Orange wine west - starter notes

Sounds like you have the makings of a mighty fine horror B movie in your basement, Mr. Lawton. Or at least a grade A illegal charcuterie.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
A friend said to me fairly recently as we contemplated a menu, "Bresaola? Who buys Bresaola??
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If one has access to good quality fresh Moulard breasts and does not make duck proscuitto, then that one is silly. Or a vegetarian. Or both.
 
originally posted by Dan McQ:
Sounds like you have the makings of a mighty fine horror B movie in your basement, Mr. Lawton. Or at least a grade A illegal charcuterie.
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Carla thought so as well, until she noticed how good it smelled and tasted. Now she's mostly focused on getting rid of the car parts instead of the science projects.
 
originally posted by mlawton:
Even simpler still was the duck proscuitto - I might try that one first if you haven't cured meat before. It is very easy, takes a very short time and is just plain delicious when it's done.
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How is it done? And what kind of conditions are needed in the hanging room?
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by mlawton:
Even simpler still was the duck proscuitto - I might try that one first if you haven't cured meat before. It is very easy, takes a very short time and is just plain delicious when it's done.
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How is it done? And what kind of conditions are needed in the hanging room?
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Take duck breast. Do not remove fat. Coat with kosher salt...lots of it. It really needs to sit in the salt, not just have some on it. Just cake it on the duck. I put it in a tupperware to keep it encased in the salt.

Let sit in fridge for around a week. The meat will harden, dry out and turn a much deeper brick red color. Rinse off the salt (I really scrubbed it off), which at this point will be a bit soggy from the liquid that comes out of the meat/fat.

I never had enough liquid with the duck to pour it off at any time during the curing, unlike the guanciale which was sitting in liquid each day when I went to overhaul it.

Then wrap in cheesecloth and hang for about a week. Cool and humid is good. Some people even hang it in the fridge. I put mine in the wine cellar/car parts storage area/basement.

Slice thinly and enjoy. I found the meat was good, but the fat layer definitely was the best part. The breast I found (Savenors, for locals) was about half meat, half fat, by size.

Despite all the salt, I did not find the duck salty at all - unlike some pork proscuitto I've had.
 
originally posted by mlawton:
I never had enough liquid with the duck to pour it off at any time during the curing, unlike the guanciale which was sitting in liquid each day when I went to overhaul it.
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This means to take a look at it every day. If it's swimming, drain and bed in new salt.

Then wrap in cheesecloth and hang for about a week. Cool and humid is good. Some people even hang it in the fridge. I put mine in the wine cellar/car parts storage area/basement.
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Does "hang" really mean "held up by one end so that it sways in the non-existent breeze" or can I just put it in, say, waxed paper and rest it on top of the bottles lying in the bin?
 
For Q#1, yes look at it every day, but mine was never swimming. The salt under the meat got to the consistency of wet beach sand, but never more than that.

For Q#2, I think you want air circulation so waxed paper would be bad. I did actually hang mine. Maybe suspend between two bottles with string?

As far as refreshing the salt during curing - I would do it if you felt it was pretty wet. The guanciale was different because the cure was a blend of stuff, not simply salt - so refreshing it would have been tougher as I'd expect that the liquid would not contain equal amounts of each element so the ratios of ingredients could get askew. But with the duck, it's just (kosher) salt. No worries.
 
originally posted by slaton:
We did have a winemaker present who described our bottle of Ageno as a full-scale brettanomyces factory. I didn't hear his comments on the Cornelissen wine but I can't imagine they were pretty.

Oliver McCrum (local Italian wine importer) joined us as well. He kept fairly quiet in his assessments, but knowing how sensitive he is to brett & its friends, I suspect a number of the wines were not to his liking.
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Alessandro Masnaghetti, an Italian critic who I respect, once reviewed an early orange wine (Gravner, I think) and said something like 'I don't know what to think of this wine, I won't give it a ranking' and I'm of the same mind.I agree about the La Stoppa brett bomb. Otherwise I was quiet because I don't have a frame of reference for these wines, and I don't know what to make of them*. I am glad to have had a chance to taste a range of these wines but they seem to me more 'meditation wines,' as the Italians say, than table wine; I may buy a bottle and drink it with walnuts and cheese after dinner.

Also, I think this wine type mixes two non-standard winemaking methods, very long skin contact for whites and no/low sulfur, both of which give me pause.

*On the other hand I am quite familiar with a classic wine type made similarly, but usually with RS: Vin Santo. Maybe the dryness is confounding me...
 
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