Amontillado and lamp shadow sweet potato chips

Indulge me, if you will, in detailing a pairing involving a few of my current passions: amontillado and sichuan recipes from Fuchsia Dunlop's Land of Plenty. To that end, several weeks ago, I discovered a rare food and wine marriage that exceeds the sum of its outstanding parts: Hidalgo "Napoleon" Amontillado and lamp shadow sweet potato chips.

The Hidalgo "Napoleon" is an elegant, lighter styled amontillado - salty and fresh but still somewhat glycerine rich with candy orange and toffee filled flavors. Lamp shadow sweet potato chips are thinly sliced sweet potatoes deep fried in oil and mixed with a sesame and chili oil dressing. Together, these two were incredible, offering a synergy which makes me want to break out the mandolin and wok again very soon.

For the record, I'm a fan of pairing fino or manzanilla and a wide variety of foods (including Chinese), but have rarely enjoyed amontillado, palo cortado or oloroso with food (I know, food friendliness is supposed to be a virtue of sherry, but I find the higher alcohol and intensity of flavor of many sherries to overpower nearly everything). Generally, I drink brown sherry on its own - there is more than enough complexity and enjoyment in the sherry itself to put off mucking around with food pairings. I found this tasty, snacky pairing to be a happy exception, however.

Here's how you do the lamp shadow potato chips:

Peel at least a pound of sweet potatoes and slice on a mandolin as thinly as possible. Heat peanut or vegetable oil for frying (an inch high should work) in a wok and fry in batches, making sure to mix so that chips don't stick together. For the sauce, combine 3 tbs chili oil with 1 tbsp sesame oil, 3/4 tsp salt and 2 tsp sugar. Blot chips dry when finished and combine with the sauce. Serve with amontillado.

* Recipe adapted from Fuchshia Dunlop's Land of Plenty. If you like to cook and enjoy real Chinese cuisine, this book is a must have.

Convenience Store/Bar alive and well in Seattle

One of the most exciting stores I had the opportunity to check out recently in Seattle was not a record shop, not a new wine shop specializing in natural wine, not a store coolly displaying vintage and/or ironic used t-shirts. Nope, the coolest store and my happiest moment of retail shopping ocurred at a convenience store tucked away in a residential area of Seattle not too far from Ballard. In addition to the snack chips, commodity wine, oberto dried beef, and other sundry convenience items happened to be a very good selection of craft beers, both local, as well as from California and other places further afield. Even better, there was a tiny bar towards the back of the store where you could be served a quick pint or have the owner fill/re-fill your growler. At one point during the visit, Chuck (the owner) and I were trying to outdo each other's praises for sour beer in general and Cascade's spectacular Northwest style sour in particular.

I strongly encourage anyone who either lives in or travels to Seattle to pay a visit to Chuck's. The guy is clearly very passionate about beer. And if you do not think that a visit to a store that sells Doritos and serves great local beers on tap is worth a detour, then you probably don't deserve to experience the magic that is Chuck's.

Three Frappatos

Frappato is of course the light and bright, generous but not overly fruity red wine made from grapes of the same name in southwestern Sicily. Care needs to be taken when picking these wines as the not so good ones can taste formulaic, at times candied. Recently I caught up with some current releases of a few usually very good examples and one new one I was excited to try. These are terrific summer/fall reds and especially tasty with pizza. Here are some brief notes.

2009 Ochippinti Frappato

Arianna Occhipinti's wines are well known in critical drinking circles in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Portland, etc. Her wines can occasionally be a bit jumpy out the gate, but are very fresh, with lively acidity and wonderful expression. This one was good from the start. Perhaps a bit riper and richer than what I'm used to here, or maybe this is my imagination and the passage of time since the 08 I enjoyed some months ago.

2009 COS Frappato

Not to be confused with the venerable, dreadful, Cos d'Estournel (which is also referred to as 'Cos' for short), COS has been at it for nearly 25 years now, producing this wine as well as nero d'avola and Cerasuolo di Vittoria (a blend of nero d'avola and frappato). They have an amphora bottling of the Cerasuolo di Vittoria as well. While this initially came across a bit lactic and chunky, unfocused, it opened up to become more fresh, precise, and refreshing. Good.

2009 Tami Frappato

Arianna Occhipinti supervises this project, which is a collaboration between her, some friends, and her boyfriend (sorry fellas, and ladies). I enjoyed this wine quite a bit, and at less than $17 it's a good deal. Do not expect to find as much of a highly contrasted balance between acid and fruit as you would on her Occhipinti Frappato. If you keep that in mind, or if you simply are approaching this bottle not having tried Arianna's other stuff, then you'll likely enjoy the wine.

To my readers: it's summertime and it shows with the lack of entries. Thanks for continuing to check in. I'll do my best to increase the posting frequency in the days and weeks ahead.

A real time report of my tasting group's Riesling tasting

[A few days ago, my tasting group met up to taste some German Riesling. Each of the wines were covered with a brown bag. The line-up was, as you will see, quite focused. Thank you to my fellow tasters for putting up with my laptop and keyboard strokes during the proceedings. And a special thank you to Nadia for putting together a very solid line-up]

So here we go, flight one of our group's Riesling tasting. Group is discussing the vagaries of auto correct on smart phones. Wines A, B, C and D are now in the glass. Lots of swirling, sniffing, slurping, spitting. Time to catch up myself.

A - Cool toned, slight medicinal edged aromas, combined with SO2. Initially, not a lot of depth aromatically. Improves with air. Yellow fruits. Lemon-lime Elegant and understated, slightly herbal/bitter edge. Ruwer kabinett?

B - spicy, slightly sweet smelling apples. Red slate, here? Most expressive nose. Very good intensity and presence, and juicy acidity.

C - Talcum powder and appley nose. Creamy, slightly leesy wine here. Mellow acids. Young Kabinett?

D - Whoa. Clearly a more mature wine here. A sweeter pradikat, hitting some petrol notes now on the nose. More lemon-lime soda. An easy drinker for those who like RS, but it's simple.

We are deciding whether or not to rank the wines. Always a subject of debate with this group. Someone jokingly references the oft stated "it [blind tasting] is a parlor game." Arjun wants everyone to know that 'B' is his least favorite. We are unanimously united against 'D.' Lots of 'C' fans. 'A' and 'B' bring the sulphur.

OK, 'new shit is coming to light' as the Dude once said. 'A' and 'B,' and 'C' and 'D' are from the same vineyard.

Next flight:

'E' - Noticeably darker color than other two. A light gold color. Deep, orchard fresh fruit smells. Honeyed, a bit of botrytis? A bold, rich style. Nice length. Rheingau Spatlese (?)

'F' - Sulphur. Medicinal cherry aromas. Peach pit. Purity is increasing on nose, a bit. Same producer as 'A.' Back to the Ruwer.

'G' - Sulphurous, but less. Ripe pink grapefruits aromas - nice. Juicy citrus, especially pink grapefruit, and good acidity. Wehlener Sonnenuhr? Restrained kabinett.

Someone offers, "I think 'F' is the stinkiest of the two, by far." I agree. More minerality in this flight, Mark offers.

'H' - Too bad this is corked. There is good material here. Great balance, power and acidity. And length.

'I' - Deepest color yet, almost 18K gold. Creamy. Smells mature. Rich, mature spat (auslese?)

Back to that German butter. It came from the Pasta Shop's dairy section at Market Hall in Rockridge.

The wines are revealed:

A - 2009 Prum Graacher Himmelreich Kabinett

B - 2008 Prum Graacher Himmelreich Kabinett

C - 2008 Willi Schaefer Graacher Himmelreich Kabinett

D - 2003 Willi Schaefer Graacher Himmelreich Spatlese

E - 2009 Kerpen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett

F - 2009 Prum Wehelener Sonnenuhr Kabinett

G - 2008 Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett

H - 2002 Hauth Kerpen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett

I - 2001 Kerpen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese

Two bottles of white and a surprise showing

A week or so ago I had a bottle each of two wines that had been opened a couple of days earlier. One was a 2009 Domaine de la Louvetrie Fief du Breil Muscadet and the other a 2002 Chateau Coustaut Graves Blanc. The muscadet is Jo Landron's top bottling, and the Graves is a humble wine, just tank aged, I believe, which probably would retail these days for $12-$15. Guess which one showed better? Sauvignon blanc and/or Bordeaux hater or not, sometimes you just have to acknowledge the reality in the bottle and tip your hat to a tasty wine, regardless of its production methods, pedigree, snob/geek appeal and so on.

On a more complimentary note for the typically terrific wines that Jo Landron produces, the 2010 Domaine de la Louvetrie Amphibolite is delicious. You should drink some.

Twitter's influence here

Heading to a German Riesling tasting. Wish me luck.

On a personal note

If you have not heard by now, I am recently engaged to an intelligent, talented and beautiful girl from California. Indeed, I am a lucky man.

Now if anyone out there has ideas for a tasteful outdoor venue for a wedding ceremony and reception in the Bay Area, I'm all ears. In exchange for a good, inexpensive venue, we will bring one of the best party DJ's I know, food, and lots of good wine.

There will be many Jews at the wedding, and as you may or may not know Jews don't drink that much (of course there are exceptions; I am one). So there will be plenty of wine. Think about it....