Gourmet Lunch Highlights Unique White Wines

A rare grape, wine from Uruguay, and a special dessert treat highlight our opulent meal

Wine – It’s What’s For Lunch

Lunchtime on a Friday isn’t usually anything special. We’re usually trying to finish up dangling to-do items from the workweek and looking forward to the weekend. That changed recently when we received a lunch invitation from Arthur and Mary Barham. Arthur is the man behind Merlot2Muscadine.

Keep up with the latest. Follow us on Instagram!

Arthur also has considerable flair as a gourmet cook. Last week he decided to treat the Green Dragon and me to a truly memorable meal prepared by him at his house. Of course, the dishes were carefully paired with some unique and delicious wines.

A Rare Rhone Grape Appears

The memorable afternoon opened with Lemonade Mimosas. As Arthur explained, he likes to “experiment” on us. This drink was Champagne with a dash of lemonade. Interesting – but it couldn’t hold a candle to what was about to come.

The first course required a trip to the outside deck, where Arthur put crispy grill marks on Romaine lettuce. This was a prelude to the scrumptious Charred Romaine Caesar Salad with creamy Caesar dressing, shaved parmesan, and croutons. The salad alone would have been delightful, but the wine pairing of a 2020 Acquiesce Bourboulenc propelled it to the next level. Acquiesce is a Lodi winery that focuses on Rhone-style white wines. I was introduced to Acquiesce wines some years ago at the Wine Bloggers Conference held in Lodi. I was thunderstruck by the quality and variety of the Acquiesce wines.

Never Miss A Beat – Follow Vino-Sphere On Facebook

The aroma of the Bourboulenc smelled of lemon zest. In the glass, it is a light golden color and has a medium body. This hard-to-find French grape has green apple on the palate and rollicks with bold citrus. The wine is nicely textured and wrapped with nice acidity. It was just perfect for the dish.

The Meal Is Stacked

The main course was Seasoned Tuna stacked with red onions, tomatoes, celery, radish, and ranch dressing. This was Arthur’s first foray into using a mold to prepare a dish. It all hung together nicely, and, in fact, was a foodie-photographer’s delight.

Not just any wine could be paired with this tower of culinary art. The wine was a 2020 Bodega Garzón Single Vineyard Albariño. I’ve had Albariño from many different regions including Rias Baixas in Spain, but this was my first from Uruguay. The tuna stack continued the theme of light, tasty summer fare, while the Garzón amped up the white wine goodness.

With a few exceptions, Albariño has a nice groove with lime, peach notes, and occasional salinity and much of it tastes the same. Garzón is quite different, packing much more of a punch (14% ABV) than a typical Spanish or California Albariño. It has some nice floral touches, tropical fruit notes, and good minerality.

Liquid Gold

We had a sweet finish to the meal, a Sorbet Trio with Lemon Girl Scout Cookie paired with Linville Falls Late Harvest Riesling. Linville Falls is a North Carolina winery tucked in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The elevation of 3,200 feet allows it to grow grapes that would fail at lower and hotter elevations. They call their Late-Harvest Riesling “liquid gold.” Late harvest wines get more “hang time” on the vine and start to dehydrate, concentrating the sugar in each grape.

The sweetness was balanced out by a trio of sherbet (I still continue my campaign of telling people it is “sherbet” not “sherbert!”). Joining the sherbet was a Girl Scout Lemon Cookie. Who knew what a great combination this would be? 

Thanks to Arthur and Mary for a magnificent meal.

France’s Golden Bordeaux Wines A Rare And Sweet Delight

South of Bordeaux lies a region known for sweet and dessert white wines, famed for fascinating aromas and complexity.

Shining A Light On Golden Bordeaux

While the Bordeaux region is primarily known for dry reds and whites, its sweet wines also have garnered worldwide fame. Sauternes is most well-known of several AOC (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée) that produce exemplary sweet wines.

Never Miss A Beat – Follow Vino-Sphere On Facebook

Golden Bordeaux are off-dry and sweet wines produced with Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle. The wines have vibrant acidity and flowing aromas that can include mandarin orange, pear and apricot. We recently had the opportunity to taste through a collection of Golden Bordeaux wines hosted by Snooth and Jean Reilly, Master of Wine. The wines came from Sweet Bordeaux, a collection of eight AOC in south Bordeaux surrounding Sauternes. Its vineyards cover 4,400 acres and account for 2% of total Bordeaux wine production. Each year, approximately 9 million bottles of sweet and dessert wines are produced across more than 350 estates.

Not Just For Dessert

Golden Bordeaux should be served ice-cold. Since you’ll be taking small sips of the wine, it is likely to remain in the glass longer. A nice chill will keep it at the proper temperature.

Keep up with the latest. Follow us on Instagram!

Although the impulse is to serve Golden Bordeaux with a sweet dessert, restrain yourself! In France Golden Bordeaux is often served as an aperitif for arriving guests as a special treat. It can also be served with a savory first course or a main course like fish or turkey. If saved for the end of the meal, serve it alone as the combination of a sweet dessert with a sweet wine could be overpowering.

Our first introduction to Golden Bordeaux was the sensational Chateau Dauphine Rondillon Loupiac 2009 Cuvee d’Or. We enjoyed this with a spicy Cajun crab dip. The wine has a superb golden amber color. The wine is affected by Botrytis Cinerea (noble rot) which adds amazing complexity. The grapes come from a vineyard planted in 1910. It gets a year of aging in oak. Citrus and deep honey flavors crescendo into an elegant finish.

We served the Segur du Cros 2017 Loupiac with a spinach and pear salad. The vines average 60-years-old and are grown on hillsides of the right bank of the Garonne River. Lovely aromas of flowers and honey fit well with our salad.

Our herbed dill salmon with asparagus and parsley lemon potatoes was paired with the Chateau de Marsan Premieres Cotes de Bordeaux 2015. This is an 80% Semillon, 15% Sauvignon Blanc and 5% Muscadelle blend. A slightly golden yellow, the wine has citrus notes and a wee chalkiness.

A Harvest Of Flavors

Notable to me – and to Arthur Barham who joined me for the virtual tasting – was the sweeping range of flavors. We tasted 11 wines and they had notes of everything from leather and earth to flowers, nuts and tropical fruit. Part of that is due, no doubt, to the wonderful limestone and chalky clay soil. Taking the complexity to the next level is the noble rot. Botrytis Cinerea fungus attacks the grapes and feeds on the moisture inside. As the water is removed, the sugar and concentrated flavors remain. Harvesting must be done precisely to take advantage of these rare and special grapes.

All the wines were enjoyable, but one more deserves special recognition. The Chateau Les Arroucates Sainte Croix du Mont 2017 is 92% Semillon and 8% Sauvignon. The noble rot berries are harvested by hand. The soil is clay and limestone with fossilized oyster shells from the Tertiary Era.

The flavors range from melon and pear to dried fruit and orange liqueur. Arroucates is a shining example of Golden Bordeaux at its finest: a complex wine that is a cocktail of flavors in itself.

Golden Bordeaux is reasonably priced. You can expect to pay $20 or less for a 375ml bottle or $40 or less for a full size bottle. Treat yourself to this French delight – or pick up a bottle or two to surprise your dinner guests. For more information, see the Sweet Bordeaux website.

Full Disclosure: These wines were received as a marketing sample.

Technorati Tags: Golden Bordeaux,Bordeaux blends,French wine,sweet wine,dessert wine,wine,wine tasting

Over The Top Dinner Focuses on Culinary Feats, Top Shelf Wine Experience

When we bid on a special dinner in the Exchange Club of Toledo silent auction at their benefit wine tasting, we had no idea the spectacular event that was in store.

Cold On The Outside, Party On The Inside

About 10 months ago we were the top bidders on a wine dinner to be put on by our friends Glorious T and Ann Baronas. We could bring four other guests and for one reason or another, it was almost impossible to get everyone’s schedule to sync.

The icy blasts of winter had their grip on the Toledo area before we could finally get our special evening scheduled. It certainly was worth the wait.

The party was held at the home of Glorious T and the Cabernetor. Ann’s friend Tom Nourse helped with the festivities and our “posse” included friends Maria, Larry and Donna and Maria’s friend Betsy. In addition to a winter weather advisory for Northwest Ohio, we had issued our own “wine advisory” for the evening. As a result, we took Uber to the dinner.

Let The Bubbly Flow

If there is a more festive way to start an event than sparkling wine, we don’t know it. Once we arrived we were greeted with Kir Royale cocktails. Kir Royale is a swanky Champagne and black raspberry cocktail made with Chambord liqueur and garnished with a lemon twist and a blackberry. The Chandon sparkling wine matched perfectly with our appetizer trio of prosciutto-wrapped goat cheese dates, mushroom caramelized onion palmier and amuse bouche ala Oscar. This was a sensational party already – and we had barely hung up our coats.

Our six-course meal continued with roasted carrot ginger soup and a winter salad with maple vinaigrette. Soup and especially salad are notoriously difficult wine pairings. Have no fear – as I knew he would, the Cabernetor had just the right wines. The first came from Ann’s cellar – a magnum of French rosé! It was the 2014 Chateau Hourtin-Ducasse Les Roses de Marie from Bordeaux, crafted from Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. It was a refreshing blast of springtime on a wintery night and paired brilliantly with the soup.

A pair of Balletto wines accompanied the next menu items. The 2014 Balletto Teresa’s Vineyard Unoaked Chardonnay from Russian River Valley rocked the salad and delighted my wife, the Green Dragon, who is no fan of oaky whites. The food and wine decadence continued with butter poached lobster paired with the 2013 Balletto Gewürztraminer. The spicy and floral notes of the Gewürztraminer were a nice foil for the rich flavors of the lobster.

The Main Attraction And Then Some

Many toasts and humorous stories later, it was time for the main course. The dish was beef tenderloin au poivre, which is steak with peppercorn sauce and crust. This was accompanied by goat cheese and garlic potato soufflé, balsamic roasted Brussels sprouts and garlic butter mushrooms. This was a culinary tour de force!

The entrée was paired with two magnificent reds from Lewis Cellars in Napa. Opening up (literally) was the  2004 Alec’s Blend. This is a superb composition of Syrah, Merlot and Cabernet. Both bottles from Lewis Cellars – treasures from Ann’s trip to Napa -- were decanted and were elegant companions to the beef. The group was amazed by Alec’s Blend, but my favorite was yet to come.

Following close behind was the 2002 Cuvee L. This wine is made only in exceptional years. It is 93% Cabernet Sauvignon with 7% Cabernet Franc. It is a towering beast of a wine, tamed by the steak and tannins that are integrating nicely. It is a limited production wine, with only 300 cases made. Randy Lewis was a professional race car driver for more than 20 years and raced in five Indy 500’s. He also excels at making supercharged red wines!

We needed a short break from the dining table, so we went downstairs to tour the wine cellar and work off some of the meal at the ping pong table. Larry drubbed me in the first game, but as I drank more of the Cuvee L, my game improved (at least I thought so!).

The Final Verse

How do you wrap up a spectacular wine and food extravaganza? How about a couple of “stickies,” which is what the Australians call dessert wine. Sea salt caramel lava cake was accompanied by Bellangelo Muscat Vin Doux Naturel from the Finger Lakes and the 2003 Dolce Late Harvest Wine from Napa Valley. A vin doux naturel wine is lightly fortified to stop fermentation before much of the sugar is converted to alcohol, leaving it tastefully sweet. The Dolce is called “liquid gold” and is made by the only winery in the US devoted solely to producing a late harvest wine. In this case it is Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon – rich and scrumptious!

We love lava cake and dessert wines. On their own, they would overpower, but were a nice match for a sweet dessert. Betsy, a sweet wine fan, was applauding every drop!

Thanks to Glorious T, Ann, Cabernetor and Tom for cooking and coordinating such an awesome event. Just recalling has brought defrosting thoughts to this chilly December night!

Photo credit to Betsy Watson Herman for the group photo of the “wild wine bunch.”

Muenzenrider 2004 Sämling Trockenbeerenauslese, Burgenland

Care to dive into some mold-infected wine? We did – and it tastes glorious.

But It Is A Noble Rot…

A great deal of a winemaker’s energy is spent trying to prevent maladies in the vineyard. Insects, birds and other animals, diseases and weather can wreak havoc with the growing vines.

Care must be taken to avoid molds that can ruin a crop. There is one case in which winemakers pray for mold – botrytis cinerea.

The Friendly Fungus

French legend has it that a chateau owner in France’s Sauternes region told his workers not to harvest his grapes until after he returned from a trip. By the time he returned, the grapes were infected with a gray mold. Despite their disgusting appearance, they were made into wine. The wine was so outstanding that the owner declared the vineyard afterward would only be picked after the fungus arrived.

Conditions must be just right for the botrytis, or noble rot, to occur. The botrytis dehydrates the grape, leaving a more concentrated sweet juice behind which is perfect for dessert wines.

In the Burgenland region of Austria, the abundance of humidity is naturally created by Lake Neusiedl and a countless number of smaller shallow lakes around the vineyards. The Muenzenrider family has been involved in winegrowing for generations. There 20 hectare estate includes a variety of grapes including Scheurebe, also known as Sämling 88 in Austria and Germany.

Your Assignment: Mold

As part of a recent assignment for my Certified Specialist of Wine class, I was to find and taste a botrycized wine. The Trockenbeerenauslese, or TBA, was the choice for me after seeing the $90 price tag for Sauternes.

I was able to find a 2004 vintage on clearance at Churchill’s. Luckily the high sugar content of the wine means the potential for aging is very long.

In the glass this TBA is a deep amber color with the wine being somewhat opaque. A wine like this certainly must be savored first with your nose to enjoy the bouquet of swirling sugary smells.

On the palate the wine is medium to full in body. It is very smooth and thick compared to a still wine. The high residual sugar is balanced by the natural acidity of the Sämling grape. The result is a pleasant flavor profile of dried fruit and honey with a nutty aspect. This may be a perfect wine to accompany pecan pie!

If you are seeking a rare, sweet treat an Austrian or German TBA may be just what you need. The cost is much lower than the celebrated French dessert wines and certainly more of a bargain than traditional ice wine. Unlike what may be in your refrigerator, this mold is quite tasty!

Grande Maison 2007 Cuvee des Anges, Monbazillac

If you haven’t heard of Monbazillac, it’s understandable. Located east of Bordeaux, this area is much less renowned than its neighbor to the northeast, Sauternes. Both regions produce outstanding sweet white wines.
We brought out this selection to go with our dessert on the Fourth of July. Our friend Maria made a Red, White and Blue Truffle with raspberries, blueberries and strawberries along with shortcake and delicious cream. Good thing too, because the Grande Maison is so sweet that you need something on par with it so rein in the sugar.
This is a half-bottle of dessert wine and a blend of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc. You may be surprised to know that it gets its flavor from mold. Botrytis, or noble rot, is a fungus that causes the grapes to shrivel, concentrating both the sugar and the flavor.
The flavors are similar to ice wine, honey-sweet with candied lemon. The texture is viscous, but not quite syrupy. The flavors are fresh and in small sips, quite enjoyable.
Rating: 2.5 of 5  Value: 3 of 5 (based on price of $13)

Related articles

• Semillon Wine Grapes, Flavor, Character and History (widisuccesfull.wordpress.com)
• Noble rot > The sweet taste of Botrytis cinerea. (newsreview.com)
• Riesling - Germany's Gift to Chinese Cuisine (thechinesequest.com)
• A Visit To Walla Walla Wine Country: Part I (toledowinesandvines.blogspot.com)