by Jamie Schneller
The name comes from the French fondre ("to melt").The choice of cheese depends on exactly this property, and given that there are thousands of varieties between France, Switzerland and Italy we can guess that the ancients chose Gruyère and Emmental for the classic recipe for a good reason, although there are recipes that use other semi hard cheese like Cheddar, Gouda, or Vacherin to give variety.Melting cheese intensifies the aroma and gives it that irresistible gooey quality. Other classic dishes include the grilled Swiss Raclette made with cheese of the same name and Tartiflette made with Reblochon cheese from the Haute-Savoie region around Annecy in France.In these days of supermarkets and unlimited choice of ingredients we tend to forget that many recipes were invented to make use of ...
by Jerry Greenfield
New Zealand Gets it Right.byJerry GreenfieldEverybody says New Zealand is an absolutely gorgeous country, and I can personally testify that it's true. only thing wrong is you have to sit on your butt for eighteen hours on an airplane to get there. On the bright side, the people down there make fabulous wine, and they’re nice enough to ship it all the way to us here in the States.In fact, it was a glass of Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand that turned me into a wine geek. One sip, and my life was changed, and I do mean that literally. So the wines of this isolated country hold a special place in my heart.The signature grape of New Zealand is Sauvignon Blanc, and the wines they make from it are not only marvelous, but sensational values as well. In a way, you could consider Sauvignon ...
by Andrew John Chalk
Texas has nearly 300 wineries – but only on paper. Only about half that number are actually producing. Some wines come with Hill Country poets on the front label, “For Sale In Texas Only” on the back label, and California jug wine inside the bottle. Some wines with “Go Texan” on the front label come all the way from California as well. Some wineries have tiny back labels that look like they were printed on Aunt Mable’s ink jet printer and declare the origin of the grapes in tiny type. The front label says nothing about origin. This apparent violation of Federal labeling law is defended with the statement that the tiny ink jet label on the back is in fact the front label!Amazingly, there are some Texas wineries that think these kind of tricks and sharp practices are perfectly OK...
by Bok Nan Lo
Does Japanese food goes well with White Burgundy?When my customer invited me to supply some wines to his restaurant, obviously I happily obliged. I almost fell off my chair when he told me he wanted me to recommend white wines for his Japanese restaurant Sushi Mitsuya! I was taken aback with this proposal, as I never had any experience pairing white wines with Japanese food, I do not even know if the food and wine is a match! So I told my customer, hang on to your order, let me bring some white wines over and we do a blind tasting over your Japanese food with white wine pairings. So after some further communications, we decided to have four blind bottles and six judges, four of them are restaurant owners and the chef himself.To me, I’m very traditional with Japanese food, the choice of d...
by Jerry Greenfield
The cruise lines have obviously been monitoring their target demographics more attentively of late, because the Celebrity ships we’ve sailed on in the past few years have wine bars on them. These are dark wood and leather chambers that hold those Enomatic wine dispensing machines where you can insert your key card and receive a 2-oz. pour of Opus One for $20, or other whites and reds for more reasonable prices. A good way to sample widely, albeit a bit pricey.The ships also manage to stage a “Wine 101” class at least once during each cruise, and hold little wine flight events every night or two. Last week, on the Celebrity Constellation, I ran through quite a few of these small pours, and found some interesting new experiences.One fight, which they whimsically called “Run With t...
by Andrew John Chalk
Bodegas Franco Espanolas is a wine maker founded in 1896 in the town of Logroño by Spanish and French vignerons to produce Rioja wine. Today, the winery is totally under Spanish ownership and committed to producing quality wines in the traditional Rioja style. Last week, export director John Perry came through town to show the latest vintages of the company’s wine and I was an invited guest at a trade tasting. Franco Espanolas wines’ intrigued me not least because they appeared to be such good values. Furthermore, most Rioja nowadays is in what is called the ‘modern’ style of forward fruit and French oak. By contrast, Franco Espanolas expressly adheres to the traditional style of using American oak for ageing. Also, a winery characteristic is that they age their wines longer in oa...
by Matt Young
Christmas dinner is something that a lot of people look forward too, its a chance to be with family, friends and loved ones you might not get to see as much as you like or more than you want, don't worry that's what the wine is for. I always love Christmas because it's a chance to see family, you get to have another reason to feast like your royalty, getting and giving gifts, and enjoying the time of year where its cold and you get a reason to dress up and dress warm at the same time. Now its time for the good part, talking about the dinner your having and the wine to pair with it:Big red meats such as beef and lamb you are going to want something that will hold up to flavor as well complimenting the wine your drinking. Cabernet Sauvignon is the obvious choice for most people, but lets go ...
by Anita Bennett
I have a little something on the side, you know. A job. If you can call it that.I do wine tastings. I like to say that I mix business with pleasure.Nine years ago, I went to France and enrolled in the Wine & Spirits Program at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. After a year of studying and traveling to wine regions, I completed the courses and went back to Boston. There, I attended a wine event for the trade and met a woman who owned a promotional company. I've been working in the wonderful world of wine ever since. Did I mention that I love wine?I love opening it and serving it. I love drinking it and talking to people about it.I love discovering new wines and discussing it with my wine colleagues. And most of all, I love sharing great wine and delicious food with my family & friends, sittin...
by Laura Ness
Holiday Wines from Local Vinesby Laura NessIf you live on the Central Coast and want to entertain a crowd with local style, here are a dozen wines for the Twelve Days of Christmas and beyond:SPARKLINGLoma Prieta Winery Blanc de Noir, $29 (reg $35). This spectacular gem in the Santa Cruz Mountains is a sight to behold, and the perfect place to take out of town guests over the holidays. It’s also the perfect place to do some holiday shopping, for this awesome bubbly, as well as their beautiful Pinotage and Pinots. lomaprietawinery.comWHITESAromatic Whites2012 Morgan Double L Riesling, Santa Lucia Highlands, $22. Zippy, zingy, thirst-quenching rendition that will have your tastebuds dancing a jig. At Taste Morgan in the Barnyard shopping center.2011 J McFarland “Tribute” Riesling, $19....
by Chef David Darugh
What is a vini da meditazione? It’s an intriguing term often seen in Italian wine notes. It looks like the word “meditation,” but in Italian it means much more.Coined by famous Italian gastronome, Luigi Veronelli, meditazione is often used to describe sweet passito wines or profound red wines aged for a long time in wood and in the bottle. Based on my understanding a vini da meditazione means:It is, in part, about the quality of the wine: it often includes quiet sweet wines, the ones with no bubbles, produced mostly with raisins. In Tuscany the most famous exponent of the class is undoubtedly the Vin Santo, which is obtained from Trebbiano and Malvasia, left to dry hanging on hooks or lay on mats of reeds. Evaporation of liquid present in the grapes allows a higher concentration of ...
