indecisiveness and limited time, decided to forgo the Rioja on this round.

Stay tuned for more posts as I try out my selection, or come over and we'll try them together.

Also, I am debating whether or not to let my parents in on the knowledge of this wine haven. They love to entertain and also drink wine with dinner often. These silly people will drive to the Leesburg Costco from Maryland for the wine. It's embarrassing to go with them because they'll cart boxes out of there. On the other hand, I get lectures on my alcohol consumption every other time we speak on the phone. Tough call!

Folie a Deux Menage a Trois

The wine I am currently obsessed with is called Manage a Trois from the Folie a Deux winery in California. I first tasted this wine at Wildfire restaurant in Tyson's Corner at the infamous NRL (No Return Lunch or Not Return Later) last week as part of my flight of red wines called "Jazzy Reds". This table wine combines Zinfandel (80%), Cabernet (10%) and Merlot (10%). It's fruity and smooth. It makes me think a little bit of jam, and that's actually how I've seen it described in some of my research.

I looked up some more information about the winery. Apparently the co-owners are ex-psychiatrists, and Folie a Deux translated from French means "a madness shared by two". The winery focuses on Cabernet, Zin, Syrah, and Sangiovese. They also produce a white variety of Manage a Trois that blends Muscat Cannelli, Chardonnay, and Chenin Blanc.

I bought the 2005 vintage for $13.49 at the Euro Market downstairs, but you can get it at Total Wine in McLean for $7.97 according to their website (not sure which vintage).

Yum!