Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

Port joke

From Alan Kellogg comes this chuckle: It seems that a trio of English gentlemen were forced to take refuge from inclement weather in an abandoned building. The storm confirmed a tendency to hang on for awhile, so the three commenced to exploring the site. It soon became apparent that their refuge had once been a tavern, now long in disrepair. However, all but one box had been removed when the business closed up. Having nothing else to do they decided to give the contents of the box a proper sending off. A bit of work with knife and a few stray slats of wood served to pry the nailed down lid, whereupon they discovered that the box was full of bottles of Portuquese origin. Nothing loathe, they retrieved one such, uncorked it, and the eldest took a swig. "Gah!" He announced with feeling, "That is the vilest product of Portuquese vinyards I have e'er tippled." His companions looked at each other, then with a shrug the youngest averred, "Any port in a storm."

Pine Ridge Chardonnay Dijon Clones (Carneros) 2001

A lovely pale gold. Good nose of earth and pears. Crisp flavors of citrus and green apples. Not a lot of oak. Short finish. Overall, a bit on the austere side of Napa Chardonnay, but therefore a good match for seafood. Grade: B

Recipe: Venison Medallions in Port Sauce

Sometimes you pick the wine to go with the food you've chosen, but sometimes you pick a meal to go with a specific wine. Tonight's menu planning fell into the latter category. I had a 1993 Ridge Geyserville I was dying to try, so I went looking for a rich and silky meal that would match up with what I expected would be a well-rounded and soft wine. I settled on Venison Medallions in Port/Porcini sauce. 4 venison medallions (each about 3 ounces and 1/2-inch thick) 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons olive oil 1.5 ounces dried porcini mushrooms (reconstituted in hot water for at least 30 minutes then chopped roughly) 2 garlic cloves, minced 3 green onions diced (separate the green and white parts) 1 cup chicken demi-glace 1/2 cup Tawny Port 3 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce Italian herbs (dried) to taste Salt and pepper, to taste Season the venison with salt and pepper. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a large saute pan over medium high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Don't let the butter brown! As soon as the butter foams, saute the venison medallions for about 3 minutes a side, which should be medium-rare. You don't want the venison done past medium. Remove the venison to a warm plate and tent loosely with foil. Sop up the remaining fat with a paper towel, but don't wipe up the sticky brown bits. Add the remaining butter and oil to the pan over medium heat. Again, as soon as the buitter foams, add the mushrooms, the garlic, and the white parts of the green onion. Season with salt, pepper, and herbs. After 5 minutes, deglaze with the port. Add the demi-glace and Worcestershire. Bring to the boil then reduce to a slow simmer. Reduce for about 15 minutes. (You want to end up with about 2/3 cup liquid.) With about 3 minutes to go, add the venison to warm through. A pat of butter at the very end to enrich the sauce wouldn't be remiss. Garnish with the green part of the onions. I served it with wild mushroom risotto and puree of winter squash. Fabulous and a great match for the Geyserville.

Ridge Monte Bello Cabernet Sauvignon (Santa Cruz Mountains) 1997

Wow. Still a very young wine at 7 years of age. Deep purple-black with no fading at the rim. Modest nose, but clean and typical. Still very firm, with a ton of fruit wrapped around a core of tannins. Rich, ripe plums, cassis, violets, and mocha java. A wine of finesse but also power. Still a baby, it needs at least 5 more years, if not even longer. You can still order it from the winery, provided you live in one of those enlightened states that allows interstate shipment of wine. Grade: A

Bruno Hunold Pinot Blanc (Alsace) 2001

A delicious medium-bodied white wine. Round - even plump - flavors of honeydew melon, honey, and pear. No trace of oak. Highly versatile food wine. Recommended. Grade: B+

Ridge Geyserville (Sonoma County) 1993

They say zinfandel doesn't age well. They lie. Granted, most zinfandels should be drunk young, but in a good year old vine zinfandel in the right hands can make a wine for the ages. (In his magisterial history of zinfandel, Charles Sullivan reports that a 50 year old bottle of the 1941 Louis Martini Mountain Zinfandel was "fading but still delicious.") Nobody does zinfandel better than Paul Draper, so I approached this 10 year old with considerable anticipation. It gave me a lot of trouble at first. I knew the wine had thrown a lot of sediment, so I was ready to decant it. Unfortunately, the cork broke up and I ended up having to push the remains through the neck into the bottle. There is an old dodge to use here, however. Put an u bleached coffee filter in a kitchen funnel and decant through the filter, which will catch both the cork pieces and the sediment. (Be sure to use an unbleached filter; white paper filters add an odd taste. Also, fancy gold-plated coffee filters are useless - they let through a lot of sediment.) The wine was magnificent. A medium ruby with a definite band of brick at the rim. Excellent nose of jammy dark fruits, black peppers, and spices. On the palate, there is still some tannin, but the wine has evolved into a silky smooth texture with a lingering finish. Blackberry jam dominates the palate, but there are also some earth and leather notes. Still quite fresh and fruity, with a certain impression of sweetness (even though its a dry wine). It's hard to judge how much longer it has. On the one hand, there's still a lot of fruit left, but the tannins have mostly melted away. I'd guess 3-5 years if properly cellared. Grade: A

Wine Glasses: Does it Really Matter?

One of the (many) things that makes wine conniseurship seem unduly precious to the uninitiated is the insistence that the shape of the glass matters. Frankly, I didn't want to believe it myself, but I've gradually been won over. And, moreover, a lot of wine professionals and serious amateurs agree. Riedel is the name before which most wine nuts genuflect, but a while back the Wall Street Journal's wine writers recommended Spiegelau's Vino Grande Burgundy glasses. They were right - this is an outstanding all-purpose red wine glass. It works equally well with pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon, and zinfandel, which pretty much covers my bases. I don't recommend it for white wine, although it's okay for chardonnay. Best of all, they're top rack dishwasher safe.

Ridge Sonoma Station Zinfandel (Sonoma County) 2001

Sonoma Station is a second wine of Ridge, which gets a blend of grapes from all of their Sonoma County vineyards, which means its pulling grapes from all three major Sonoma valleys: Alexander, Dry Creek, and Russian River. The 2001 vintage divided the major critics: the Wine Spectator scored it at only 82, while Robert Parker scored it an 89. My reaction is closer to the Parker score. A medium deep purple-black denotes the youth of the wine, but it is nevertheless ready to drink now. Good nose of classic zinfandel brambly fruit, with a touch of vanilla-ish oak. Intensely fruity flavors. Raspberries and blackberries. Medium finish with moderate tannins. Very clean with none of the funky flavors that a lot of Ridge zins had in 2000. Highly quaffable. Grade: B