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Category: Glorious Reds
Fair Day
It’s Fair time again, and we just cannot miss our Wilson County Fair. Can we still be modest and claim to have one of the best fairs in the state? Well, it’s true. I have been to many county and state fairs across the country, and I must say that the Wilson County Fair truly captures the essence of a traditional, old-timey fair. It has a fantastic array of competitions in all the traditional skills and crafts, well-turned-out livestock shows - -
- - and even a re-created, fully-populated settlers village called Fiddlers Grove.
The village features lots of period-dressed folks showing traditional crafts, such as the weavers.
There are also blacksmiths, soap makers, quilters, and lots of whooping and gunpowder smells coming from the mock battles that periodically erupt in the center of the village.
The WilCo Fair also has all the games and rides, music and fair food you could imagine. It is the one time of year many of us indulge in that good old fried, fried, fried and more fried stuff.
You can finish off your lunch of fried with some horse-made ice cream - -
- - and wander back through Fiddlers Grove to see a Civil War encampment, or even a long hunter’s camp. The long hunters of Tennessee were wild gents who made long-term, often solitary expeditions into the frontier during the 18th century. They were expert survivalists, brave explorers and knew a great deal about the flora and fauna of the Tennessee wilderness. The information they brought back to the colonies was essential to the eventual settlement of the state.
There are also plenty of demonstrations of early food production techniques, as with this sorghum molasses maker - -
And as older folks here know, sorghum is an absolutely essential topping on hot biscuits!
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Another more modern Tennessee essential is a good tractor. The Fair had these in spades: I have an unexplainable desire for a nice, big tractor, and I have never seen so many in one place! There must have been hundreds.
There were also plenty of animals on display, including a much more recent Tennessee phenomenon, the alpaca:
But for home-grown fun, who doesn’t want to see the pig races? Come on, is there anything funnier than little pigs running really fast??
After several hours of the Fair, it was time to go home and relax. However, once I noticed the fresh wild mushrooms in my kitchen (courtesy of my local market), I felt compelled to make some sort of wild mushroom tart that would satisfy the craving I had been experiencing ever since I first saw the trays of little forest beauties at the market. I did not work from a recipe, so I have nothing to share except the glorious recollection of the taste of that magical tart.
I gently sauteed the mushrooms in a bit of butter, and I added a pinch of fresh thyme and tarragon from the garden. I added a little cream, and then I figured it needed one more thing: a taste of cheese. Just not too much, or it would ruin the delicate taste of my mushrooms. What to use? Well, in one of those nicer touches of fate, I happened to have one precious sliver of Umbrian truffle cheese in the fridge. I grated the pungent sliver into the simmering, creamy mushrooms, and suddenly - - voila! I had the most incredible, perfumed delight you could imagine. I reverently poured the mixture into a waiting tart pan layered with puff pastry, cut a few more triangles of pastry for the top, placed it in the oven, and out came the most delicious mushroom tart I have ever tasted.
Despite the horrid condition of my kitchen “post-tart,” I quickly called Miss Pat to come over and share my delightful invention. When she heard “food” and “wine,” I don’t even think she remembered to bring her purse when she hopped in the car.
We sat on the patio and enjoyed a lovely French wine that, in another blessing of fate, just happened to be the perfect foil for the delicately-perfumed mushrooms. I love it when a day works out like this.
What will happen later in my stomach when the morning’s fried-fried-fried dukes it out with the mushrooms and wine is a story for another day.
A Time and a Season
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| Categories: Chickens, Food, Gardening, Tennessee, Critters, Glorious Reds, Wine, Nature-Outdoors 
To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
a time of war, and a time of peace. . .
- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Old Testament
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The earth here is greening over, and the warm air is brimming with the sounds of songbirds and tiny frogs. Bright tulips are Monet splashes of color bobbing in the sunlight. Pink and white tree-blossoms shiver to the ground with each gust of wind, and wispy dandelion puffs float along looking for homes. In Jenotopia it is time to plant, and we spent last Saturday making preparations for the 2009 vegetable and herb gardens. The weather was beautiful, and like the few cirrus clouds that passed over, the day drifted by in a lovely kaleidoscope of images of my very favorite things:
Tiny chicks and spring flowers . . .
New Cayuga grape cuttings for planting . . .
Clematis buds waiting to break . . .
Lambs ear creeping along in the shade . . .
RT tilling the vegetable garden . . .
Hobie, sun-drunk while RT tilled the garden . . .
Beautiful Edna, iridescent black against the newly-green grass . . .
Crazy, bald Baby Mija stretching out to gather up every drop of sunlight . . .
Bantam girls pecking away in their new yard . . .
Fresh chives waiting to be added to dinner . . .
And when the work was finished, a lovely bottle of 2005 Domaine Magellan Grenache/Carignan . . .
I was looking for a Grenache blend this weekend (a GSM, specifically), and my local wine merchant suggested this absolute gem. Made in the south of France, this wine is grown without chemical fertilizers or pesticides, and uses no commercial yeast - - only what is naturally-occurring in the cellar. The result was a beautiful expression of the grapes: a vibrant mouthful of amazing red and black fruit tinged with a hint of anise; nice, balanced tannins and good acidity from the Grenache at the back end. I was so pleased to find this wine.
We finished our work (relatively) early on Saturday before relaxing into wine and dinner, and it was the perfect evening to grill out. While RT prefers his New York strip, I enjoyed tender morsels of locally-grown filet from our town butcher. What was not finished in the evening was wrapped and enjoyed Sunday afternoon as thinly-sliced filet sandwiches, cool and delicious as we enjoyed the last bits of warm weather before the impending cold front arrived.
Like so many other things in my life, spring here in Tennessee is always a surprise: from one hour to the next I really never know what I’m going to get, so I really must savor the sweet moments as they appear. When I sit inside later watching the cold rain, I will remember that sweetness with clarity, and if I close my eyes I will almost taste the deep deliciousness of red wine and smell the first wisteria blossoms in the air.
“For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath . . .”
Wine Notes: The Tillerman 2005
This week I tried Hook and Ladder’s 2005 red blend “The Tillerman.”
I don’t know how to feel.
Single vineyard red. Not bad for $17.99 retail. Cabernet, check. Merlot, check. Cab Franc, check. This sounds like a luscious, perfumed Bordeaux blend. Nice.
Sangiovese, check. – huh?
Now I am well aware of the recent upsurge in exciting new blends. I applaud it, I support it, I have probably guzzled hundreds of them by now ~ and I have had several of these domestic blends that add in Sangiovese, so I had a pretty good idea what I was going to get when I tasted it: Cab Franc for heady perfume; Merlot for rich, plummy softness; Cab Sauv for backbone. –And then the familiar dusty wang of Sangiovese tagging along at the back end like a kid with dirty feet.
Again, I don’t know how to feel. This wine played with my mind. Is there anyone else out there who feels just a little off-kilter when they taste these? Oh well. Must just be me.
Of course I drank it; it was a great little weekday wine, coming from the Russian River Valley in the very same season I was last there myself. The wine had a lovely, ripened red fruit, with hints of plum, cedar and vanilla. The quality of the fruit was very good, and more than appropriate for the price (good QPR). As you can imagine, with four varietals there was a lot going on in the fruit arena. I do love the particular fruit profile of the Russian River Valley, and I wrestled for about an hour with a good description of just what it is that is so unique you can identify it on the first sniff, and certainly on the first taste.
I finally gave up and swirled my glass again, turning my thoughts to just what that Sangiovese was doing in there.
Want to know more?
The Tillerman 2005 Red from Hook and Ladder Winery contains 46% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Cabernet Franc, 18% Merlot, and 17% Sangiovese.
Only 3,131 cases were produced.
All varietals were harvested from the Los Amigos vineyard, just south of Healdsburg.
This is a De Loach family wine; I believe Jason De Loach was the winemaker.
California Dreamin’
Oh, early spring in Tennessee is a seductress, a temptress, a bona fide tease: one day she will hammer us with horizontally-flying snow and zero-degree wind chill, and the next day we wake to the capriciously-given gift of a sunny, warm day complete with daffodils and chirping birds. Saturday was just such a day, and when I walked outside to feed the chooks I realized I was probably not going to sit inside working on this website. In fact, it was highly unlikely I was going to wear shoes, either. Or do housework. Especially the housework.
I finished a few outside chores in the glorious morning, and as the temperature rose to 73 degrees by early afternoon RT and I finally looked at one another with a single word: GRILL. I love nothing better than cooking and eating outdoors, and there was no better time to drink in the sun (and some good wine) and watch the coals burn. We ran to the butcher’s and hastily whipped up a simple meal very much like what we would have enjoyed on so many lazy California afternoons: fresh, locally-raised filet for me, Angus steak for RT, sirloin for the dogs (*sigh*) ~
enormous Portobello mushrooms and crisp green peppers ~
fresh bread (not homemade, mind you ~ remember the relaxing? The sun?) ~
And although I prefer local, in-season produce, I was so very homesick for California that I could not resist making a salad of Roma tomatoes with a homemade balsamic vinaigrette.
I believe that very fresh meat really needs no adornment but a crackle of good salt and fresh pepper. I have been using Trapani sea salt from Sicily in my salt grinder (try saying that three times, really fast) ~
I like the taste of sea salt better than iodized salt, and these days people in first-world nations get plenty of iodine in their diets—thus eliminating any real need for that salt additive. It is much easier to get exotic sea salts than it used to be, and one day very soon I will conduct some blind tastings of sea salts . . . but not today.
2003 Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet-Shiraz
Today I was all about finishing what I started on Friday: the Penfolds Bin 389 vintages 2002 and 2003. I cracked the 2003 this afternoon and tasted it alongside the 2002 I carefully preserved from yesterday. I know, I know—it is not going to be a perfect comparison, but all I really needed was a bit of a memory jog from that vintage.
By the time the Penfolds glasses were ready to go, the meat was coming off the grill and I do so love to eat meat when it is still sizzling. I had plenty of sweet distractions at this tasting, what with the sunshine and birds chirping and meat sizzling and music and whatnot—but it was easy to tell the 2003 Penfolds was sweeter and more lush than the 2002, both on the nose and on the palate. The 02 was more brambly and rustic by comparison, and I noted they had jimmied the percentages in the 03. The 2003 fit my personal taste better than the 2002: I liked the 03’s more seamless elegance and the sweeter fruit profile, and it followed through on the mid-palate with more chutzpah. RT, of course, preferred the 02.
Interestingly, when I tried both cuts of meat with each wine I could see why he preferred the 02 Penfolds: compared to my filet, the Angus steak had a much more pungent and mouth-filling flavor. The rustic 2002 complemented it nicely. The more polished 2003 fit perfectly with my filet.
I love it when things work out.
Back in the Zone
Tonight’s tasting: 2002 Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet-Shiraz
I love wine. I adore wine. I keep obsessive, sporadic notes about wine on anything handy—from a Palm Pilot with a cool, foldout keyboard to receipts or wholesale price lists. I have stacks and stacks of wine notes—everywhere. Part of the function of this blog (and website) is to reduce the quantity of papers I have lying around my house, car, purse, and office. I am not really a wine professional (OK, I guess I actually am, but I am in semi-retirement while I bow to the almighty dollar) but I decided to share my wine notes in these pages, not posing as an expert of any kind with weighty information to bestow upon the world, but as a true wine lover who feels moved to share my own subjective wine experience for whatever it’s worth. My notes in these pages are not formalized, they are not written in the way I was trained to write about wine, and they will generally not be structured. Unless I decide to structure them. This web project is supposed to be fun, and for as long as I can I will resist my OCD tendencies and write about wine for the sheer joy of it. There are plenty of other places you can go for wine ratings and vintage tables—so read here if you wish, take away what might be of value to you, and leave the rest. My involvement in the wine industry (limited as it may be at the moment) gives me a bit of access to some wines the casual wine drinker may not be aware of, and whenever possible I will share the retail prices of wines so folks can plan how much they will have left over for groceries at the end of the week. (Doesn’t everyone budget that way?)
And now back to the Wine Zone. As I wrote in my article The Poetry of Wine, the Wine Zone is a lovely place I wander into when I am having a particularly good wine experience. When I am focused, quiet, and/or tasting a very good wine I actually “see” information in dreamlike, poetic images instead of descriptive words. Over the years I have learned to trust the Zone and allow it to “call ‘em like it sees ‘em.” This is a very subconscious, meditative way for me to experience wine, and it’s fun for me to analyze the images later. The most important thing I have learned in the years I have enjoyed wine in formal and informal settings is to trust myself—to trust my own taste, to trust my own instincts, to trust my own analysis of a wine. I truly believe that by doing this I attract folks into my life who have like tastes, and who will further cultivate my understanding of the mysterious grape. The real beauty of it all is that when push comes to shove there is no right or wrong in taste. Just as in interpreting literature, there are unlimited arguments for any viewpoint.
If you are still reading at this point, you will be relieved to know I just tasted a wine that vaulted me into the Zone—thus, the verbose monologue about my wine viewpoint. Tonight I am enjoying a 2002 Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet-Shiraz (55%-45%). Going at around $24.99 retail here, this Aussie blend is part of a vertical collection (more than one vintage year) that I stashed away thanks to RT the Enabler. I am sometimes suspicious when I see more than two vintages floating around in the stores. I wonder why the previous ones have not sold out, and then I wonder whether the winery pushed out the more recent vintage too soon just to get it to stores. I suppose I could answer that question quickly with a phone call to my wine industry associates, but I chose to let it remain a mystery while I tried the 2002 and 2003 (the 2004 and 2005 are out as well). In fact, I didn’t even read Robert Parker’s reviews. I just went in all by myself and enjoyed the 02 without any priming.
Today is Friday, and I cracked the bottle right before dinner—the apex of pleasure for my week. The aromas swirling from the wine were so intense that even RT turned from building a masterpiece on his dinner plate to admire and covet my glass. I ended up swirling, tasting and writing while my own dinner got cold. And because I want to cultivate an openness here, I will share my personal first-impression notes.
I like to take a good sniff and taste when the wine is freshly cracked, and then see how it develops. On the nose of the Penfolds I immediately got a vision of a koala bear sitting in an oak tree munching eucalyptus. I never said the Wine Zone made any logical sense; this is subconscious, remember? The image does make sense, though, as I detected the oakiness and very slight hint of vanilla—and a very unique, straight-forward wood flavor that tells me the oak is American. I did get a bit of fresh-grated cinnamon on the nose as well.
The palate of the Penfolds showed a core of cassis. (If you have never tasted this liqueur you should find a small bottle at a local shop and try it—or even ask for a shot at a local bar or restaurant. This black currant liqueur is concentrated and shows all the power of dark berries in its flavor, and once you taste and smell it you will be able to identify a similar aroma/flavor when you encounter it in wine.) The palate unrolled in layers, and it was indeed beautiful, but it seemed to lose power when it reached the mid-palate, and the steam ran out at the finish. (Thus, my “where’s the beef” comment.) The wine did build a meatiness after an hour or so, but for me the action was at the front of the palate. A good wine, yes. A great one, not so much—but still lovely. I have been in a wine wasteland for over a month, and this wine was just the ticket to get my palate excited again.
