Three for Three

R

Rahsaan

Rahsaan
Some friends came over last night to share the joy of summer.

With spiced almonds, cashews, and walnuts
2008 Paolo Bea IGT Umbria Santa Chiara
This was an opportunity to introduce my friends to the category of orange wine, and it was a perfect evangelical drink. Deep flavors with plenty of tactile orange grip and lovely herbal spice notes. A no-brainer match with evening-starting nuts. Whats not to love.

With eggplant, olive, Sardinian sheeps milk cheese, tomato sauce pizza
1995 Marie-Claude Lafoy and Vincent Gasse Cte-Rtie Cuve Vieilles Vignes
Opened two hours before serving and by the time we got around to pouring it was full of full dark Northern Rhone syrah fruit. Background notes of florals and coffee beans and bacon grease were dancing around the margins but it was still mainly a big whacking dose of fruit. That said, it was 15-year old fruit that had mellowed its texture and was a perfect joy for us to drink with the pizza. Lovely.

With halibut cheeks and monkfish with mushroom sauce, sauteed red peppers, potato gratin and purple carrot and shiso salad
1988 Albert Morot Beaune-Teurons
The biggish fruit has mellowed and the tannins have softened (my first bottle but Im only assuming there were more aggressive tannins in this wine at some point in the past, which I assume is not a wild leap) and this is very pleasing to drink. Not a lot of flavor detail and perhaps a smidgen more brett than I would like. But my friends are happy and it caresses the tongue well, so the table is a pleasant place to sit with this in my glass.
 
Thanks for the note on the Santa Chiara. I have a bottle of it that I've been itching to get at. I loved the '07 version quite a bit.

Oh, and halibut cheeks, yummmmmm.......
 
originally posted by lars makie:
Thanks for the note on the Santa Chiara. I have a bottle of it that I've been itching to get at. I loved the '07 version quite a bit.
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This was my first bottle of Santa Chiara (from any vintage) but it definitely inspired an itch for more. Soon.

Oh, and halibut cheeks, yummmmmm.......
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Yeah, I was pretty excited when I saw them at the fish shop. And so fairly priced ($10 per pound at Citarella in Nyc - not a place known for value). And pristinely delicious.
 
I last tasted the 1988 Albert Morot Beaune-Teurons around the time that it was released, so any notes that I might have taken are probably on the long-lost Mac Powerbook 140b that had all my late 1980s tasting notes on it. I seem to recall the wine as being tannic and gawky as was the case with most Burgundies from 1988, even those from the Cte de Beaune. I also seem to recall that I bought a few of the Albert Morot wines in 1988. It was the first vintage that I bought in any sort of quantity (woo hoo, a mixed case!) so I have fond memories of being told to just put these wines in a locker and forget about them for 20 years. Dang if they weren't correct.

-Eden (showing no lack of patience and only a little remorse)
 
originally posted by Eden Mylunsch: I seem to recall the wine as being tannic and gawky as was the case with most Burgundies from 1988, even those from the Cte de Beaune.
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Yes, that's what I hear. There seem to be a lot of these 88 Morots going around and I guess some bottle variation is to be expected. But mine was neither tannic nor gawky. Although I think I remember reading about more tannin in some of the other bottles people recently opened.
 
Eden, if you have the '88 marconnets, try a bottle - really lovely now.

Morot's 88s were quite good and several of them were recently released by the domaine so the opportunity to get "new" bottles presented itself. That said, the 88 marconnets I drank last winter was from my original purchase upon initial release.
 
originally posted by Tom Glasgow:
PizzaWhen's the last time you had a wine that wasn't a good match with pizza?
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Last summer at Motorino when I foolishly ordered some industrial Cerasuolo di Vittoria, hoping it would be COS or Occhipinti-like. Blech. Fortunately they have good beer on tap. And more fortunately, their list has improved somewhat since then.
 
Yes, for the most part I've found a wide range of wines to work with my weekly homemade pizza. Obviously I can tweak the ingredients somewhat, so kalamata olives for Cote Rotie but not for German riesling, which might take a non-tomato sauce pizza, and so on.

For the most part I wouldn't say that any wine I drink is categorically impossible to match with some pizza. Although that statement is approaching levels of generality too general to be of use.

And I do remember some bad matches. In particular too much garlic overwhelming certain wines.
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
Yes, for the most part I've found a wide range of wines to work with my weekly homemade pizza. Obviously I can tweak the ingredients somewhat, so kalamata olives for Cote Rotie but not for German riesling, which might take a non-tomato sauce pizza, and so on.

For the most part I wouldn't say that any wine I drink is categorically impossible to match with some pizza. Although that statement is approaching levels of generality too general to be of use.

And I do remember some bad matches. In particular too much garlic overwhelming certain wines.
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It was the Riesling match that made me take pause. But these days Pizza can mean anything on top of a shell.
 
originally posted by Tom Glasgow: It was the Riesling match that made me take pause. But these days Pizza can mean anything on top of a shell.
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For you pizza is only tomatoes, basil and mozzarella?

For German riesling I would do a pizza with roasted carrots as a dominant ingredient, or maybe roasted summer squash with blue cheese. I don't know. Those are two of my core ones.
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by Tom Glasgow: It was the Riesling match that made me take pause. But these days Pizza can mean anything on top of a shell.
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For you pizza is only tomatoes, basil and mozzarella?

For German riesling I would do a pizza with roasted carrots as a dominant ingredient, or maybe roasted summer squash with blue cheese. I don't know. Those are two of my core ones.
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30 years ago, yes. Not now.
 
Some German regions have the equivalent of Alsace's Flammenkueche or tarte flambe, which is a Germanic version of pizza: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarte_flambée. A Riesling (probably Pfalz, Rheinhessen, Baden, or Franken) would be a good choice, but I'd lean even more to a Silvaner. Need not be from a high rent terroir.

Pizza with caramelized onions and blue cheese might work extremely well with an Auslese, no? Again, especially one from the southern regions that have more body. And especially with Pfalz earthiness!
 
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