Adventures in Northwest Wine and Food
For me, food and wine is a
true sensory experience. My husband & I love to cook for our friends and we are always
testing out new recipes on them. With the addition of wine, food can take on a whole
new dimension. I have immersed myself, as much as my day job allows, into wine.
Specifically wine from the Pacific Northwest.As a Washington State native, I grew up with the fresh seafood and produce native to the area. I look forward to local strawberries in the spring & sweet corn in late summer. As well as fresh caught Dungeness Crab out of Puget Sound and the flavorful beef produced by local farmers. The Northwest offers an abundance of wonderful ingredients to work with.
This site is dedicated to the Food & Wine of the Pacific Northwest. Please join me as I explore all it has to offer!
There are two major release weekends in March. On March 5th thru 7th, Betz Winery had their Spring Release weekend where they released their bourdeaux inspired blends. Betz always puts on a nice spread. I was able to visit them, along with some of my other favorite wineries in Woodinville on Saturday and was impressed as always with their offerings. On March 27th & 28th, Quilceda Creek will be opening up their doors for their annual release weekend. Mail list members will be able to pick up their bottles of already sold out 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon they have pre-purchased. We made it onto the mailing list last fall so this is our first invitation to the winery and we are very excited.
I am also looking forward to the Washington merlot twitter tasting on March 25th 5-7pm. This is an event spearheaded by Josh at Drink Nectar that is geared towards spreading the word about Washington Wine, specifically Merlot. Already there are 50 wineries signed up for the event and all are welcome to sign up. All you need to do is drink a bottle of Washington merlot and tweet about on Twitter. See the link above to Josh's site for details, and make sure you follow him on Twitter. His handle is @NectarWine
Taste Washington bills itself as the
"Ultimate Wine Experience". I can say, having attended many
times before, it truly is a feast for the senses. If you only go to one wine event all year, this should
be the one. Over 200 wineries pouring their best together with 75 area restaurants serving up scrumptious
bites. Wineries do not hold back the good stuff either. Some exclusive and sold out wines will be poured
here. So, don't delay get your
tickets now! Twitterers, make sure your follow
@Taste Washington and search the #TasteWA hashtag to get up to date info on the event!
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When we arrived to the smell of frosted animal
cookies and KFC hot wings we knew this was gonna be good. Our tasting started off with
Baron Fuente Galipettes Brut Champagne
paired with the Mother's frosted animal cookies. It cut nicely through the sweet shortening frosting.
On to the Zingers & Twinkies which were paired with
Gorman Winery Big Sissy Chardonnay.
For me, this paired much better with the raspberry Zinger than the Twinkie. Gorman's Chard stood up
to the preservative laden gutbomb (I mean that in a good way!)
Moving down on to the reds, next we sampled Darnaud Crozes Hermitage. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical when I read that this French Syrah was paired up with KFC Buffalo Boneless Hot Wings (I don't even wanna know how they make them boneless). I was seriously blown away. The wings had a pretty good kick to them and it just lit this wine on fire. On it's own this wine had great structure and earthiness, but having it with the hot wings changed it completely.
For the final wine of the evening we were treated to a
1975 Chateau Rieussee Sauternes. This was paired with a McDonald's Hot Apple Pie. Truthfully, this
wine didn't need a darn thing. It was perfect. However, it paired wonderfully with the hot gooey goodness.
This was really a lot of fun. I hope we can make it a yearly thing!
Filed under Events
This year we set up a separate tasting table. During our appetizer courses, we called 4 people to the
tasting table to blind taste a wine. With 16 people we set up 4 rounds of blind tasting. We provided
a few aromatics to aid people in their notes. Aromatics such as star anise, vanilla bean, white pepper,
cigar, charred cherry wood, & chocolate.
After they had some time
to gather their thoughts we asked that they go back to the dinner table and tell the rest of the guests
what they thought of the wine, what they smelled & tasted. Then we would reveal the wine and pour for
the table. This worked out really well and promoted engaging wine talk amongst everyone.
I opened all and decanted some of the wines about 3 hours before serving. We always start off our guests with a glass of sparkling wine upon arrival. This year we chose an Argyle Brut that paired so well with our rich crab & brie tartlets.
Our wine with for dinner:
All the wines were outstanding. The Delille Doyenne was silky smooth and a great start to the dinner. Of note with the Delille, we decanted one bottle and the other we just opened and left in the bottle. The wine from the decanter was noticibly better and smoother than the wine opened and left in the bottle. The smoky notes of the Betz Syrah paired perfectly with our bacon trifecta. Anyone who knows me, knows my love of Fidelitas and the Boushey blend did not disappoint with it's hint of berries wrapped in smoke. The Adams Bench was a big hit with some of our diners. Of course our duo of Boudreaux for the main course was the perfect climax. The Reserve Cab is rich and decadent. Black fruits transition into tobacco and earth. The finish goes on and on and on. You will find yourself savoring this wine even after you have swallowed it. It is a splurge, but if you can get your hands on a bottle of the '05 Reserve Cab, do it and enjoy one of the best wines you will ever taste.
As always, this year's dinner topped the previous year and that is what we aim to do. Now to start planning for next year!
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Preparations started the week before and included
converting the back of our garage into our party room. I work at a lumber mill, so last year
I was able get a custom cut table top that was 14' x 4'. It works perfectly for our dinner party.
We have had problems in the past with actually preparing too much food and stuffing our poor guests to death. For us, there are so many recipes that we want to try and cook for our friends that it's really hard to whiddle down the menu to a reasonable size. This year our focus was making everything we possibly could ourselves even down to the condiments. Our menu consisted of:
It sounds like a lot of food. However, the first 5 items were appetizers. Each person had 1 or 2 pieces. The food turned out amazing and the amount and pace of dinner was perfect. I seemed to have forgotten something about the dinner, what could it be? Oh yeah! The wine of course! Stay tuned for the wine from the wine dinner.
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At 8:00 am the morning of the party we loaded our 84 lb, butterflied, dry rubbed hog into the cooker so she could come up to room temp. At 12:30 hubby lighted the briquettes. Partygoers started arriving at 4:00. We knew it was going to be successful when the guests were commenting on how they could smell bacon as they drove down the driveway. Score! That’s what we want!
The goal was to serve the pig at 5:00. However, at 5:00 and with an internal temp of
160 degrees, the guys flipped the hog so that the skin
could crisp up which would take
another 45 min. No big deal, we had
plenty of snacks including barbequed oysters cooked
on a custom rack built over the coals on the pig cooker. Once the hog was flipped, the
skin was scored to aid in crispiness.
No true barbeque would be complete without BBQ sauce. We supplied our guests with 2 homemade sauces. One was a nice tangy balsamic BBQ and the other was a spicy sweet Caribbean sauce with “sneak up on you heat”.
While waiting for the pig to finish cooking, I popped corks on a variety of WA wines including:
Now the moment had arrived that we were waiting for.
Carefully the top rack and the briquette tray were removed. At this point the cooker
is cooking, literally it is smoking hot. What is revealed is a beautiful thing.
The skin has crisped up perfectly. It smells heavenly.Hogfest 2009 was a resounding success! We hope to make good frequent use of our new cooker. Next we are thinking . . prime rib!
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