Known as the worlds favorite white wine. It is America's # 1 white wine varietal. Climbing the ladders of one of the best dry white wines around. The Chardonnay vine is a low maintenance vine which will undergo many climatic changes and still produce well. Chardonnay's have a buttery, oak undertone with fruity flavors to be desired. Aplle, pear, citrus, melon & tropicals all rolled into one. It leaves your palate refreshed and wanting more! Chardonnay serves well with chicken, pork, salads, seafoods and add a cream sauce to your main dish and your in heaven! Jacobs Creek wine is one of my favorites, add a bit of brie and sliced apples & this could be a fantastic meal in itself!
I prefer red....but this white will do wonderfully for me!
You know the Christmas story of old.....It's A Wonderful Life....one of my all time favorites I make sure to watch each year. If you are a wine lover do you wonder if they had us wine lovers in mind? Ok, enough of being silly this morning! I do however remember them drinking egg nog in the movie, but I don't remember seeing any wine bottles or goblets...I will have to watch more closely this Christmas.
If your holiday dinners are like what mine used to be like when married and entertaining, you have shrimp & beef, maybe some sausage and pasta, stuff cabbages, great veggies and the list goes on & on with all the goodies for desert. If I were chosing wines for my holiday entertaining I would chose both a wonderful Chardonay and a great Australian red. (I am partial to Australian wines) I may also have a wonderful port or an ice wine on hand for desert.(these are great poured over a bowl of french vanilla ice cream! yum....yum....yum! But if your family is Italian like mine you would want to have a wonderful Italian pino grigio from northern Italy and maybe a red from Sicily. You may want to start your shopping list now for the trip to the wine store. Figure on at least half a bottle per guest and then you may as well do your New Years Eve shopping while there, so don't forget the bubbly! Grab a bottle or 2 extra to have on hand just in case you unexpectedly get invited out during the holidays. That way you already have your gift for the hostess. Remember it is always grand to show up at the door of someone's home with flowers, candy, wines, candles or some other type of gift for the person who extends a warm welcome for you into their home. My parents raised me to not go visiting without taking a gift of some sort and over time I have had close friends of mine tell me it is because of my doing so it has lead them to do the same when they go out and then those friends turn around and carry on the same when visiting. It is a wonderful feeling to hear this and know it is mostly because of the generous parents I had growing up who started me on this path in life. As the holidays approach I grow a bit sad because both Mom & Dad are gone now. Mom passed on December 6, 3 years ago,and Dad January 5, soon to be 5 years ago,In less than 2 years I lost my heritage....but I have all the memories and traditions left to carry on with. Holidays will never quite be the same but now it is time for me to add into the traditions I already have a few of my own. We tend to miss our loved ones a bit more on these occasions in life, but memories are forever. I do hope you have a few happy memories with your parents.
Sorry.....I get emotional quite often...now back to the holiday wine...
If you are really confused about which wine to choose for your festivities then try out the wine & food paring chart I have in the right hand column of this blog page. It has been a great help to me.
Tomorrow I am going to delve into the Australian wines....being my favorites...I figured I would start there first. So till then...keep warm, (if in the south....keep cool) be safe, and spread some love and joy into someone's life!
God Bless....
Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly!
In the end it bites like a snake, and poisons like a viper.
Your eyes will see strange sights and your mind imagine confusing things. Proverbs 23:31-33
This to me is just saying...."don't get drunk on it".....a bit of wine can be good but a lot?.....watch out!
"The most complete wine book ever. A must for anyone who loves wine, whether they are a pro or an amateur. Thorough, authoritative and entertaining"----Robert Mondavi, founder and chairman emeritus of th Robert Mondavi Family of Wines. THIS WAS A QUOTE ON THE BACK OF THE WINE BIBLE WE USE FOR OUR STUDY PURPOSES
I had spent nearly 3 hours on this blog this morning and at the slip of my hand on the laptop I lost it all....so I will be back at another time to start with a fresh mind to fill you in on our findings. Right now I may say it was a wonderful gathering of close friends and learning. So I will be back.....it is now 6am and I need to sign off for a bit. There needs to be a go back button on this blog editor or if there is one I need to know where it is located!
Well it is an hour later so lets give this another try. I have come up with the idea to type a section then save the blog and go back into it for another section. That way at least if I hit something by mistake I do not loose all my work. Live and learn. This may take me a most of the day to finalize but bear with me.
Let me introduce our entourage for this study:
Chrissy, Gaynor, Jackie, Lisa & myself. At this first study hosted by Chrissy we had a turnout of 5. As I stated before 5 or 6 is a nice number. I feel if it were ever to grow to more than 10 it would be more of a social time and not a learning time. I feel 10 different bottles of wine is a bit much for 1 study. I tend to still lean with the idea that 5-6 is the perfect number. If in time we each bring 1 other close friend with a learning interest of wine into the study we could probably have the same effect. In future plannings I think it would go well if we would now and then have a larger crowd at certain times in which to be a social time for us to share with some friends some of our favorite wines we will find in the next several months. I know it sounds good to want to include everyone we know, but somehow I feel the intimacy I felt with this first one would be taken away. So perhaps my friends will agree to some extent with me that larger times will be for social occasions of our choosing and field trips to wineries and wine bars. My intentions are that we learn and enjoy one another and the wines & foods. I am glad though that I see the interest which is evident on my friends faces and joy in their voices that they wish to share...this to me is a good sign that this has been a good idea!
Chrissy was the hostess for the first study. She was excellently prepared. I had loaned her my books to prep. Chrissy did a presentation on which glass to choose, how to host a wine tasting party, wine & food pairings, keeping an open bottle of wine and which wines can survive & wine serving temperature guidelines. She had prepared a simple pumpkin soup to go with her offering of an Italian Tuscan Wine Rosso Tuscana 2008.
It was bright ruby red in color, with cherry and strawberry notes and was soft & velvety in the mouth. It had thin, soft legs. This was a very good wine and a great accompaniment to the soup.
You can find out more with link provided above.
My wine was next. I had brought a bottle of homemade wine which was given to me as a gift. There was no label on the bottle and the person who gave the wine to me had no idea of i ts makings. I had thought it possibly could be a white zin. It was pale pink in color. Fruity and dry and low in alcohol. It was not a hit at our taste! It was much like drinking watered down juice. BUT, it did have strong legs. There was no sediment in the wine. I had thought possibly this would be a bad tasting wine so I pared it with sweets....dried strawberries,cranberries,cherries, raisins and dark chocolates. Chocolate always makes things better! But to my surprise this wine did not leave a bitter, bad taste...it just left no taste or impression. This wine I think could be used to make a wonderful salad dressing or cooking with. I try to not waste.
Lisa was next. She brought a Napa Chardonnay 2007 from Robert Mondavi Wineries.
Chardonnays are grown and planted all over. They are a long, cold fermentation. Part of the juice is cold fermented in stainless steel tubs. The remainder of some is them placed in French Oak barrels. This wine can be buttery, oaky and fruity. The best cheeses t o go with this may be provolone, Gruyere and mild cheddar. 55 degrees is the correct drinking temperature. This is from the southern tip of the Napa Valley. This wine was dry to semi dry a wonderful taste on your palate. I am a red wine drinker but this Chardonnay I would drink again. Good choice Lisa! Its notes were tropical fruit, floral and spice. Lisa pared this with a wonderfully delicious pork loin roast with butter herb sauce! Yum!!! She also baked her hubby's favorite 2 layer dark chocolate cake with cool whip icing & chocolate shavings! OMG!!!! Lisa.....you can cook for me any day...or if you ever have leftovers!
Gaynor brought a wonderful ice wine. The ice grapes are pictured above. The ice wine she chose was a NY Johnston Estate....Sweet Dreams 2001 & this was a great wine. In ice wine the grapes must be thoroughly frozen on the vine. This Ice Wine was a Vidal Ice Wine with 10% alcohol. You could taste and smell the honey, apricots and peaches. Gaynor pared this wine with water crackers topped with a slice of pear and Gorgonzola. As Chrissy said it nicely...."YUM,YUM....OH GOSH...YUM!!!" Indeed this was! Gaynor you were a hit with your choice!
And finally Jackie. She brought a South Australian Merlot 2007 from Oxford Landings. This wine had nice heavy legs, peppery taste and smell along with the sweetness of cherries. Jackie pared this with herb crusted crackers, sun dried tomatoes and feta cheese. Simply delicious and greatly pared. I am partial to reds so Jackie's and Chrissy's were immediately my favorites. I already knew I loved Ice Wine but have only had it on a few occasions. I now have another brand to add to my favorites. And Lisa's Chardonnay was exquisite to me as I will now occasionally have a glass of this particular Chardonnay, but my heart belongs still to the reds!
We first set out sampling each persons wine choice and discussing it for a while. Then we cleansed our palates with water crackers. We rinsed our crystal glasses out with water after each sampling so as not to have traces of the previous wine. After we had finished sampling we then ate our wonderfully prepared items and indulged in a fantastic luncheon and glass of wine of our choice.
We discussed growing our group eventually and are making plans for the next study. We are planning on attending Greendance Winery.
This will be our field trip for the fall. Gaynor will be the hostess for the December study.
Chrissy has agreed to be the leader in place of any hostess who would like her to do so.
I will be the one who will write the blog.
Gaynor has agreed to be the photographer.
We will add duties as we see fit....women who work together will stay in touch!
SIMPLE PUMPKIN SOUP RECIPE
1/2 C onion
3T butter
2C mashed cooked pumpkin
1t salt
1T sugar
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 ground pepper
3C chicken broth
1/2 C half & half or fat free half & half
Chop the onions and brown with butter in pan. Put mashed pumpkin with onions in pan. Add salt,sugar,nutmeg and pepper. Slowly add chicken broth and heat thoroughly, but do not boil.
To serve pour into a tureen and add cream. Makes 4-6 small servings.
