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7 Simple Wine Marinades

August 1st, 2014 by Joseph Temple

7 Simple Wine Marinades

By Joseph Temple

Whether you’re grilling outdoors or cooking indoors, try some of these wine-full combinations.  Have fun with the varietals to see which you like best.

1. Merlot + garlic + thyme + brow sugar + oil

1. Merlot + garlic + thyme + brow sugar + oil

 

Chardonnay + lemon + garlic + pepper

2. Chardonnay + lemon + garlic + pepper + rosemary

 

Sauvignon Blanc + apple juice + rosemary + honey

3. Sauvignon Blanc + apple juice + sage + honey

 

Muscat + honey + water

4. Muscat + honey + water

 

Pinot Grigio + dijon + lemon + pepper

5. Pinot Grigio + dijon + lemon + pepper

 

Sparkling wine + sesame oil + mirin + lime + sugar + soy sauce

6. Sparkling wine + sesame oil + mirin + lime + sugar + soy sauce

 

Cabernet Franc + red onion + soy sauce + red pepper jelly + paraley

7. Cabernet Franc + red onion + soy sauce + red pepper jelly + parsley

What Marinade do you want to try from this posting?

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Ask Sid: 2013 Bordeaux?

July 30th, 2014 by Joseph Temple

 I thought 2013 Bordeaux was a difficult vintage year but now am hearing conflicting reports
By michael clarke stuff (Cars, Blaye 02 HDR) [CC BY-SA 2.0 or CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Question: I thought 2013 Bordeaux was a difficult vintage year but now am hearing conflicting reports. Would you set me straight Sid?

Answer: I will try. The weather conditions in Bordeaux were rainy and not sunny enough to ripen the red grapes in 2013. The white grapes developed better and there will be some excellent white Bordeaux & Sauternes with lots of botrytis to acquire and enjoy. Remember that there are always merchants out there with a vested interest to be bullish and to try to sell you the latest new inventory or even futures. Also there will be some producers able to make fine wine even  in difficult conditions. In fact lower yields resulted in less total wine with a majority going into the second and third labels rather than the Grand Vin so there may be some better values at lower alcohol. However for the Bordeaux consumer 2013 is caveat emptor – or buyer beware – and unless you need the vintage for a vertical why buy a bad vintage which is risky rather than a consistently ripe vintage like 2009 or 2010 or even the great 2005. There are some fun tongue in cheek articles on this vintage such as one by Ron Washam posted on http://www.timatkin.com/articles?1197. My friend John Salvi MW who contributed a brilliant essay “Making Red Wine to Age – A Technical Discussion” in my Monograph of “An Appreciation of the Age of Wine” has a fantastic analysis of the 2013 conditions at www.indianwineacademy.com/item_1_606.aspx. Hope this helps.

Are you concerned about 2013 Bordeaux?

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Ask Sid Cross about wine and food

Ask Sid: Choosing the right wines for a wedding?

July 24th, 2014 by Joseph Temple

Choosing the right wines for a wedding

Question: I am hosting a wedding that is serving steak and fish. What wine recommendations would you make based on a modest budget of under $40 per bottle?

Answer: Your total number attending is an important missing fact. If a small intimate dinner of 8-12 serve a variety of wines as one bottle of each wine will work nicely. However I am assuming it must be an larger event with many friends. Not sure if you are serving one combined course of “surf & turf” or an alternate main of steak or fish. Regardless keep it simple but try to give everyone a choice of one red or one white. This will make the serving and especially re-pours much easier for the staff. Don’t neglect the idea of sparkling throughout – say a white or a rose. After all it is a festive occasion that suits Champagne but on your limited budget there still are lots of other excellent bubbles available for you to use. Most wedding receptions have fierce mark-ups so $40 though suitable at retail might not get you much quality at your special wedding location. Possibly Cava with the always reliable Segura Viudas  and the new fresh dry Freixenet Cordon Rosado. Latest vintage Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay for the fish from the Casablanca or Leyda regions of Chile are good value around $15. Admire what Cono Sur does with all their wines – including my fav of 20 Barrels Pinot Noir around $25. Another idea would be a Viognier from Languedoc – maybe Three Winds 2012/2013. Malbec from Argentina is much improved and popular in such an easy approachable style for a young red – lots of choice but dependable Norton Barrel Select 2010/2011 is intense and peppery. The key is to try and choose food wines that are fresh and acceptable to the majority of your guests.

Ask Sid Cross about wine and food

Dining for Détente: The role food played during Nixon’s trip to China

July 18th, 2014 by Joseph Temple

Dining for Détente: The role food played in Nixon's trip to China
By Joseph Temple

In preparation for Richard Nixon’s groundbreaking trip to the People’s Republic of China in 1972, an enormous amount of classified material was created for the U.S. diplomatic team traveling with the president.  National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger briefed Nixon extensively during the months leading up to the visit, going over every detail in this high stakes game of diplomatic chess with Premier Chou En-lai.  And while the biggest issues during these talks would be over Taiwan and Indochina, in retrospect, the most important briefings the president and his team received were the ones regarding the food they were about to eat.

“The Chinese take great pride in their food,” declared one memo.  Another recommended that Nixon stroke their egos at the dinner table as “they react with much pleasure to compliments about the truly remarkable variety of tastes, textures and aromas in Chinese cuisine.”  In terms of what to expect, nothing was left off the table.  Although Kissinger and Alexander Haig had been served delicious Peking duck in their preliminary meetings with the Communist Chinese, anything from shark fins to bird’s nests could appear on the president’s plate.

Knowing that the trip would either make or break him, Nixon left nothing to chance.  Always one to brush up on an important subject, the president carefully studied the Chinese and their customs.  “You should not be offended at the noisy downing of soups, or even at burping after a meal,” one document warned.  For months, he, his wife Pat and Dr. Kissinger all took lessons on how to properly use chopsticks, even practicing on the flight over. Of course, all this preparation was not just for his gracious hosts but for the American people watching on their television sets back home.

Nixon visits china secret memo
A document prepared for the Nixon team advising them to compliment their hosts.

Scheduling this visit during an election year was a risky move to say the least.  In the suburbs of middle America, the patriotic anti-Communist “Silent Majority” that Nixon needed to secure his re-election was apprehensive about easing relations with the Chinese – the same Chinese that the United States battled just twenty years earlier on the Korean Peninsula.  And with all of the official discussions being held in strict secrecy, Americans needed a visual aid to act as their own diplomatic barometer.

Of course, Richard Nixon made sure they got one.

Realizing the enormous power of a photo-op, the administration stressed the superficial aspects of the visit.  It was no coincidence that Air Force One landed at the Capital Airport at 11:32 A.M. Beijing time.  Across the United States, it was prime time when the president and Chou shook hands, giving millions of Americans the chance to watch this symbolic act live via satellite.   It also wasn’t a coincidence that of the one hundred journalists accompanying the commander-in-chief to China, those in television were given preference over their colleagues in print.  While personally despising most of the media, the president also knew that a carefully controlled press parroting the administration’s narrative through stunning visuals could sway public opinion over to Nixon.

For the next stunning a visual, an extravagant banquet had been prepared for nearly six hundred guests at the Great Hall of the People.  With giant American and PRC flags towering over the captivated audience, a series of congratulatory toasts were made by Nixon and Chou to usher in a new era of understanding.  It was here where food and drink played perhaps the most important role in convincing the American people that Nixon had pulled off the greatest foreign policy coup in a lifetime.


A video prepared for the U.S. diplomatic team
outlining the differences in the American and Chinese diets.

For beverages, each guest at the banquet was given three glasses: one for orange juice, one for wine and one for a Chinese drink with over 50% alcohol known as Maotai.   Worried that this intoxicating spirit would take its toll on a president who needed to be flawless throughout the entire evening, Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Alexander Haig cabled the White House in January to warn them of this drink.  In the book Nixon in China: The Week that Changed the World, historian Margaret MacMillan writes that Haig stressed “UNDER NO REPEAT NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD THE PRESIDENT ACTUALLY DRINK FORM HIS GLASS IN RESPONSE TO BANQUET TOASTS.”  Nixon, seeking a middle ground did drink form his glass but in very small sips.

Next came the food that each guest would enjoy with his/her own personally inscribed chopsticks.  On the menu were dumplings, fried rice, three colored eggs, shark fins, and duck slices garnished with pineapples, among others.  Eating next to Chou En-lai, Nixon fared much better with chopsticks than CBS anchorman Walter Kronkite who accidentally shot an olive at a neighboring table.  Careful not to lay it on too thick, the president was warned  “not to say a particular dish is ‘good’ or ‘interesting’ when in fact you do not like it, as your hosts, in an effort to please, may serve you extra portions to your embarrassment.”

Covered for four hours straight without commentary by the big three U.S. networks, the entire banquet proved to be the ultimate combination of dining and diplomacy.  Nixon, the once ardent anti-Communist ironically quoted Chairman Mao by asking both countries to “Seize the Day.  Seize the hour.”  And as the two sides clinked their glasses in friendship, the Chinese Red Army band performed a rendition of both “America the Beautiful” and the U.S. National Anthem to an audience of millions watching live on TV.  This in addition to a close-up shot of the president using chopsticks had undoubtedly convinced a majority of Americans that the visit was a rousing success. Despite being just the first night of a seven-day trip, the symbolic image of two former adversaries breaking bread proved to be more powerful than any treaty, agreement, or communiqué signed later on.

Writing in his diary the next day, H.R. Haldeman, the president’s trusted chief-of-staff was more than pleased with how the media presented the entire evening.  “The network coverage … of the banquet period was apparently very impressive and they got all the facts the P (President Nixon) wanted, such as his use of chopsticks, his toasts, Chou’s toast, the P’s glass-clinking,” wrote Haldeman.  According to Nixon biographer Conrad Black, his trip had registered the highest U.S. public recognition of any event in the history of the Gallup poll.  And in the days and months after Nixon’s visit, Chinese restaurants in the U.S. were mobbed by foodies seeking out “authentic” Chinese cuisine like the Peking duck they saw the president eating on TV, writes Andrew Coe, author of Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States.

Call it “chopstick diplomacy,” “Maotai statecraft” or “dining for Détente,” but in the end, Richard Nixon had proved that the power of food could win over the public at large as he tore down the Bamboo Curtain.

Favorite food from this posting?

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Ask Sid: Recommend any BC wines?

July 16th, 2014 by Joseph Temple

Recommend any BC wine

Question: I have tried some of those sweet Ice Wines from Canada but now am hearing encouraging things from wine friends about the much improved unique dry table wines from the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. Any helpful information or recommendations for me?

Answer: Yes there is an explosion of new wineries with the last count being 232 grape wine wineries licensed in British Columbia and rapidly growing. Presently the most grown grape varieties are merlot for red and pinot gris for white. However, syrah, pinot noir, cab franc, gamay, and red blends all show great potential as do old vine riesling (planted 1978), chenin blanc (1968), sparkling, and Rhone grape blends for whites. The best is still yet to come. Follow all developments at www.winebc.com

For recommendations here are the top 12 BC wines recently chosen by the 2014 Lieutenant Governor’s Awards For Excellence judges (myself included) out of 436 wines submitted from 119 wineries:

8TH GENERATION RIESLING 2012

These 27 year old vines in their Estate Okanagan Falls Vineyard show a complex clearly defined riesling variety with just the right balance between the lively acidity and the attractive residual sweetness. Delicious!

BONAMICI MERLOT CABERNET FRANC 2012

Very charred toasty French oak barrels used for this distinctive wine from a good vintage makes a ripe softer big fruit easy to enjoy statement

FORT BERENS RIESLING 2012

Dutch owners Rolf & Heleen have a “hankering” for their unique Lillooet peachy lime terroir which delivers stylish petrol aromas and attractive layers of flavour

HESTER CREEK MERLOT BLOCK 2 RESERVE 2011

Choice grapes from Golden Mile show juicy rich plums open aromas and palate with lovely drinking accessibilty now but no rush to drink up as will age well.

HOWLING BLUFF SAUVIGNON BLANC/SEMILLON 2013

Outstanding white Bordeaux blend by my old friend winemaker Luke Smith specializing in pinot noir yet here displaying so well fresh tomato plants aromas of sauvigonon blanc with lanolin weight of semillon.

KRAZE LEGZ CHARDONNAY SKAHA VINEYARD 2013

Stylish round apple and cinnamon notes are fresh and subtle expressing the pure expression of the chardonnay grape itself without any oak interference.

LAUGHING STOCK PORTFOLIO 2011

David & Cynthia Enns celebrate a 10th vintage from a cooler but successful year for their red Bordeaux blend of the 5 grapes in French oak for 19 months showing deep concentrated smooth structured fruit.

OKANAGAN CRUSH PAD HAYWIRE PINOT NOIR CANYONVIEW 2011

Pure lighter cherry fruit shows elegance from clever seasoning by the passionate winemaking team using 3 year old French oak barrels and custom made egg shaped concrete tanks.

PENTAGE SYRAH RESERVE 2010

Paul & Julie’s special lot of ripe spicy peppery syrah jumps from the glass with these inviting aromas and entices the palate with soft smooth flavours of this successful Okanagan variety.

QUAILS’ GATE CHARDONNAY STEWART FAMILY RESERVE 2012

A leading winery in the Okanagan celebrating 25 years by the Stewart family with some emphasis on pinot noir but they always produce truly outstanding chardonnay too. Full rich oaky expression but still fresh and inviting matching well with so many full flavoured food dishes.

RUBY BLUES VIOGNIER 2013

Prudence & Beat yet again show their skills in producing this fragrant lively subtle apricot notes wine with excellent balance all at an attractive lower alcohol level.

WAYNE GRETZKY OKANAGAN THE GREAT RED 2011

Rather charming juicy easy fruit/oak balance using a unique blend of syrah, malbec, and petit verdot with a mix of French and American wood by talented winemaker Stephanie so well trained by Howard Soon.

Ask Sid Cross about wine and food

Have you tried wine from British Columbia?

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