Food and wine pairing: 2007 Clean Slate Riesling & 2005 Les Bois Menestrel Vacqueyras
2007 Clean Slate Riesling Mosel
10% alcohol, Imported by Click Wine Group
Tastes: honey, peaches, a little tart, but good acid, semi-dry with residual sugar
Thoughts: Just as the name describes it – BOLD YET CLEAN SLATE
Clean Slate was an excellent accompaniment to the fantastic salad that Chef Manuel Labor whooped up in his spare time today. I refer to him as Manuel Labor because he was busy planting new transplants in the garden since we hit a record high of 91 degrees here in Austin, Texas, last week. Needless to say, our lettuce bolted and we had to plant some new plants. That being said – this is what I am leading up to — the salad is just about everyone’s favorite dish at our house because we grow our own lettuce. Today, Manuel (aka “Neil” aka “Bob” – a whole other story in itself) decided to carefully pick the different types of lettuce that we have, e.g. red oak leaf lettuce, red sail lettuce, salad bowl, arugula, and butter type lettuce, and placed them side by side along with a homemade large crouton topped with finely chopped sundried tomatoes, dried apricots, and currants all aligned in a row. Wow – what an incredible presentation and wasted on just two people – oh silly me – it’s never wasted – what am I saying? Shame, shame! How, I am looking forward to the next course, Bob, or is it, Manuel?
Once again, absolutely stunning! My Chef uses only the freshest ingredients this evening for our special dinner. I say special because he has been working on it off and on since this a.m. and it was evident from the outstanding white bean goulash which consisted of cannelli beans cooked in chicken stock, chopped, peeled and seeded roma tomatoes, finely chopped red onion, chard from your garden (of course), shrooms from your farmers’ market and a little bit of bacon (if you are vegetarian, skip the chicken stock with the beans and cook onion in the oil not bacon renderings and then add the already steamed chard to the onion.) This dish is a winner with Clean Slate, whether you make it clean (without the bacon) or not. To top this meal off, we had a side of proscuitto bundled steamed asparagus which was a delicious dish with the white wine all in itself.
2005 Les Bois Menestrel Vacqueyras
70% Grenache, 20% Syrah, 10% Mourvedre
Don’t worry Meateaters, we have a plan to appease your appetite. We do, after all, live in Texas. We have a super Frenchman at our farmers’ market that sells meat which is all natural and delicious. Tonight, we splurged, and had the rack of veal along with mushrooms from our favorite vendor at our local farmers’ market in downtown Austin, Texas. Chef Neil/Bob/Manuel outdid himself sautéing the veal in little olive oil, prior to roasting the meat to perfection – crisp on the outside, yet pink on the inside. Of course, he made an outstanding sauce to accompany the perfectly cooked veal chops using pan juices and sautéed mushrooms. Perched on the side of the plate was pureed baked sweet potatoes flavored with roasted garlic. I know, at this point, you are thinking I am an incredibly spoiled BI…….., but I’m not. Anyway, that is what I profess, because I do cook around here too, just not to the extent of Chef N/B/M.
Oh, I almost forgot – the wine!!! Of course, this savory dish would have paired very nicely with a 2004 Chambertin, but we haven’t received our stimulus package yet, so we opted for a delightful bottle of Les Bois Menestrel Vacqueyeras 2005 Vin Emotion Product of France 14% alcohol (approx. $12 American Dollars these days - 3-01-2009) for Maestro’s Special Dinner. I would say that it was a helluva deal, and it went extremely well with the veal and shrooms - plenty of leather, cigar box, and dusty tannin. I do not want to go on to much about it because I don’t want you running out and getting it all – that’s what I think about it.
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After reading this, I need to come to Texas!!!!!!!!
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