Chamisal Vineyard Revisited

I was back in Santa Barbara again this past weekend and took the time for a friend and I to head back up to Chamisal Vineyard.

It's still mid-march and many of the vines are still sleeping but I won't say the same thing about the wines that we got to taste. We got a bit of a later start than I had anticipated because we met some friends for breakfast.  We met at Joe's Cafe in Santa Barbara.

Joe's Cafe is a Santa Barbara classic.  Joe's is the oldest restaurant in Santa Barbara and it's a favorite of both locals and visitors alike.  And with good reason.  It's at a great location on State Street -- the main drag in Santa Barbara.

This morning I just went with Joe's Omelet. It's a basic omelet with Italian Sausage, mushrooms, bell peppers, onions and cheese. Your basic delicious omelet.

Only this morning I stepped beyond the basic and added the grits instead of the potatoes. It's been a long time since I've had good grits.  And these were good.  They were even kind enough to add some cheddar cheese to the mix.

After filling up on breakfast and getting a helpful hint on heading up to San Luis Obispo, we were off.  The last time I made this trek I took the 101 all the way up.  Perhaps not the most scenic approach.

My friends suggested we head up 154 through the Santa Barbara wine country. Besides, they said, the wildflowers are ablaze in the mountains.

We we couldn't resist the prompting and took the road less traveled. At least I think it was less traveled though there were a lot of cars on the road. The poppies and lupine were beautiful and the views were tremendous. We made the decision to travel straight up to SLO and then take our time heading back.

It was about 12:30 by the time we made it to Chamisal Vineyards -- about an hour behind my schedule but it was well worth the drive. The tasting room was full when we arrived but we found our way to the counter.  They had a lot of really nice selections on tap for the tasting.

Up until last year I never really thought about Rose wines. Frankly I had relegated them to the same pool as white zinfandel. And while my first wines were in large jugs over at my Aunt's house, I never succumbed to the really fruity wines.

I have now realized the error of my ways.

The first couple of wines we tasted would be perfect for Ravinia.  As a member I'm currently reviewing the lineup for early purchase in the next week.  I have 13 concerts I'd like to plan on. This means I have a lot of crisp, clean wines to select.

And among those is the Chamisal Vineyards Rose of Pinot Noir.  This amazing wine consists primarily of Pinot Noir with a little bit of Grenache added in for rounding out the wine.  This wine was crafted from a couple of Burgundian clones (clones 828 and 667 along with some Calerafor your grape growers!) It's a lot more information than I need.

But I discovered something else on this visit to Chamisal. I discovered my palate. For those of you who read my blog know that I generally taste wines and find those that I like and those that I don't like.  All the aromas, the various tastes (cigar box is my favorite . . . who has ever purposely tasted a cigar box?) are lost on me.

As I was tasting various wines this weekend I was picking up on both the aromas and the flavors.  I was intrigued by the various flavor profiles of wines produced from grapes within yards of each other still tasting significantly different.

One of the special pleasures in tasting this weekend was the Vintner's Quest 8-N from Chamisal.  This is a special wine crafted from grapes not on the estate.  These grapes come from a vineyard 8 kilometers north of the vineyard. If you visit the homepage of Chamisal Vineyards, you'll find a brief video outlining this particular wine.

While quite different from the flavor profiles of the Chamisal Estate Pinot Noirs, it was quite delicious. There was less of the spice profile that's found in the Chamisal wines and the fruit was more pronounced.  All in all it's a wine that's being added to my cellar.

And that's a problem. I've already taken four shelves out of my wine cabinet to make room for my current wines. Alas. I will have to remove a few more.  All that means is look ahead to an upcoming Mondays @ Mark's where I unleash some of my new favorite wines on my unsuspecting friends.

Though I suspect no one will be complaining.

Later this week, look to my next post about some really delicious wineries in the area. I found some things that I liked and some things that I didn't like.

Nothing Says Valentine's Day Like Stinky Cheese

Is there anything more traditional for Valentine's Day than roses and chocolates? That's what I've always thought when it comes to this special day. But what do you do when that special person in your life isn't a big fan of sweets.

The Valentine's Day Romantic Cheese selection!

"What?" you say? I know. But chocolate brings nothing but a big yawn from my special friend.

I needed to come up with something special real quick. Life at work has been out of control and with Valentine's Day on Thursday it wasn't conducive for heading out to dinner. So what did I decide to do? I decided I would make dinner.

But what would be a special treat for Valentine's Day?

Sometimes it's important to mix things up a bit.  That's why I thought of my friends at the Artisanal Cheese Company. This year they had a special they called the "Valentine's Day Romance Collection." This fine collection included an award winning Hudson Valley Camembert (in a heart shape!), Brillat Savarin (a triple cream brie style cheese from France), and Affidelice.

Now you're saying to yourself that neither the Brillat Savarin nor the Camembert is a stinky cheese.  Ah . . . but the Affidelice, that's an Epoisses-like cheese when at room temperature is a soft, pungent, spoonable paste.

A view from the Morrito. You can see the
 Morros in the distance.

While I wish I could say that I made the little toasts for the cheese, I had a bag from Costco that was still delicious.  Sometimes the genius is in a simple solution.

I plated the cheese and toasts and opened a bottle of one of my favorite wines.  For Valentine's Day I selected a bottle of Morrito Pinot Noir from my friends at Chamisal Vineyards. It was a delicious choice. Even though these cheeses suggested that they be paired with a white wine, I thought the Pinot Noir might be a good choice, too.

This delicious wine gets its name from a particular spot on the Estate where the grapes are grown. When I made my visit to the winery in October last year I learned a little about the Nine Sisters of San Luis Obispo county. The Nine Sisters are a chain of volcanic mounds that begin in Morro Bay and head inland.

You can see the volcanic soils of the Morrito.

If you were to extend that chain you would end up in the Chamisal Vineyard on a little hill that is made up of similar soils and is believed to be a little Morro (hence the name Morrito). My choice was the 2010 vintage. I know that this is a little early for the vintage but it's a delicious wine and it paired well not only with the selected cheeses but also my dinner for the evening.

I thought I would try to be a little bit ambitious. It began with a trip to Whole Foods to pick up some veal cutlets. Unfortunately they only had veal chops.  That required me to trim the meat and then to do a little more pounding of the meat to get it into the proper thickness for veal scallopini. I used a recipe from Emeril that I found on the Food Network website.

All in all it wasn't as ambitious as I thought it would be. A pretty simple recipe but I did follow fairly closely and I have to say that I nailed the sauce. Just the right tartness from the lemon to go with the salty of the capers and some asparagus with mushrooms, shallots and garlic.

Sometimes all it takes to make for a special occasion is to step away from the tried and true . . . the expected and try something a little extra ordinary. From now on, I think that stinky cheese will be a tradition for Valentine's Day. You might just want to give it a try.