Search Results for: chardonnay

Don’t drink the water

Robin and her friend Susan had been going to Isla Mujeres, a tiny island off the coast of Cancun, Mexico for 15 plus years before I was invited to join them in 2005. Along with the typical advice I was given by the two well traveled ladies of “Don’t drink the water”, I was told…

Goat Cheese Torta appetizer

It seems that while people like wine, they LOVE goat cheese appetizers.  Perhaps because the flavors are just so exciting, and they do pair well with wine. Or perhaps because their friends can’t cook, and they want to impress their friends with a great lead-in appetizer. Regardless of the reason, Robin and I love goat…

TTL 05 – Hahn Estate Wines

You may remember my discussing the Bloggers Take Over Twitter Taste Live event and the fact that we were going to enjoy some Hahn Estates wines and then some “Grocery Store Zinfandels” back in November.  I broke the event up into two sections and will add a wine blog post specifically for the Zins later on this week. The idea behind…

ttl

St Supery Taste Live Event

Please join me Saturday, July 11th at 9pm EST for the next virutal wine tasting brought to you by Bin Ends Wine, and TasteLive! Below is detailed information from the TasteLive event page. You can catch my video stream here, as well as on my ustream page with a chatroom for you to get involved! We’ll be tasting St Supéry Vineyards and Winery wines, talking about them, discussing food pairing options, and just having A Good Time With Wine!

Free Webcam Chat at Ustream

TasteLive! | St Supéry Vineyards and Winery

July 11th, 9pm EST/ 6pm
TasteLive.com and St Supéry Vineyards and Winery

In order to register for this event, please login to tastelive.com. If you’re not a member, please register.

TasteLive will be welcoming Napa Valley’s St Supéry Vineyards and Winery on July 11th. St Supéry has been producing outstanding wines from their 1500+ acres in Napa Valley since the early 1980′s. Bordeaux varietals are the focus, but they also produce outstanding Moscato and Chardonnay. We’ll be tasting through a fantastic flight of new releases including the Moscato, Sauvignon Blanc, Vertù and Cabernet Sauvignon. St Supéry is one of California’s most consistent producers, we’re psyched to have the opportunity to bring these wines into the mix and hope that everyone will grab a few bottles and tweet away!

During the event we’ll pull the top 5 most unique tweets will feature them prominently on stsupery.com for 30 days! Best tweet of the night as chosen by fellow users will win some very cool St Supéry swag!

Tasting Selections:

Moscato 2008

Sauvignon Blanc 2008

Virtu 2006

Cabernet 2004

Elu 2004

Past Events

Join me Friday June 5th at 8pm EST for a fun Twitter Taste Live event. This time, I’m participating in the Clos LaChance wine tasting, brought to you by Clos LaChance, Bin Ends Wine, and TasteLive! You can catch my video stream here, as well as on my ustream page with a chatroom for you to get involved!

Clos LaChance is a family-owned winery located in the northern central coast of California, in the heart of the Silicon Valley. Clos LaChance Winery produces quality and affordable wines from the 150 acres of estate vineyards with over 20 varietals

Clos LaChance Winery produces quality and affordable wines from 150 acres of Estate Vineyards. The vineyard is planted to a diverse collection of varietals that are ideal for the growing conditions. The Estate Vineyard possess excellent soils, little precipitation during the growing season and the warm days and cool nights necessary for ripe flavor development and great natural acidity.

Selections being tasted are from the Hummingbird Series including the following:

2008 Glittering-Thoated Emerald Chardonnay (unoaked): This wine opens up with strong aromas of freshly cut green apple, melon and pear. A bowl full of tropical fruit salad (pineapples, bananas, mangos and papaya) is in there, as well as a hint of floral apple blossom. On the palate, the refreshing flavors of crisp apple and fresh citrus are balanced with an acidic component. The finish is fairly long considering that there was no oak used when making this wine. I really enjoy the lingering tropical fruit flavors of pineapple and banana.

2007 Crimson-Topaz Meritage: Beautiful, rich ruby red. Practically opaque. Aromas of earthy strawberries and dried cherries, smoke and a hint of rosemary. Intense flavors of jammy fresh fruits−strawberries and cherries with a touch of raspberry. The tannins and acid are well balanced. This will be a great wine with food, especially grilled meats. This wine ready to drink now, but will further develop in the bottle through 2012.

2006 Ruby-Throated Cabernet Sauvignon: The nose on this wine opens up with bright Berry fruits. Plums, Tobacco and a subtle floral note. Full and rich on the palate, blueberries, blackberries and dried cherries are the major fruit flavors in this wine. Dried plums and a little Anise spice round off the wonderfully smooth finish. Moderate Tannins make this a wonderful wine to drink with and compliment many foods.

Information on some past live events I’ve done:

Join me Friday, April 17th at 7pm EST for my next Twitter Taste Live event. I’m participating in the Hospice du Rhone event and will be tasting the following wines:

Rutherglen The Alliance (Viognier/Marsanne) 2006
Fireblock Grenache 2004
Four Vines The Peasant (Grenache) 2006
Bonny Doon Le Vol Des Anges (Late Harvest Roussanne) 200

About the Hospice du Rhône: HdR operates as a non-profit business league with the specific purpose of improving the business conditions of the grape growers and wine producers of Rhône varietal wines and grapes throughout the world. We serve as an international vintners association, providing promotional and educational opportunities through our annual event. Proceeds from this event are used to carry out programs that benefit Rhône producers worldwide. HdR is not affiliated with any other charitable organization.

The last event done was April 4, 2008 with Debbie Frangipane & Ashley V. Routson.

Join us Saturday, April 4th for another night of amazing Italian food and wine pairings. This time, chef Debbie Frangipane (@dolcedebbie on twitter) from Savory Adventures will create a 5 course masterpiece meal, and we’ll pair and taste various wines with each. As an added bonus, Ashley V Routon (@TheBeerWench on twitter) from Drink With The Wench will be doing beer tastings to compete against the wine tastings.

Here’s what’s on the menu:

Appetizers-Fried Rice Ball w Shrimp, Bruschetta, Fried Zucchini Straws
Beer Pairing Lagunitas Czech Style Pilsner
Wine Pairing Bisson Prosseco 2007

First Plate – Parmesean Risotto
Wine Pairing Bonci Verdicchio Carpaneto 2007
Beer Pairing Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale

Second Plate – Pistachio encrusted Sea Bass
Wine Pairing Deforville Chardonnay 2007
Beer Pairing Jolly Pumpkin Brewery Calabaza Blanca

Main dish – Grilled rack of lamb encrusted in parmesean cheese, bread crumbs and rosemary.
Wine Pairing Pievano Sagratino Montefalco 2003
Beer Pairing Dogfish Head Raison E’Etre

Dessert – Lemon Cake with strawberries marinated in Limoncello.

Live video streaming starts at 6:30, with the event itself starting at 7pm. Video stream will be here, as well as on the twittertastelive.com home page and on my uStream channel with chat room for viewers to interact during the event.

We’ll have a full house of people, many from twitter, so we expect to be eating, drinking, and tweeting the night away! Please, join us!

You can catch a recap of the first event including unedited video of the event.

Steele Wines for TTL04

If you missed the event, Thursday October 23rd was the 4th official Twitter Taste Live wine tasting event. It was organized by Craig from Bin Ends Wine, who finds a way to bring wine and twitter together each month. Twitter users (Twitterers?) will obtain the wines, and taste them together. We then tweet our tasting…

What’s this Twitter Taste Live stuff?

I’ve been babbling about this Twitter Taste Live stuff all week, if not two.  I want to explain why I’ve been talking about it, plus hopefully get your help so I can win some wine!  I know that a lot of people who follow me don’t like wine, or don’t drink at all. I am…

goat cheese appetizers

Robin and I love to entertain. We don’t do it enough, maybe once every month or two. We’ll have a bigger party, maybe 20-30 people, once or twice a year, then we’ll have 2-4 other people over now-and-then. We always try to plan out a fun and exciting menu, complimented by fun beverages.  You all know I’m a big fan of wine, and now you’ll see I love to cook!

Here’s a short video of my preparing my favorite appetizer.  I’ll add a photo and some quick step by step instructions below.  Frankly, it’s so easy, you’ll wish you found it earlier.

Click to expand – Ingredients

The ingredients list is really short for this fabulous appetizer. Flat bread crackers, goat cheese, red grapes, olive oil.  You can embellish a bit with fresh rosemary, or infuse your olive oil like we did with the rosemary.

I use flatbread crackers that have rosemary and sea salt in them. You can use plain as well, but avoid anything with seeds or “everything” flavor.  I also like the ones I have pictured here because they’re very thin. You could use thicker ones if that’s your preference.

Break the flat bread crackers up into about 2 inch by 2 inch pieces. I do them by hand, and some are bigger and others smaller. I try to make sure the cracker is at leat as big as the diameter of the goat cheese slices. I slice the cheese in thin strips, and as I’ve shown in the video, the best way is to use an egg slicer. They’re about 1/8 an inch thick or so.  Place 1 piece of cheese on each cracker, then top with 1/2 of a red grape. I slice them lengthwise, and usually put two grapes on each cracker.  Drizzle olive oil over the grapes and cheese and you’re almost done.  If you didn’t use the olive oil infused with rosemary, chop up some fresh rosemary leaves, then sprinkle over the oil for a nice finishing touch.

This sweet and savory dish goes well with a whole range of wines. Our favorite is Sauvignon Blanc, though we’ve had it with pinot noir, viognier, and chardonnay.  The evening I made the video I had it with a Zinfandel. I believe it was an “Ok” pairing, but not perfect. However, simply try it with your favorite wine and see how you like it. I don’t know if it would pair well with a Cabernet Sauvignon, but if that’s what you drink, who’s to say it’s wrong!?

Take some time to leave your comments below. I’d love to know what you make when you entertain. And if you make this appetizer, I’d love to know your thoughts on how it went!

Albino Armani Pinot Grigio Vigneto Corvara

ArmaniHappy Wine Blogging Wednesday. Now, you all know by now this is far from an official Wine Blog. For those, I highly recommend one of the more seasoned veterans like Domain 547 or maybe Kathleen Lisson and surely Good Wine Under $20 or any of the great people on my Blogroll. However, I am certainly…