Simon Pearce

A year ago this month, my friend Lynne and I took a vacation to Vermont. We went with the intention of running a half-marathon, and then seeing what sights there were to see before/after the race.

One day, we were taking a drive, and if memory serves, we had gotten lost or perhaps had to turn back from somewhere due to weather; I can't quite remember, other than, we happened to stop at a covered bridge, got out of the car to take some pictures, and a local lady walked by with her dog. She stopped to say hello and recommended that we check out the glass factory that was right around the corner.

That turned out to be Simon Pearce. We wandered through this store for hours, looking at the gorgeous handblown glasswares and hand-fired ceramics. The stuff wasn't cheap but it was quality. I purchased a small glass Christmas ornament (a) it was one of the few things in my price range, and b) I was inspired after watching the artist in the glass blowing studio for a good while. The studio was open to the public and we watched this man make glass Christmas tree after glass Christmas tree, handling molten hot liquid glass, turning and heating and cooling and turning until, one after the other, they turned into perfect glass Christmas trees.

Part of the way through the process he asked if we had any questions. He had been doing this for so long it was like second nature to him. He fielded our questions without missing a beat. It was fascinating to watch him work, one headphone in his ear as he listened to music while talking to us at the same time while never missing a beat as he worked the glass. It was awesome, in the truest sense of the word, to watch true artistry and craftsmanship at work.

Fast forward to today. Lynne is back in Vermont, eating dinner at the restaraunt associated with Simon Pearce as I write this blog entry. She was able to return with her husband this year, and is introducing him to Simon Pearce. 

For Mother's Day, Lynne's two sons bought her a wine stopper from Simon Pearce. That got me thinking, because her birthday was a week later. Lynne and I have gone to many a wine tasting, including one day long wine trip hosted by the local community college on the day I was supposed to have graduated from grad school. I didn't graduate initially as planned but still wanted to do something to mark the day, so etching positive to show myself that my struggles with school had not gotten the best of me. And so I have many find memories of wine tastings with Lynne, including our experience at Simon Pearce. It just made good sense that I would look to that store for her birthday present. 

I ended up selecting a perfect, beautiful wine glass.

I had it shipped in a fabulous gray box with a box. I also may have bought one for myself, only mine is a red wine glass. Lynne's is for white. The glass is much taller, heavier, and more substantial than I expected. It is an object of great craftsmanship and that conveys the best of our friendship. And, in a beautiful act of symmetry, tonight Lynne texted me that she is enjoying a lovely class of Simon oearce's house Chardonnay in a hand crafted goblet in Queechee, Vermont, smiling and thinking back in our memories there together. 

Brunello and my dad

My dad's favorite wine was Brunello di Montalcino. That's not a specific wine; rather it refers to dry red wines made from sangiovase grapes in the Montalcino region of Italy. My family is Italian, and dad liked a nice dry Italian red.

He and a friend of his made a pact: If my dad died first, he would leave his friend a case of the friend's favorite wine (Dom Perignon champagne). If my dad's friend died first, he would leave my dad a case of Brunello.

I was always curious about Brunello because it wasn't until after my dad passed away that I even began to develop a taste for dry reds. I do wish that he and I could discuss wines and enjoy them together; it's an interest that we both shared, but at different times in our lives.

I looked into buying a Brunello from time to time, just to try and see what my dad's fuss was about, but those baby's aren't cheap. Brunello tends to start around $80-90 a bottle and they go up from there.

This week, I received an email from my favorite wine shop, advertising a sale on a great Brunello. The description was:

The 1009 Brunello di Montalcino Caparzo is a pretty, impeccably balanced wine to drink over the next decade or so. Sweet red berries, mint, tobacco, licorice and rose petals are woven into the attractive, layered finish. 

It really was a bargain, at $35 a bottle. That was a price point I could stomach. I stopped by that shop today and - bonus- the Brunello was open for free tasting! I have not liked sangiovase in the past and so was not expecting to like this wine, but on the first sip I loved it. It's dry, but not too dry, and has the nice balance noted in the description. I quickly bought two bottles, one to open tonight and one to have for later.

While I was tasting it, I got to chatting with the wine guy. He asked what kinds of wine I usually drink, and I said I tend to gravitate toward reds, particularly red blends, plus dry rieslings, roses, and generally not chardonnays. He brightened up when I mentioned rose and asked if I wanted to try a really interesting one. Well, yeah!

He ran to the back and came back out with a rose of a different color. It turns out that most rose is made with red wine grapes and then the skins are left in for a short time (just enough to give the wine that rosy hue) and then removed. This rose was made with white grapes and the skins were left in longer, leaving a sort of orangey color. The flavor was really nice and refreshing, perfect for sipping on a summer's day. I snagged a bottle of that, too.

My conversation with the wine guy was interesting. We both agreed that the best thing about wine is the variety. There are always new wines to try, and it's not just the variety of wines themselves, but everything about enjoying wine changes. You change, your palate changes, the weather changes, which affects what you are in the mood the drink. The wine itself changes over time, or even day to day once you open the bottle.

The ornangey one is on the right.
The one on the left is made with
syrah. On the right, pinot gris.

I left the wine store happy, and thinking of my dad. I wonder if he would have liked today's purchases. I got home and found something unexpected in my mailbox.

I recently changed my name and knew it was only a matter of time before my new last name made it onto mailing lists for various direct mail. Today there was a free issue of my dad's favorite magazine, Cook's, in my mailbox, addressed to me with my new name. It's a complimentary issue along with a push to get me to subscribe. It was an easy sell; gourmet cooking was my dad's hobby, and he would rave about this magazine because the writers test each recipe and then the articles aren't just the recipes but also include all of the steps of trial and error so you can learn the techniques. That magazine showing up at my door the same day as my purchase of the Brunello was a sign, clear as day. I quickly wrote my check and mailed off the slip for my new subscription.

Thanks, dad.

Sharing a bottle

A friend at work texted me today to ask if I was up for getting together after work. She took the week off to stay at home and enjoy some gardening time. She lives a few miles from our workplace, so it was easy to meet up for dinner.

We went to a great restaurant inside an art museum. This place has real tablecloths and a fancy pants wine list. I felt more than a little under dressed in my work clothes of polo shirt, shorts, and sneakers, but they didn't judge.

Looking over the menu, my friend and I were delighted to see that the restaurant has a special discounted menu for Tuesday nights. This includes a list of wines for $20 a bottle.

I considered a cocktail, but was dismayed when I discovered that they didn't have any gin cocktails on the list. Really? Three whisky-based cocktails but none with gin?

So to the wine list I looked. We both agreed that we wanted white wine and figured what the heck, let's split a bottle. We would each have spent at least ten dollars on a glass had we ordered separately; this way we each got half a bottle for ten dollars. A bargain!

There were five whites on the list. My friend did not like riesling so we crossed that one off. I don't like chardonnay but there weren't any chardonnays on the list so that was easy. We ended up narrowing it down to a spanish varietal neither of us had heard of or a pinot grigio. We asked the waiter for help deciding, and he didn't hesitate: the Spanish wine it is.

He brought it to the table and offered a taste. It was fruity but not sweet, perfectly refreshing and easy to drink. It went very well with my oysters lightly fried in corn meal, apple and fennel cole slaw, and roasted potatoes.

We both had dessert - blueberry lavender gelato, accompanied by coffee. The waiter got bonus points for bringing us each a little creamer mug. Most places just bring one per table, even if there are five people drinking coffee. What IS that?!

At the end of the evening, we realized we still had about a quarter of the bottle left. The waiter offered to send it home with (one of) us. I was stunned. "I can take it home?!" I blurted out? Apparently you can. I didn't think you were allowed to have opened containers in your car (not to be confused with an open container. The bottle was of the screw top variety so the waiter very easily capped it and wrapped it in a plastic bag). My friend did not want to take it home and pushed it towards me. I drove home with the bottle wrapped up in the trunk, and now it happily resides in my refrigerator where I will finish it off tomorrow and smile.

Riesling

I am generally a red wine kind of person, but I find that I almost always enjoy a riesling.

Rieslings from Alsace in particular tend to be winners for me. I'm not sure what it is. They are usually crisp, and mostly dry, and have just enough citrus and petrol to be interesting.

Yes, I said petrol. Weird, isn't it? I wouldn't have known to put my finger on that note if I hadn't read a description of Alsation rieslings and how they tend to taste ever so slightly of petrol. As in, gasoline. But, sure enough, there is just enough of a hint of something, something that isn't fruity, isn't citrus, isn't quite right but also makes the wine taste interesting.

Last night, I made one of my favorite meals from Let's Dish, which is a meal assembly program. My friend Lynne and I have been going there regularly for about a year. You choose from a list of meals each month and then go in and assemble your complete meal at different stations. The food is all natural and the meals go right into the freezer, along with instructions on how to prepare everything when you're ready.

Almond-orange tilapia with almond rice was last night's meal, and it just cried out for a nice, acidic, not-too-fruity-so-it-doesn't-compete-with-the-citrus-in-the-fish wine, and the riesling I had on hand was just the thing.

Good times

My co-blogger, Deanna, invited me and a few other friends to a local fundraisig event that raised money to support her local library. It was a lovely evening. Our event hosts had brought in literary figure impersonators to give presentations in character, so we enjoyed our amazing hors d'ourves in the company of William Shakespeake, Edgar Allen Poe, Dorothy Parker, and Oscar Wilde (who loved my sparkly, fancy shoes). 

We were not shy about enjoying said food, even though we had dinner reservations right after. Dinner was at a lovely Italian restaraunt that felt very grown up. When presented with the wine menu, we knew we wanted to share a bottle and quickly narrowed that down to red. Then, narrowed it further to pinot noir (it's really hard to go wrong with a pinot noir). After that, the price range narrowed it to two bottles, and from there, we randomly picked locale (Santa Barbara, California). 

We chose wisely. The wine was lovely, it was a much better bargain to split a bottle four ways than to each order a separate glass, and there was the added camaraderie that comes with the sharing of wine, much the way the sharing of food is best enjoyed as a communal experience. 

Food and drink are the stuff of life, with friendship a beautiful bonus. 

Snow day

Today is a snow day. I was determined to treat it exactly as such: my plan was to sit around, watch tv, eat cupcakes, drink something yummy, and generally be a slug. After many years in grad school when I never had a true snow day, always being able to do schoolwork from home, and never having a break from the revising, I would dream about what it would be like ONE DAY when I was done with school and could enjoy a snow day properly.

Whenever snow days occur, my Facebook feed floods with posts about how people are stocking up on alcoholic beverages. As someone who did not really drink at all until my thirties, I never understood the draw. Can't you drink beer and wine anytime? Well, not ANY time, but certainly you don't need a special day for it.

As someone who now enjoys wine, I understand a bit more. It's nice to be able to enjoy a glass of wine, or perhaps a splash of bailey's in my coffee, and not have to drive anywhere or have any real responsibilities. 

On my way home one day this week, knowing that the snow day was imminent, I stopped at the local Home Goods looking for a basin for a foot soak to go with the pedicure I was planning, and I noticed a mix for chocolate lavender cake. I love lavendar flavored foods, so I could not resist this. I knew I had my snow day snack food.

This morning, I decided that, in honor of the cupcakes, I would enjoy a dessert wine. I had a few in my cabinet that I wanted to try. One was a port, and another was a wine that I didn't know anything about - I had never tried this one before. I think I bought it on a whim when at the local wine store, lured by their description of it. I can't really remember. 

I first learned about dessert wines several years ago when I ran a 5k at a local winery, and a tasting came as part of the registration fee. Unlimited tasting of all wines was free for runners, except for the port. That was a dollar per tasting. I asked why and was told that ports and dessert wines tend to be a higher alcohol content of regular wine (16-20% as opposed to the 12-13.5% of a regular red), and more goes into making them, so they can't afford to give away the tastings. I asked what you would pair port with, and the lady said that ports are lovely with sweets of any kind, but are especially good with chocolate. Sign me right up.

So, needless to say, I knew a dessert wine would be just the thing to go with those cupcakes and with my lazy day off. 

The cupcakes did not disappoint, and neither did the wine. It's dark brown (which is a bit startling and off putting at first, but it's a characteristic of port-style wines), very sweet, and thick, almost with the consistency of syrup. I would have thought the sweetness would be too much with the sweetness of the dessert, but no. It just works. 

Rutherford Ranch

Chardonnay is not my favorite, but this one from Rutherford Ranch, is lovely. It came as part of a mixed case and is described as a "classic" Chardonnay, "exhibiting rich vanilla-soaked tropical fruits on a medium-body." I didn't see the words "oaky" or "buttery" and I love flavors of vanilla and tropical fruits. 

Plus, tonight I decided to make a new recipe, a red lentil and spinach soup. It seemed to be just the right food pairing for this wine, which is further described as being perfect "for a taste of west coast warmth on a cold winter night." This wine seemed like it would match the heartiness of the soup without being overwhelming, and it did just that. 

Once Upon a Vine

I'm not fond of punny shop names and wine names. They're likely to induce eye-rolling, and I'll ignore them just on principle. But, then this evening, when I'm so hopeful and nervous and worried, and wanting my life to turn impossibly just like a perfect story would, I saw a Pinor Noir from Sonoma called, "Once Upon a Vine." It had a beautiful picture of a nighttime fairytale forest, evocative of mystery and tangled stories, and it was $10.50---exactly right. I bought a backup bottle of my old favorite Robert Mondavi Private Selection, just in case the new wine tasted more like poisoned applies than enchanted elixir.

It was as perfect as can be---the kind of new-wine experience I wish I could always have! It had an intriguing, interesting nose to get me wondering, and then paired exactly right with the herbed goat cheese and crackers I chose for a weekend dinner. It was medium-bodied, not pale and flimsy, not overpowering. Just right and balanced, as it should be.

With our little cape cod house For Sale, and my heart pining for the gorgeous, spacious historic home we toured this weekend, I want my story to end just the same---everything right where it should be. My feet walking those floors. My son sleeping in that bedroom. My wine stacked in those cabinets (those thousands of kitchen cabinets where a person could actually have room for a wine rack!)

http://www.wegmans.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId=762578&storeId=10052&langId=-1