With no end yet in sight for the falling economy, we’re always looking for more good wine values to help us through the hard times. Neil recently put up a great post on his favorite white and red house wines, which by his definition must cost less than $15 and preferably less than $10. Continuing this tradition, I want to tell you about a nice white and red I bought the other night that both cost under $15.

2007 Loredona Monterey Riesling ($10)

This nice buy was a California Riesling that had 13% alcohol, a semi-dry personality, and a nice touch of acid. This wine wore a complex tropical perfume, but in a nicely subtle way. Hints of lemon meringue, white peach, winter melon, and green apple were on the nose. In the mouth, there was a medium body, and the acid allowed this wine to be a nice aperitif or a dinner companion. I don’t drink many California Rieslings, but the higher alcohol present in this semi-dry wine was a nice change. For the price, I will definitely go to this wine again.

2004 Sella and Mosca Cannonau di Sardegna Riserva ($13)

When dinner was winding down, I switched to this very nice DOC red from Italy. On the nose, this wine had a typical Italian character of dusty earth, red fruit, and slight oak, but it also had a very distinct petroleum character which I adored. In the mouth, there is a fantastic amount of acid and nice fine tannins that perfectly balances the 13.5% alcohol. I find myself craving this wine on a regular basis now, and I have since reveled in its perfect match with a thin-crust sausage and peppers pizza from a favorite local pizza joint, Salvation Pizza. Though it costs a little more than the Riesling, I can’t help but drink this wine all the time as my favorite lower cost Italian red.

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.

We admire innovators – true innovators look for new ways to do things. They push the old toward the new with a special sense of what is needed to push everything forward toward the future. There are innovators in every field, including wine.

We recently tasted some wines that are coming from one of California’s wine innovators, Steve Matthiasson. Steve and his wife, Jill Klein, operate the artisan winery, Matthiasson. In his day job, Steve is a consultant and vineyard manager for several properties in Napa and Sonoma valleys, but when he takes off that hat, he transforms into a pioneering winemaker.

Matthiasson produces around 500 cases per year of three different wines: the Napa Valley White Wine, Napa Valley Red Wine, and Red Hen Vineyard Merlot. Each wine is made from Californian grapes using a mix of Old and New World winemaking techniques. The WineEnabler.com crew tried the current offering of Matthiasson’s wines on this past Monday night. [click to continue…]

I am always on the lookout for house wines. You know the wine you open on Wednesday night or after the first bottle is gone and your friend doesn’t look like they intend to leave anytime soon. House wines are an important part of any wine drinker’s cellar, and they need to meet certain criteria.

First, house wines need to be good, if not great. Even if it is Wednesday or your friend is overstaying his or her welcome, you still have to drink the stuff and it might as well be something that you enjoy. For house wines, I prefer a light-medium to medium bodied white and a medium-full bodied red. Full bodied wines are more difficult to pair with food and are frequently too much for a follow-up bottle.

The acid level in a house wine is also important. The acid needs to be somewhere in the middle, with enough acid for food, but not too much. We often serve our house wines before or after dinner and too much acid is not a good thing in a cocktail wine.

My last rule for a house wine is that it cannot cost more than $15, and I prefer they cost less than $10. The cost restriction is the one that makes looking for house wines the biggest challenge. If I could spend $20 a bottle, this would be no problem, but as you approach the $10 mark, things get difficult.

My suggestions for house wines

NV Fiano di Avellino DOCG ($6) – This wine made from the Apaina grape was traditionally a sweet wine. Modern winemaking techniques produce an elegant, dry wine that features aromas of hazelnut or German chocolate cake. The wine is smooth in the mouth with enough acid and a medium long finish. This offering from Gaetano de Forino is a great buy and a wonderful wine.

2007 Cupcake Chardonnay ($10) – I found this wine at the 1st Annual Wine Bloggers Conference. When we tried it, the entire table concluded that this is a fun party wine. Creamy citrus flavors are suspended in a slightly sweet, medium body wine that delivers. The wine has enough acid to stand-up to food, but so much that you cannot enjoy this wine by itself.

2007 Mâcon-Lugny Les Charmes Chardonnay ($10) – Les Charmes is the most imported white wine from Burgundy and with good reason. The wine is produced from a single vineyard where some of the vines are nearly 100 years old. Made without oak, the nose is floral with slight hints of minerality. In the mouth, the wine is medium bodied with a clean and crisp feel. This is another wine that will serve well as an aperitif or as a part of a wonderful dinner.

2006 Stump Jump White ($10) – d’Arenberg produces this wine from grapes grown in the McLaren valley. The blend made from Marsanne, Sauvignon Blanc, and Riesling is a consistent winner. With a floral nose, good acid, and a medium long finish, you might find this wine to be your go-to wine for mid-week.

2006 Protocolo Tinto Vino de La Tierra de Castilla ($6.25) – This wine made from 100% Tempranillo shows dark fruit and earth with dusty tannins. This is a really good wine for the price.

2006 Bodegas y Viñedos Jalón Viña Alarba Old Vines Grenache Calatayud ($9) – I love Grenache, and finding an old vine Grenache for under $15 is hard to do, and finding one under $10 is almost a miracle. This inexpensive, light bodied Grenache shows red fruit and berries with a medium long finish.

I hope you enjoy these wines as much as I did, and if you have a house wine you want to share with us, chime in.

We had our annual anti-Valentine’s day party two  nights ago, and it was a blast. Everyone brought something, and my wife and I filled in the rest. We had barbeque from Lockhart, gulf shrimp, farmer’s market goodies, and stuff from the garden all whipped up into a feast. Of course there was wine to go along with this good stuff, and we tried them all to see what paired the best.

One highlight of the food and wine parings included boiled shrimp and cocktail sauce with Riouolo Prosecco Vento ($10). This off-dry sparkler was full of sweet apples and acid aplenty to go with the gulf shrimp. I really enjoyed this wine with the shrimp, but it would be a little sweet for me as an aperitif.

We also tried Riouolo’ Spago Rosso, Sheraz ($12.50). Sparkling red wines are somewhat of a curiosity. I have been served sparkling red wine in Germany, and it is made by several producers in Australia, but this is my first Italian. The wine is opaque and the froth a pleasant purple. In the mouth, this is a medium-full bodied, dry sparkler with dark fruit. The Spago Rosso was a hit with smoked sausage we had brought home from Smitty’s Barbeque in Lockhart, Texas.

We also had a bottle of ’07 Laurenz Singing Gruner Veltliner ($13). We liked the ’06 Singer from Laurenz and the ’07 was just as good. This vintage has a little more body than the previous, but is still a medium sized mouthful of fruit and light. We really enjoyed paring the Veltliner with a mushroom, onion, and goat cheese tart that was accompanied by a garden salad. The sweetness of the onions and the tangy goat cheese simply played with the wine — it was great.

Perhaps the most interesting pairing of the evening was a sweet potato gratin from Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill Cookbook and the 2006 Macon-Bussieres Le Monsard from Dominique Lafon ($25 on close out). The gratin was rich and sweet with a little heat that simply married the mineral acid of the Monsard.

We finished with chocolate covered strawberries and a bottle of Perrie-Jouet. Everything was simply wonderful, it was another great party without Hallmark.

If I open a corked bottle of wine, I’m usually pretty pissed off about it. Though I’ve started saving all my receipts and taking back corked bottles, the culprit is usually some bottle that I’m excited about trying. It happened on my birthday, it happened with a nice Gamay meant to pair with some fantastic mushroom risotto, and on and on…

Well, a friend of mine recently sent me an article that offers a way to remove cork taint from a bottle of wine (the tip originally appeared in the New York Times). While I wouldn’t try the method on an expensive bottle of wine, I plan to try this with the next cheap, corked bottle I get, even if only to use it as a cooking wine later on.

The idea comes from Andrew Waterhouse, a professor of wine chemistry at the University of California, Davis. He says that to remove the cork taint, you pour the wine into a bowl and mix it around with a sheet of plastic wrap. He says that this works because the molecule that causes the cork taint odor, 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, adheres to the polyethylene plastic wrap, removing it from the wine’s liquid.

Anyone else ever give this a try? If so, tell us how it worked out in the comments, and we’ll let you know what we think as soon as one of us tries it.

Now is the time that I am supposed to write a post about pairing chocolate and wine or what champagne goes with flavored massage oil, but I just don’t feel like it. Valentine’s Day is designed to get you to feel bad unless you spend lots of money on your significant other.

My wife and I usually spend the evening with a few friends. We love spending time alone, but doing it on command seems contrived. Our Valentine’s Day dinners are always a lot of fun. The food is good, we drink good wine, and nobody eats alone on the day that being alone means “loser”. Besides, we find that people who are not pretending to enjoy one another are a lot more fun. [click to continue…]

Over the past couple of months, we’ve been looking into alternative wine packaging. The packaging technologies we’ve investigated are bag in box (BIB), Tetra Pak, and plastic wine bottles made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

Interest in alternative packaging increased dramatically last year when the price of oil headed toward $150 per barrel. You might think that interest would be slowing with the dropping price of oil, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Everyone I talked to told me they see continued growth across all types of alternative wine packaging, and the rate of acceptance appears to be accelerating. The main reason for the market’s continued growth are lower manufacturing and delivery costs combined with a desire to reduce the environmental impact of a bottle of wine. [click to continue…]

January is a great month to eat oysters. The name of the month has an “R” in it, and the waters along gulf coast have cooled off, producing plump, sweet oysters with just the right amount of brine. Here in Austin you can get oysters from several local fish mongers, and the WineEnabler.com crew has developed a taste for them this winter.

Of course, we have to pair the oysters that Michael has been shucking with something, and we decided to try bubbles. We know that the classic pairing for oysters is Sancerre, but Sancerres have gotten a little pricey. A good Sancerre these days costs more than $20, and that is about 3 to 4 times the price of a dozen oysters, so we decided to look at other choices, such as Cava and Prosecco. These sparkling wines from Spain and Italy can be excellent values, offering lots of taste with good balance for just a few bucks. [click to continue…]

Interest in the environmental impact of the wine industry has been a topic for sometime. Analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of wine suggests that the way wine is packaged, how it transported, and how far it is transported are the major contributors to the overall carbon footprint of a bottle of wine.

Of the three major contributors to wine’s carbon footprint, the wine package is the element most under the control of the winery. This has prompted some wineries to consider containers other than the traditional glass bottle. We reported earlier on plastic (PET) wine bottles and the widespread use of bag in box (BIB) technology for wine, but there is another player in the alternative wine packaging market – Tetra Pak. Most people in the U.S. think of juice boxes or maybe chicken stock when we think about Tetra Pak containers, but there is a lot more to it. [click to continue…]