RETIREMENT.....WINE.....FRIENDS....

I had some good friends over yesterday afternoon for a bit of food...fun & wine. In celebration of my retiring and just for the fun of it. To liven things up I passed out sleep masks for them to wear so we could have a "blind" wine taste. I had chosen 4 bottles of wine, wrapped each bottle with dark tissue paper and placed them in a bronze color organza gift bag. Then the fun began. Truly my friends must love me as they played right along with me. First I let them fill their plates with chicken salad filled croissants & sun dried tomato wrapped sandwiches, cheeses such as Gruyere, fresh buffalo mozzarella, extra sharp New York Cheddar & Swiss, hummus & crackers, spinach dip & veggies (brought by Nanc...thanks Nan).....eat a bit... then I barked orders at them to place their blindfolds on! In between each different wine we cleansed our palates with these tiny little wine crackers Leslie brought which were like little pellets of crunchy sweetness which truly did the job of absorbing the lingering taste of the previous wine from our palate. Thanks Les!
We started with the whites....it was a Pinot Grigio, Bella Sera from Italy. It was fresh, crisp & refreshing with hints of apple & pear with scent of citrus. They liked it! And the best part was it was only $7.99! Next was a Vouvray from France. I liken this to a White Burgundy I had recently, a close match, but I like the White Burgundy a bit better. But still this one was very satisfying. This one was flowery & citrusy. It's cost was $19.99. The next was a Redwood Creek Pinot Noir of California. Very good, I must say all my choices were very good and to the liking of my guests. Some liked certain ones better, but each wine had its pleasing qualities to each. This wine was medium bodies with cherry notes and was smooth on your palate. I think this one was somewhere between $5.99 and $7.99.  And I finished up with a Pinotage from The Grinder, a wine of South Africa. This one stumped everyone as it has the smell and slight taste of coffee. They could not guess it! I do say I had just as much fun watching them with their blindfolds and listening to them guess as they did in guessing. This was a great way to do a taste!.This wine had hints of mocha & coffee along with berry and dark chocolate. Doesn't sound like it would make a good wine with the coffee and mocha...but it is truly now a favorite of mine. I had tried this at the wine taste last month my friend & I went to and I will buy this one over and over again. It's price is $14.99. 
To end our time celebrating my "retiring" I put on a pot of Starbucks coffee and served up homemade cheesecake (made by me, cheesecakes are my specialty)  This one was crushed up Oreo crust with chocolate chip filling, topped with fresh blackberries. Yum....Yum....Yum! 
Six hours later I made my way up to bed. Tired. Ready to sleep. Thankful for good friends, good times & good wines!
My bottles from the wines are next to my bed so I could do my blogging upon waking up this morning. All I can say is .....thank God I did not pass away in the middle of the night or they would be saying I am an alcoholic with all the bottles by my bed! It is a good thing my friends and son know my habits of blogging about what I drink.....hopefully if this were to ever happen they would clear my name....and if not....after we leave this earth...people will say something about us so what does it matter anyhow! 
Salute!...to retiring...good foods....good friends & good wines & good times!

NOT BAD SINCE OCTOBER 24,2010 JUST STARTING BLOG ON WINE STUDY....

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Last Blast of Cold Weather? Try Relaxing with a cup of mulled wine!

As the weather turns colder, mulled wine as a flavorful way to warm up. Wine, spices, fireplace, your favorite person, book or pet or all....what more could you want?

There are many, many recipes for mulled wine.

It is a combination of citrus (1 lemon or orange) and spices.

Cinnamon (6 sticks)

cloves (12 whole)

nutmeg (1/4 tsp)

ginger (1/8 tsp)

allspice (1/8 tsp)

Combine the spices and citrus in a dry red wine, such as Burgundy

Add 1/4 cup sugar

Heat this through for at least 15 minutes, but don't BOIL

A clean, large coffee pot is a great method for heating the wine.

Use an inexpensive wine for this recipe. But do not get something you do not like or you

may be disappointed. You do not want to doctor up the wine, but make something you already know is good just more pleasing to you and relaxing. A book or friend in front of the fireplace & you will have the most pleasurable glass of wine this winter! A bonus is the mulling spices make your home smell just wonderful! My mom used to sew mulling bags from cotton fabric with these ingredients in and just boil the bags in water a few minutes and the entire home smelled wonderful for a very long time. Try it! cheaper than candles and safer too!

Salute!

Brut Champagne, White Burgundy, Pinot Noir & a California Red Wine......What do they have in common?

It has been over a week since our Wine Study.....I have been slow on the blogging & I apologize. Now to share with you our wonderful afternoon & evening of learning, tasting & dining. By sheer coincidence instead of appetizers to go with our selections, each brought something to contribute to the best balanced meal we could not have planned any better. Sometimes to just "wing" it and not "fuss" over the gathering works better than all the preparation & worry some place into a gathering.

We began our late afternoon meeting with welcoming a newcomer to the group. Pleasingly she fit well into our evening & shares the same thoughts as we do as to the learning of the fruit of the vine. She came prepared well with a "huge" platter of raspberries, blackberries, grapes, sliced baguettes & 2 cheeses. This would be our dessert for the evening. To compliment it she brought a Menage 'a Trois, c blended California Red Wine. She was graciously received into the group, not that a bottle of great wine & platter of great foods had anything to do with our reception. Somehow though a bottle of wine & food always puts a smile on your face when you see it coming through the door. The added bonus was that she was the missing piece to our group. We look forward to the coming months when all of us grow closer not just in knowledge of the vine but also as we become closer friends. After all this is truly what our group is about. Women gathering with a common interest & becoming stronger not only in knowledge but also in our support circle of our dependence on one another in life itself. These sessions concentrate on our learning & broadening our horizons and have no room for the displeasure's we have been through in our lives. Those times of helping one another through the trials & tribulations we go through ....be it men, finances or raising children or pets....are entirely what the other times in our friendships are for, Growing closer to one another, being there to laugh, cry & encourage our sisters as we each experience life. Yes, this is a great support group for us.

We started the evening along side the fire in the living room of Gaynor's with my best pal "Buddy" at my feet. Faithful companion is he. A bottle of Perrier Jouet, was opened. To open a bottle of Champagne you hold the cork & twist the bottle & no rockets go off in your room to cause damage or bodily harm. The steam of the energies within the bottle escaped. It is a Brut Champagne which is one of the finest you can drink. Brut means it is made without added sugar. The sugar content is very low, this is what makes it very, very dry. We learned the 3 main grapes in Champagne are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, & Pinot Meunier. To maintain the light color the grapes are smooshed quite easily and not smashed and left with the skins to ferment. The bubbles in Champagne appear only upon opening of the bottle. How many bubbles does it contain? Approximately 56 million give or take a few. Hard to imagine isn't it? A bubble is a thin film of liquid filled with gas. Champagne's tiny bubbles emerge naturally from the dissolved state of the liquid. Nothing is added to cause this reaction. The smaller the bubbles, the finer the wine. The length of time aging and the temperature of the wine cellar will affect the type of bubbles you see. The longer the smaller, the cooler the smaller. Our findings on this bottle? Crisp, pleasurable on the palate & tiny, tiny continious flowing bubbles. A very grand way to start an evening. Our appetizer with this was slices of apple along side a wedge of brie cheese & water crackers. After a bit of socializing, learning & enjoyment with out Champagne we headed off to the dining area where we started our next course.

Pouilly-Fuisse' 2009 a White Burgundy of France. I had been longing for a while to try a White Burgundy as I never even had known one such wine existed. I like Burgundies, but I do not like whites much. So this was a time of stepping out of my box (of wine, literally...I drink my wines mostly from boxes) for me. The cost of this wine was only $17.99. There were not many in our liquor store to choose from. To most people burgundy means red.. The great red grape Pinot Noir reaches what many would consider its highest expression in France's Burgundy region and close to 3/4 of all vines planted there are Pinot Noir. The grapes used to make this wine are caused by a mutation on the vine. When this happens on the vine an otherwise red vine can, and to the surprise of all, yield white fruit. A well-recorded example of this occurred in 1936, in the Nuits-St-Georges vineyards of Henri Gouges. Henri noted that some of the old Pinot Noir vines in VClos de Porrets were producing white grapes, taking cuttings and establishing them on suitable rootstocks, he planted the white vines in the nearby Les Perrieres and to this day the vines are still yielding a white wine.

Some wine lovers enjoy red Burgundy so much they seem to forget that Burgundy also produces several of the world's finest white wines. This bottle we shared had a light golden color and crisp luscious notes with a smooth buttery taste. I highly recommend you red wine lovers to try this...possibly you will also find it pleasing to your palates. The only difference is in the eye. The color is not red...it is white.Something a true red wine lover shys away from. To pair with this wine I had taken a spinach salad consisting of baby spinach, red onion, harvard beets which made the bed for a bow tie pasta salad which was made with sweet & sour dressing. Simple, yet delightful not only as a course to start our meal but as the perfect compliment for such a gracious wine. Yes if I must say so myself & pat my own back, good choice in wine & complimentary side.

We next went into the main course, Shepard's pie. With this Jackie had brought a Pepperwood Grove Pinot Noir 2008. This is from Chili. It was burgundy in color, with scents of fresh cranberries, roses & cedar. It was a bit tart on the palate from the cherries & pomegranate flavors with an added earthiness which I liken to how it may have been grown. You could taste the French oak it was harvested in. This was a full bodied wine which went well with our main course. This is a definite to add to your wine collection. This is a steal at around $9 and I suggest you go out and purchase a few bottles as you will truly enjoy this if you are a red wine lover!

We ended our meal with Lesli's Menage a Trois 2009. it was a wonderful blend of 46% Zinfandel, 31% Merlot and 23% Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa California. The alcohol content is 13.5%. It is made from young grapes. Each variety is fermented separately then just before bottling it is blended together. The blackberries and raspberries that mesh together go well with the red fruits of the Merlot and the rich flavor of the Cabernet Sauvignon make for a wonderful full bodied taste which went well with our "healthy" dessert she brought. Desserts are very often thought to have to be made of sugar and sweet and pleasing & gooey & yummy. What we had instead was not only good for us but also sweet, yummy, pleasing & filled with wonderful vitamins and good things for us without weighing us down.

In total this study lasted a bit over 4 hours and was a relaxing way to spend a Saturday afternoon into the evening with wonderful friends. Over the course of drinking & eating it was stretched out perfectly to not allow any of us to feel the affects of consuming 4 different wines. The study size is perfect to keep it small as this way there is more learning going on than just socializing and drinking is kept at bay. None of us wish to turn into alcoholics that is not what we are about. Beginning a wine study is a good idea if you have some friends who share your same interest. Pick yourself up a copy of The Wine Bible and start your own group. There is no cost but for your time & cost of your wine & food selection. It is a wonderful way for great friends to stay in touch especially when life throws at us so many other obligations due to our daily living. We should look at it as "a time for us". Not as something we have to do or do because our friends wish us to. But truly as a time for us to forget all our other obligations and needs and gather with a few close friends and place all other things aside and just relax and learn. I guarantee if you go into it with this mentality you will love it and look forward to the next time you meet with your wine chosen to introduce to your group!

Salute!

WINE STUDY 2011

Finally after many months of sabbatical, we began our wine study once again. Between my being ill and snow, holidays and coordinating every one's schedules we are back on track and loving it once again. We met on this past Saturday & had a wonderful selection to taste. Champagne, White Burgundy, Pinot Noir & a blended red wine from California. I will report on these during the coming weekend. All were enjoyed with lovely compliments from appetizers to salad to main course & finally dessert which is pictured in the slide show below. Dessert's do not always have to be yummy, gooey & fattening. This selection was luscious, delicious and very, very satisfying. A perfect way to end the evening! Check back this weekend to see my thoughts!