Spending a Night In Paris at Home

The other night we had some friends over for dinner and a movie. Since both of us have really fond memories of Paris we decided t make this a French evening. It included some really amazing French wine, food and watching the movie "Midnight in Paris" on the big screen.

Last summer we found some really delicious wines from Michel Chapoutier who is a winemaker and distributor from the Rhone region of France.  But before we could embark on the dedication of my new addition to the Man Cave: a Tim McGraw autographed guitar.

I got the guitar in a silent auction for one of my clients. I was trying to bid it up a little higher.  I wasn't sure that I won anything but the name "Mark Love" showed on the screen. Not taking any chances, I discovered that I now have a stage name!

In order to dedicate the guitar in the new "Wall of Fame" location I was told that I needed to have some Tim McGraw music playing. Not being a country music fan, I don't have any country music on my iPod or Kindle. Luckily my friend Kellie found something appropriate on YouTube.

For dinner I tried to find something appropriately French but perhaps not too difficult. To do that I looked to one of my favorite TV chefs, Laura Calder.  She's not French but from the French part of Canada.  I've found her shows to be really insightful.  So the two items I selected were a goat cheese dip for crudite (cut up veggies) and mussels.

The mussels are first steamed in Pernod. I never had Pernod before but it's a licorice flavored liquor. This gives the mussels an amazing start. The mussels are then laid out on a tray on the half shell.

This is followed by creating a compound butter made with tarragon and chives. A dot of this compound butter is then put on each mussel.  This was perhaps the hardest part of the whole process.

Apparently my hands give off a lot of heat because the butter was melting before I could get a bit on the mussel.  This was followed by some panko crumbs on each and then under the broiler for a few minutes until they're completely done.

All I can say is they turned out unbelievable. This went beautifully with the goat cheese dip. This was unbelievably simple to make. You start with 12 ounces of goat cheese and cream it. Then you add some milk that was boiled with rosemary. Normally I'm not a huge fan of rosemary because it can overpower the flavors.  In this case it didn't.  Add the zest and juice of one lemon and you have a fabulous dip.

It's got the freshness of the lemon which balances the goat cheese.  This worked really well with cherry tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber, orange peppers, and celery.  I thought tonight as I was having leftovers that it would work well with mushrooms, too.

Guess what? I was right.  It worked really well with fresh baby bella mushrooms.

My friend Kellie brought the French bread and a Brie en Croute with roasted onions.  Outrageously delicious. Our first wine of the evening was a Cotes-du-Rhone from M. Chapoutier. This $11 wine beats many that I've had at twice the price.

It's 60% Grenache and 40% Syrah.  We had some experience with this wine last summer when we were preparing for the picnic challenge at Ravinia.  It really is a wonderful wine at a very reasonable price.

I stopped at Binny's earlier in the day to select the wines.  I find that a little hard to understand when I have a houseful of really good wines from some dynamite wine producers mostly from various regions in California and Oregon.

Our second wine was another wine from Michel Chapoutier.  This bottle was Occultum Lapidem from Domaine de Bila-Haut. This wine was rated a 90 from Robert Parker. It comes from the Cotes-du-Roussillon Villages region of France -- just on the border of the Rhone valley.  This bottling comes from a vineyard that is planted to Grenache, Syrah and Carignan.

This was a richer wine. The addition of the Carignan changes the flavor profile significantly. It was a really rich wine and matched the food really well.

The night was finished with some macaroons from Trader Joe's. Wow. They took me back to Rue Cler in Paris with the flavors. It was about time to start the movie. In many ways "Midnight in Paris" is a typical Woody Allen movie but it was well cast with Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams.

It's a movie that plays out on many different levels. You have the character played by Owen Wilson dreaming of the magic years of the 20's and you have the character played by Marion Cotillard (one of my all time favorite actresses!) who lives int eh 20's but wants to live in the Belle Epoch.

It was during the movie that we ran out of the Bila-Haute and I opened up a bottle of wine from one of my absolute favorite wineries -- Frick Winery. This small winery in the Dry Creek Valley produces some of the best Rhone-style wines this side of the Atlantic.

The Garibaldi comes from the historic Garibaldi vineyard named for Bill Frick's mother-in-law. This is a traditional field blend where the grapes are harvested and fermented together. This particular blend includes Carignane, Grenache, Muscat Blanc, Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Valdeque, Mission, Palomino, and Burger are some of the varieties in this blend.  No one varietal makes up 15% of the blend.

This is a dandy little wine that starts with cherry, berry, vanilla and raspberry aromas. It's a full, round wine that finishes with fruit and vanilla flavors. What a wonderful way to end the evening. Perhaps it's time again to take a walk in the rain in Paris.

Does Wine Have to be So Complicated?

Do a search on wine books on Amazon and you'll find nearly 100,000 results. That's just books. There's videos, software and apps. Really?

Can wine really be that complicated?

Perhaps we're making it more complicated than we need it to be.  Just for fun, I did a search on wine pairings for Chinese chicken with cashews.  I got all kinds of recommendations. Red wine. White wine. Bold wines. Light and fruity wines.

Over the last few years I've done a number wine tastings. Some of those have been really fun experiences and some have been . . . well less than joyful.  In fact, several friends have told me how one of those wine aficionados have almost ruined their enjoyment of wine.

I've talked to others who've been incredibly intimidated by those types of folks and it's made them afraid to step out of their comfort zone. They drink the same wine all the time.  Sometimes it comes out as: "don't serve any good wine, I can't tell the difference."

That is until they taste some really good wine.  It's not the price of the wine that determines whether it's good or not.

At the end of the day, wine is something that should be enjoyed.


I'm grateful to my friends at Seghesio who helped me expand my palate from drinking just their Zinfandels to enjoying their great Grenache, Petit Sirah, Barbera, Anglianico, various field blends and of course their Sangiovese. I've branched out to other Sonoma County wineries like Frick, John Tyler Wines, Arista, Francis Ford Coppola wines.  I've enjoyed wines from Pine Ridge in Napa and Chamisal Vineyards in San Luis Obispo.


When I'm out with folks for dinner I'm often asked to choose the wine. I know I don't have a better palate than any of the people I'm with.  I tend to be a bit adventurous.  I don't always order a wine that I've had before.  I like to try something new.

But that doesn't mean that I don't have a plan. Sometimes I've had a wine that I liked from the same region.  For instance, I've never had a Chardonnay from the Russian River Valley that I didn't like.  Just last night I was out to dinner with clients and was asked to select the wines for dinner.

I had never really had any of the wines before but I do know that the Willamette Valley in Oregon has some really great Pinot Noirs. It was an Italian restaurant so I found a nice reserve Chianti as well.  As it turns out, the choices were pretty good.

This year I want to encourage those who are a little unsure of themselves to step out and try something new. Mostly I want people to enjoy making memories with friends and families over great food and wine.

I'm Thankful for My Friends -- Old and New

Last Thanksgiving was a bit crazy.  Not only was I getting ready to celebrate my 50th birthday (and my twin brother's) we found out on the Monday of Thanksgiving our Thanksgiving Day restaurant reservations had fallen through.

That meant that I ended up hosting two pretty big celebrations in three days.  I won't go into details here (you can read about it in my post The Unexpected Party. This Thanksgiving was a lot more low key.

This Thanksgiving I spent celebrating with family. There were just five of us.  Ok seven if you count the little dog and the 20 lb turkey! Pretty small considering the crowd that was there for last Thanksgiving but it was no less rewarding.

It was nice because it gave me an opportunity to reflect on a year of friends both old and new.  This past August (as you can note from my series on my trip to Sonoma, I had the real privilege to meet and work alongside three BBQ masters, Chris Lilly (from Big Bob Gibson's BBQ), Dr. BBQ (a mainstay on the professional BBQ circuit) and Pete Seghesio.

Not only did I learn a lot about the BBQ, I really had a chance to get to know more folks in the wine business.  Here's what I'm discovering -- I really like these folks.  The Seghesio team are incredible people.  From Pete and Cathy to Dave Meserli, Brandye Alexander, Dana Macaulay, Tony in the tasting room and so many others.

I'm really honored to call them friends not just acquaintances.

This fall I had the unexpected opportunity to not only meet some new friends but visit the great folks at Seghesio's sister vineyard in San Luis Obispo, Chamisal Vineyards.  You can read about the visit in my post A Special Day at Chamisal Vineyards. They're part of the reason for my reflections on my friends.  Our Thanksgiving meal featured the Chamisal's Morrito Pinot Noir.

This incredible wine was the perfect pairing for our turkey dinner.  Because of Michael's gracious tour, I can still see the view to the ocean from this little morro.  The particular terroir of this particular part of the vineyard is distinct.

It's more volcanic type rock than other parts of the vineyard and the hill is steeper.  This produced a wine that begins with a hint of strawberries and then ends with full on cranberry and the Chamisal spice. But more than the perfect pairing, it reminded me again of that special day with my new friends Michael, Alyssa and Andrea (who came in special even though she was recovering from an early fall cold).

So as we enter the holiday season, I just want to say thanks to my old friends and my new friends.  So to all those mentioned and to Bill Frick (Frick Winery), Nicole and Katey Bacigalupi (John Tyler Wines), Brooke at Chamisal and Nancy Santiago and Chistine Kyle from Pine Ridge Winery, a Giant Thank YOU.

You have made this a special year. Not only do you all make fabulous wines but you're some of the best people I know.

Cooking with Wine

Last Christmas I had this wild idea that it would be fun to take a cooking class.  It was a spur of the moment Christmas gift to a friend from a Groupon offer.  Little did I know how difficult it would be for us to take advantage of the certificate.

Not necessarily because of the company but we frankly let the coupon escape our minds for a while.  Then when we remembered my travel schedule made it difficult to take advantage of the certificate.  We finally settled on October 27th, her birthday, as the only day that it would work before the coupon ran out.

Now we know the Chicago area pretty well but I hadn't been to this part of the city before. It's not exactly a location that makes it easy to find or one that screams: "here's the perfect location for a cooking school." It's in an industrial area which I guess makes sense because in the back is a bakery churning out thousands of baguettes every night.

We were going to be completing their Chanel menu which included:

• Starter –Bouchées à la reine

• Entrée – Homemade sausage with boar

• Side – Pomme cuite, Pomme au four

• Dessert – Ile flottante

Cook au Vin provides everything necessary for food and cooking but you need to bring your own wine.  We decided on some French -- yet not so French -- wine.  

Over the past couple of years on our trips back to Sonoma we've found a small little winery, Frick Winery, run by a gentleman who absolutely has a passion for the business. And a passion for French varietals.  He's a member of the Rhone Rangers, a group of wineries that are committed to promoting the wines of the Rhone Valley. 

Bill, who does everything from caring for the vines to making the wine to managing the tasting room, has crafted some really delicious wines.  Including one I had never heard of before: Counoise. After our visit this summer I had purchased a couple of bottles and chose to bring two along for the night. As it turned out, it was a delicious pair to the meal. 

Counoise is pretty rare in the United States but it's one of the primary components of Chateau Neuf de Pape wines. The Frick Estate Counoise begins to set itself apart from other wines from the moment it's poured into a glass.  The brilliant earth red colors and aromas of plums and raspberry along with others start the experience.

Even to my unsophisticated taste, you can pick out strong fruit flavors along with a little spice.  So, while the other "students" arrive we begin with some cheese and pates to go with the wine that we brought.. I'm beginning to wonder if I brought enough.

Even to my unsophisticated taste, you can pick out strong fruit flavors along with a little spice.  So, while the other "students" arrive we begin with some cheese and pates to go with the wine that we brought.. I'm beginning to wonder if I brought enough.

Our classically-trained instructor not only does this but his full-time job is cooking for the Jesuits at Loyola University. And from his stories, they may not earn a lot or own anything but they eat extremely well. But I digress.

The class begins with us working on the dessert first.  Each couple has their own workstation. We're next to the instructor I can see close up what we're supposed to do. It begins by taking a vanilla bean and splitting it down the center and scraping out the seeds for the creme anglais (upon which the meringue sail will float). 

And now is when the dreaded "expert" cook began to rear her ugly head. You know the person -- the one who always has a comment.  In this case, they had taken a couple of cooking classes at Sur la Table and now took it upon herself to ensure the instructor was doing it "the right way." 

While classes are normally limited to six couples, this woman was part of a group of six that pushed the group to fourteen. One group too many to effectively work without bumping elbows.  For the rest of the night we were subjected to listening to her go on and on about this or that. Often missing the instructor's directions because she was talking not listening.

While the others in this group were very pleasant, Miss Know-it-All almost ruined the experience.  I won't provide a blow by blow description of the dinner but suffice it to say I learned more than a few things along the way.  

The best part of this was that the Chef/Instructor did much of the hard work ensuring that the meal was done correctly.  He did say that we did more of the work than other groups.  They primarily came to eat and drink and so they spent most of the time socializing and drinking rather than cooking.  

At the conclusion of the evening, we were all served family style.  Perhaps the most fun -- and something that will be tried at home -- was the sausage making.  

Is this something that I would do again? Probably. But it would mean that all the participants were people in my group. Then again, I might want to spend more of my time drinking and socializing rather than cooking.  At the end of the evening we had made a few new friends, learned some new things and drank some really fabulous wine.  

You can't ask for more than that.

Making the Most of Wine Country, Day 5

It's our last full day in Sonoma before heading back to San Francisco so we wanted to savor this day and extend it to its fullest.  We began by taking advantage of the free breakfast at the Dry Creek Inn. 

While perhaps not the gourmet breakfast we experienced at the Grape Leaf Inn in Healdsburg (what a tremendous place to stay!) it was filling and for those of us with a little Dutch in our heritage it was, well, the best possible thing. 

Free.

Having filled up on the free breakfast, we began the day by heading north into the Alexander Valley to try a couple of new wineries and some old favorites from previous visits.  We began by heading to the Fritz winery. 

The lake below the Fritz Winery

We'd never been to this winery before but it's in a beautiful setting.  The cellars are built into the side of the mountain and the vineyards back up to Lake Sonoma. We arrived just as the tasting room was opening and were the first visitors of the day.  They provide a couple of options for tasting.

Being primarily a red wine drinker, we chose the red wine flight. We chose not to taste the rose but after our tasting at V-M-L I have to say I left regretting that choice.



The entrance to the Fritz Winery

Since it was early, we enjoyed sharing the tasting. Having been the first to arrive for the day, our host was most generous with the pours and providing a few additional tastings as well.  It keeps everyone in a position to enjoy the whole day.

And unlike others, perhaps, the idea of spitting out the wine after tasting is a bit unappealing to me. Like I said . . . with a Dutch heritage we believe in the ol' "waste not want not" philosophy.

For our next visit, we'll plan a little better and make a reservation for a tour of the winery facility.  The visionary founder really embraced the concept of sustainability and built the facility underground.

We really enjoyed their 2010 Russian River Pinot Noir. So after purchasing a couple of bottles (which got the tasting thrown in!) we were on our way.

The view south into Dry Creek Valley from the terrace.

Our next stop was to visit famed winemaker Ed Sbragia's tasting room just below the Lake Sonoma Dam.  With a terrace overlooking both the dam and down into the Dry Creek Valley, the views from the winery are spectacular.  So are the wines.

After an award winning 20 plus year tenure at Beringer Vineyards, Ed and his wife, Jane, purchased the old Lake Sonoma Winery and began their small, family-owned winery on the site.

Our al fresco lunch on the terrace!

While at Beringer, Ed won many accolades for his Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignons.  He's done the same with his own winery as he's crafted, along with his son, Adam, some really fabulous single vineyard cabernets.  I have also really enjoyed his Zinfandel from the La Promessa vineyard to honor a commitment to his father, Gino, to open a family vineyard.

After a tasting of some spectacular red wines we purchased a bottle of his Chardonnay, some cheese, a little salami and some gluten free crackers. Taking that out on the terrace we really enjoyed our al fresco lunch.

It was nice to take a bit of a timeout from the tasting since we had the rest of the day ahead of us. Our next stop was one of my favorite places in Sonoma -- the Frick Winery.  This little winery is owned and operated by Bill Frick.  He's crafting some of the most unusual wines I've every tasted. 

Arriving at the Frick Winery. 

What sets Bill apart from the rest of the winemakers in the region is his focus on French varietals such as Cinsaut, Counoise, Carignane among others and he crafts a number of delicous blends as well as the specific varietals.  One of our favorites is the Cotes-du-Dry Creek a play on the French Cotes du Rhone.

His small tasting room provides an intimate atmosphere.  It's only open on the weekends from 12:30 to 4:30. Why the short hours. Because among other things, he's winemaker, vineyard worker, celler rat, and the host at the tasting room.

This is a winery not to be missed.

When we arrived, we were the only ones in the tasting room which can handle somewhere between six and eight people at a time. His approach to the tasting is quite different. Instead of a pre-determined flight of wines to taste, you can choose a certain number off the menu and make your own wine tasting.

After tasting a number of different wines, we made a couple of purchases. First, because of shipping restrictions we purchased a couple of bottles to bring home with us in addition to the wine we are having shipped.  After a bit of a mix up with my credit card (apparently they were trying to protect me from myself for the second time in the week), I ordered a couple of mixed cases and we purchased a couple of hats and some wine glasses.

Since we only had a little more time, we made our way back to V-M-L winery for a tasting before heading toward the coast. We had visited this winery on our first day.  I was intrigued by the giant-sized Jenga tower outside (an idea worth stealing for my backyard).

We went inside where this time I wasn't going to hold back on the rose wine. While all of their wines were delicious, I really enjoyed something that normally doesn't hit my wine palate. After a nice tasting and the purchase of a couple of bottles, we began the drive down Westside Drive on our way to the ocean. Those of us from the Midwest rarely have this opportunity.  The closest we come are the Great Lakes but they're not really ocean scenic.

But before hitting the ocean we made a quick stop at the Korbel Winery. We did a quick tasting of some of their California Champagne. A quick note about the name. Normally only wine coming from the Champagne region of France can legally be called Champagne but because the historic nature of their wines they can continue to do so.

I must add that Champagne is not among my favorites -- even Champagne from the appropriate region in France. After a few minutes in this beautiful area near the coast we continued our way down to the ocean

I never tire of seeing the ocean -- especially in sun drenched California. We couldn't help be be awed by the views as we drove down Highway 1 along the ocean.

We made several stops including one that allowed us to actually wade into the ocean. The temperature wasn't as mild as I anticipated but it wasn't nearly as cold as a visit a few years ago to Maine.

When you travel from the Midwest and you have an opportunity to dip your toes in an ocean you take advantage of it.  After winding our way down the coast and a couple of stops we made our way back to Healdsburg.  We didn't have any plans for dinner Sunday night and after all that we experienced in just a few short days it was time to catch our breath a little bit.

We stopped at the Healdsburg Safeway and picked up a rotisserie chicken and a few other finger foods and headed back to the Dry Creek Inn.  Over in the Tuscan building there's a beautiful courtyard complete with a gas fireplace.

With a number of different wines from our travels this week, we opened a bottle from the Frick winery and another from Seghesio and relaxed as the sun set and we were ending our time in the Sonoma Wine Country.

Next week I'll let you in on a spot that most folks visiting San Francisco probably don't visit but has great views of the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm already trying to figure out if a week is enough to visit all my favorite wineries on my next visit to Sonoma and still find some new ones.