Saturday, February 25, 2006

German Wine Society Annual Meeting/Wine & Cheese Tasting


The German Wine Society held its annual meeting on February 19 at the Eureka Club (which, oddly enough, is the club owned and operated by Alcoholics Anonymous. Are they trying to tell us something?).

The annual meeting always features wine-tasting, of course, but it doesn’t offer a full meal like the usual GWS events do. Instead, the executive usually tries to come up with something a bit different, and this year, besides the AA connection, they came up with a wine and cheese tasting.

They matched some usual and unusual German wines with an equally interesting selection of cheeses from the Bulk Cheese Warehouse, which recently opened in Regina.

The registration wine was a Langenbach Binger St. Rochuskapelle 2000 Kabinett from the Rheinhessen. We rated it a very typical Kabinett Riesling: nothing special. It was fine, but we wouldn’t go out of our way to buy it again.

The first cheese came after the annual meeting. It was Huntsman Cheddar, a hard cheese consisting of Stilton sandwiched between Cheddar Double Gloucester. It’s supposed to go well with beer, but we had it with a German red (yes, they do exist): Martinshof Regent Rotwein 2000, from the Pfalz region. Regent, we were informed, is a relatively new type of grape, created less than 40 years ago and only approved as a varietal in 1994. One of its best features is that it is fungus-resistant. It's described as having aromas of black cherry and black currant and a not-very astringent finish, and that sounded about right: we found it a very young-tasting wine, very fruity, with a nice freshness to it.

The second cheese was German Butter Cheese, fresh, creamy, with a hint of parmesan. It was paired with Martinshof Gewurztraminer Spatlese 2001, which reminded us once again of why we enjoy German Gewurztraminers so much, and emphasized our disappointment with a Canadian Gewurztraminer we tried just a few days before (but haven’t blogged yet). The bouquet was not immediately appealing, having something of a diesel exhaust smell, but the flavor was very distinctive and very full-bodied. This late-harvest wine was sweet, spicy and rich, with notes of apricot and lychee.

Cheese number three was Cambonzola. Developed in Germany in the 1970s, this cheese features streaks of gorgonzola, a mild blue cheese, in camembert. One of the odder wines of the night accompanied it: Martinshof Chardonnay Spatlese 2003. We were intrigued by the use of the chardonnay grape, but we weren’t big fans of the wine. It didn’t have much bouquet and a kind of odd flavor—Margaret Anne described it as sooty or smoky. She didn’t like it at all; Ed didn’t mind it as much. It went fairly well with the cheese, but several people reported the Gewurztraminer was an even better match.

Number four was Cave-Aged Gruyere. The smell, and the fact it was cave-aged (for a minimum of five years, we were told), reminded Ed of a story told by a Spanish cheesemaker at the International Wine and Food Festival in Banff a few years ago, of a young American GI who smelled a smell so horrible emanating from a cave that he took a flamethrower and incinerated the cave’s contents, convinced it must contain rotting corpses. Turned out it contained the local specialty, a cave-aged cheese.

This probably didn’t smell as bad as whatever cheese that was, but it certainly did smell. But we both love stinky cheese, so it wasn’t a problem for us. The matching wine, Valckenburg Madonna Auslese 2002, was the colour of apple juice, very, very good: quite sweet, but with a nice bit of acidity. It went well with the cheese, but then, said Margaret Anne, “I think the stinky cheese goes with everything.”

The seventh cheese was one we’d already bought and enjoyed from the Bulk Cheese Warehouse: Gouda Old Dutch Master. The beverage suggestion for this hard, strongly-flavored cheese is beer or Scotch. We had it instead with Frickenhauser Kapellenberg Bacchus Kabinett 1999. Apparently we didn’t like it very much the last time we had it at one of these events, as we were reminded (people actually read this blog? Who knew?). We didn’t like it all that much this time, either. Margaret Anne felt it exhibits “florally soapiness” and neither of us felt it matched the cheese all that well. Ed liked the wine by itself better than with the cheese, and liked the Madonna with the cheese better still. (A little Madonna was all Ed had left in his glass at that point.)

The eighth and final cheese was Chevre, a fresh, mild goat cheese which, we were informed, is very high in fat because goats give less milk and thus it has a higher fat and protein content than cow milk. It was matched with a Seaview Sparkling Shiraz, the only non-German wine served this evening (it’s Australian). Margaret Anne and I love the E&E Sparkling Pepper Shiraz. We found the Seaview fruitier and less complex than the E&E but still quite nice, and a good match for the Chevre.

And that was that. The next GWS event is dinner with a winemaker, from Lingenfelder. We’ll be there, and we’ll be blogging!

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Vineland Estates Carriage House Red

We got this Vineland Estates Carriage House Red as part of our subscription to the winery's Wine Club, which means (since we pay $35 a month for two bottles) that it cost us $17.50. It's only $9.95 if you buy it right at the winery, but on the other hand, we didn't have to go to Ontario to get it and it came with tasting notes and a very good recipe, so we're not complaining.

This is Vineland Estates' own house red, served in their restaurant (where we've eaten a couple of times, enjoying the deck beneath the giant shade tree). Our notes from December 16, when we tasted this, speak of pepper and dark berry notes on both the nose and tongue. As it happens, Margaret Anne is a big fan of black pepper on strawberries, so maybe that's why she enjoyed this quite a bit. (So did Ed, although he's not so big on the peppered strawberry idea.)

A very nice blended red (Cabernet Sauvignon and Baco Noir, to go by the winery's notes) for drinking at table. Posted by Picasa

Monday, February 20, 2006

Carpineto Chianti Classico Riserva 1993

Our notes are...scant. We drank this Carpineto Chianti Classico on December 4, at home. It cost $25.70, but whether this came from Margaret Anne's cellar and thus that $25.70 was 10 years ago, or whether it was something we bought at the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority store, we no longer remember. (Or at least Ed no longer remembers, and since he's the one writing this...)

We wrote, "Earthy, leathery, garnet colour."

And that's all I can tell you about it.

Possibly we were too busy enjoying it to take notes! Posted by Picasa

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Wal-Mart wine wit

The lead to this appears to be an actual AP story; the proposed names for Wal-Mart Wines are not, but they sure made me laugh! (Via Dvorak Uncensored.)

Here's a humorous net gag going around the email boxes of America. Found by John Markoff. It's based on an AP report as the lead-in to the gags.

BENTONVILLE, ARK (AP) — Some Walmart customers soon will be able to sample a new discount item: Walmart’s own brand of wine. The world’s largest retail chain is teaming up with E&J Gallo Winery of Modesto,California, to produce the spirits at an affordable price, in the $2-5 range. While wine connoisseurs may not be inclined to throw a bottle of WalMart brand wine into their shopping carts, there is a market for cheap wine, said Kathy Micken, professor of marketing at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I. She said: “The right name is important.”
So, here we go:

The top 12 suggested names for Walmart Wine:

12. Chateau Traileur Parc
11. White Trashfindel

10. Big Red Gulp
9. Grape Expectations
8. Domaine Wal-Mart “Merde du Pays”
7. NASCARbernet
6. Chef Boyardeaux
5. Peanut Noir
4. Chateau des Moines
3. I Can’t Believe It’s Not Vinegar!
2. World Championship Riesling

And the number 1 name for Wal-Mart Wine …

1. Nasti Spumante

Thursday, February 09, 2006

The science behind bouquet

Here's a fascinating scientific examination of wine's bouquet.

And for once, it's not one of Ed's own columns.