Winery Exchange: Chronic Cellars Has Arrived

Chronic Red Takes a Seat at the Table

Chronic Cellars, “Dead Nuts”

2013 Paso Robles Blended Red, 15% alc.

• 64% Zin
• 21% Tempranillo
• 15% Petite Sirah
• with just a smidge of Tannat for structure

Dear me, it’s time for a wine review.  Been a while. As some of you know, I spent the better part of three days this winter in Santa Barbara and Santa Maria wine country. The experience left me hankering for Central Coast California wines. Happily, a good friend at the Winery Exchange in San Rafael was keen to have me review a pair of bottle from this new distributor/winery Chronic Cellars.

This blogpost we’ll devote to and examine a strange and #winning little bottle called "Dead Nuts" by Chronic Cellars.

So I got home from work and a box full of some not-so-common grape wines had been dropped by my rather lazy UPS driver who didn't ask for a signature! What was he thinking? But this is D.C., so we're "goin' rogue" that way.

At any rate, what a joyful thing to come home to after a long day of work:

We'll Cover the White on the Left
in a Later Blogpost

I am a little surprised, but this rather hot, Zin-based red blend is a spicy, peppery mix of easy drinking Cali Zinfandel fun that features the punch and tannins of Petit Syrah and Tannat. There is an odd addition of Tempranillo here which I cannot explain, but it didn't deliver a noticeable interruption. Now, how a glass at 15% alcohol can be so easy to drink, I simply do not know. I would think the alcohol would overwhelm a glass without food. But this does not do that.

I’m pleased to report—not least of all because drinking bad wine drives me crazy—that this bottle provides a nice evening diversion. For the price ($ 26), I think it’s a fair bit pricey, but tasty, and I'm a sucker for that.

And most importantly for a Stoop Party thrower like me: no one is going to turn down a glass of this baby.

“Dead Nuts” is the most tannic in structure within the Chronic portfolio. As my friend said, “While the packaging is wild, the wine is good.” I agree. A little hot for my liking, but that caveat aside, I concur.

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Snowzilla in the MidAtlantic

As I was saying, I had just come home from a rough day fighting a first day back at work after the east coast's big “Snowzilla” snow storm here in the Mid-Atlantic (see picture on the left here). And the prospect of grilling a pork loin on my Weber was daunting, so I opted for the propane grill. After 25 minutes in the 375 degree oven and then 12 minutes on the grill, the loin was just superb. Pink and flaky without the dryness you so often get with over cooking. 

The hickory nuts and twigs I use on the propane grill substitute nicely for charcoals or lava rocks and the smell the loin gets is heavenly. With a simple spaghettini and fresh green salad—fresh from where in January I do not know and cannot imagine—I dived into my second glass.

Finishing a Pork Loin on the Grille Makes For a Lovely Roast

The second glass was great with the food. I think there is something to be said for planning a meal and then opening your bottle based on what you are making. I used to be very judgmental about this. But a Pinot Noir or a Crianza would have been wasted on this meal; so I was a little worried about the Tempranillo in this bottle. But this red blend (and I think red blends are vastly underrated by consumers) has the chops to handle the brined loin and my hearty red sauce.

And I'm not Really a fan of Pork!

This red from Chronic Cellars was a surprise when it probably shouldn’t have been. The grape combo you see at the top of this blog post tells you everything you need to know:

1. The spicy, white- maybe black- pepper bite;
2. The nice, full mouth-feel; 
3. The surprisingly lack of a deeper, purple color that I expected. (The visual through the glass appeared to not be all that full-bodied, and I chalk that up to the Tempranillo thinning out the color, so the glass doesn’t enjoy a typical Zin color. No matter, the wine was delicious. 

It’s a fun drink with a grilled meal. Even the vinegar and oil in the salad didn’t spoil it. So, in spite of the label which strikes me as wine for Dead Heads (hence the name, “Dead Nuts?”), the liquid in the bottle outsells the intended target. I’m not sure why a wine of this calibre doesn’t deserve a label akin to the fancy Angelina and Brad labels we’re seeing at more of the celebrity wineries.

Maybe it’s a matter of taste! Maybe it's a matter of marketing. 

According to my notes on this wine, the goal for Jake and Josh Barnett (the brothers who make Chronic), has something to do with embracing lesser known varietals and trying to grow them in California. Also, they decided that if they were going to bother to make wines, they’d make “not your parents’ wine.” And so this portfolio is where it is today.

I’m open. I’d give them a try. They seem ripe to be distributed by BevMo or even a Trader Joes, so look for them in the higher end line of your local. I believe this may be the Peachy Canyon-equivalent of wine that used to define Paso Robles. It’s a hybrid, sort of a "newer varietals" meet the Zin, the Calif original.

I look forward to reviewing their Grenache Blanc/Picpoul white blend that they call "Stone Fox." Early word from this Tablas Creek/Denner/Kenneth Volk fan, it's damn nice.

Bon Appetit and Prost, all in one!

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Two Hands: Ares

Shiraz Worthy of Your Glass

2006 Ares Takes a Breather Before we are Even Seated

2006 Two Hands, Ares
McLaren Vale, Barossa Valley
WS: 96 points

Enjoyed at: 
Lonesome Dove

2406 N. Main Street

Fort Worth, Texas  76164

(817) 740-8810


On a little side trip to Dallas for a friend's 40th birthday, I found myself in the safe arms of a Kindly Southern Gentleman Friend from Vermont who summarily announced that we (Mr. Frank came too) would be headed off to Tim Love’s Lonesome Dove restaurant in Ft. Worth.

The magic of downtown Ft. Worth over by the stockyards is the music scene and street scene that revolves around terrifically oddball buskers and other assorted folks in Wrangler jeans and very up-to-date cowboy boots. Perhaps the most memorable site was of an elderly couple on oxygen tanks singing vintage country songs from the Patsy Cline/Hank Williams periods.

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I was at a winery in Temecula, California, at Christmas time with my big sister, and a couple who had joined us on the horseback ride through the vineyards had video of these buskers. So they are very special souls indeed! What a hoot to run into wine folks with similar experiences. More and more I get the impression that people who are into wine really like to sit back, watch, and soak up the sensations when they travel. I may just be flattering myself, but when I travel, I do notice how important the little things that make a place special are.

For example, in Paris, it’s not the Eiffel Tower that excites me, it’s the journey to get to the Tower. It’s the crazy efforts that tourists go to to cut in line. It’s the feel of the fresh air that you enjoy in line, but then as you ascend, how damnably cold it gets and makes the experience one you want to end faster than you had intended. And how impressive the structure is when you are on the ground, having a picnic at the foot of the Tower in the parkland below. That's what drinking the 2006 Ares Shiraz is like...it's less the wine—although that is exceptional—it's the journey from the cellar and into the bottle that sticks.

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At any rate, back to Ft. Worth…my Kindly Southern Gentleman Friend from Vermont was particularly excited about bringing Frankie and me to Lonesome Dove. We were thrilled because he’d been threatening to purchase a particularly expensive bottle of Aussie Shiraz to treat us for coming to visit him in Dallas.  I mean, sheeeeesh!, we’d been to South Africa and Argentina together, but we’d never come travel together on his home turf in Dallas!? The time had come. And so out came the 2006 Two Hands Ares.

It’s a graphite and cherry Syrah grape bomb whose silky mouth-feel remains memorable and exciting even as I blog this. Wine Spectator says, “Polished and generous. A plush mouthful of cherry, blackberry and creamy spice flavors that linger effortlessly on the long, open-textured finish. There’s power in this wine, but it lurks below the glassy, seamless surface, ready to grow and get more complex with aging.”

What I enjoyed was the "seamless surface" ready to drink after an hour of decanting. I couldn’t believe how privileged I was to have our Dallas host willing to splurge with such a bottle.

Thank you so much, again, Kindly Southern Gentleman Friend from Vermont, for a palette-pleaser of this magnitude! Can’t wait to dive into the next fine wine with you guys…I believe I owe you a Melville Pinot Noir sometime very soon before you head off back to Mozambique.

Let 'er Breathe

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Yotam's Sweet Potato Cakes

Just about any recipe with the word “pancakes” in the title "grabs" my attention.  I remember graduating from high school and my friend Katriona bought me a book that was about 50 pages long with various pancake recipes. I recall salivating through the entire book.

This weekend with @makesascene and @ELB29, we scarfed down "johnnycakes" which will be provided to you in a future blog post. I was sitting there watching all the other tables getting their dishes while we waited and waited, and I realized how the very notion of pancakes makes me impatient. I'm Pavlov's dog when it comes to these quick fried devils.

Plenty Cookbook Cover

So it should come as little surprise when @ELB29 told me that she had made a dinner for her mom, dad, and a very picky brother out of one giant jewel sweet potato, some green onions, and a side salad.

It sounded far-fetched, but the pictures from YOTAM OTTOLENGHI’S PLENTY were compelling. I had to give it a go. While it's delicious as a dish, I have to say I think most guests would find this to not be a dinner. For me, as a former vegan, this is very much a dinner. The sum total is quite heavy.

Thinking aloud, I do not see why you couldn't make these into tiny fingerfood bites and serve as an appetizer. So go on, show Yotam what you can do to adapt his recipes...

Sweet Potato Fritters

Ingredients

For the Potato Cakes

2 lb sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks

2 t soy sauce

3/4 c flour

1 t salt

½ t sugar

3 T spring onion, chopped

½ t fresh chilli, finely chopped (or more, to taste)

olive oil, for frying

For the sauce

6 T Greek yogurt

2 t olive oil

1 T lemon juice

1 T fresh coriander, chopped

Freshly ground salt and pepper

Frying in the Pan, Awaiting the Plate

Instructions

Bake the sweet potato at 350 degrees in about 1/2″ of water in a non-stick flat pan until soft for about two hours or until soft. Meanwhile, whisk the sauce ingredients until smooth and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, work all the fritter ingredients by hand–it should be sticky, so if it’s a little runny, add flour as needed. I found you need all 3/4 of a cup. Do not over-mix.

Using a tablespoon, form a rounded bit of batter and drop into some hot oil that only lightly coats the bottom of the pan. Flatten with the top of a spatula after you flip. Brown both sides. Make them about 1/4″ thick. Six minutes per side is ideal. Place between plenty of papertowel to soak up the excess oil.

Serve hot or warm, with the sauce on the side, and a crisp green salad.

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Bobby Flay’s Pork Shoulder Tacos

New Years at my family’s home is about celebrating my mother, my sister Tamara’s, and now my nephew Coen Matteo's birthdays.

A couple of years ago, my sister Nicole and I decided to adapt Bobby Flay’s pork shoulder tacos for the occassion. We cut out a lot of the extraneous sugars and such because the chiles and the side dishes are what make the experience worthwhile and eminently reheatable days later, anyway.

Why should you take advice from a Bobby and a couple of Italian Americans? Because there is a flavor in this recipe that cannot be beat, and the results make for amazing leftovers that we have been able to capture in the recipe and work below.

I love the simplicity of this recipe and think you will too.

The back story to this family cooking fest begins with Coen's older brother, my nephew Nolan Michael. Nolan came to the Christmas holidays (again this was a couple of years ago) fresh from a killer cold that my sister graciously bestowed upon me, so I had the pleasure of directing the production of this year’s birthday festivities without having to get my hands in the mix.

What great sisters I have! HarHarHarHar.

At any rate, Nicole did a bang up job preparing this fairly simple recipe. First she got down to her local Mexican butcher shop in Southern California. The pork is like half the price of supermarket pork and my mom’s neighborhood has such excellent Mexican-owned butchers, that there is little of the old first-world/third-world culture clash that used to come from those more aromatic shopping adventures of yore.

We go to LA REINA MARKET (which I will do a photo spread of next time I’m there, promise!) and get ourselves six pounds of pork shoulder, grab a few bags of the chiles required to make this dish and head back home with a few of their homemade salsas. (By the by, La Reina’s avocado salsa is a strange, otherworldly hot mélange of fresh avocado and invisible salsa elements, and it is simply superb, unique, and a blessing all in one).

La Reina Market

909 N. Tustin Street

Orange, Calif. 92867

(714) 997-9525

Bobby Flay's Pork Tacos, adapted

Serves at least 8, maybe more, depending on people’s appetites

Ingredients

4 large dried ancho chiles (about 3/4 ounce), stemmed, seeded

2 large dried pasilla chiles, stemmed, seeded

1 T fresh lime juice

6 lb. bone-in pork shoulder (Boston butt)

2 T vegetable oil

1 large yellow onion, chopped (about 2 cups)

3 large garlic cloves, coarsely chopped

2 bay leaves

1 cinnamon stick

Kosher salt

To set the taco table, you’ll also need the following:

6″ corn tortillas or 10″ flour tortillas

4 radishes, trimmed, thinly sliced or shredded

Finely chopped red onions

Chopped fresh cilantro

Cotija cheese

yellow and white Cheddar cheeses for the gringos

Homemade Guacamole

Homemade Salsas

Preheat oven to 350°F and cook completely covered for about 3 to 4 hours. Or if you have a large Le Creuset Dutch Oven, slow-cook on the stove on low for about five hours.

First get some super hot water (or just boil some water) coming out of your tap and soak the peppers. Let ‘em get really soft. This is easier to do with a little extra time, so if you can, do this the night before. About 30 minutes is all that’s needed if you use the boiling water. Drain chiles, de-stem and de-seed. After you strip them, reserving 1 cup soaking liquid, place chile skins in the Cuisinart. Be very careful, the heat from these can tax the eyes and skin. Nicole was bright red in the face during this portion of our little family cooking fest.

Make the spice paste in a Cuisinart: We used mom’s blender, and it was more challenging. But it can be done, you may have to do this in batches. Purée chiles with the chopped yellow onion, garlic, adding more soaking liquid as needed to form a smooth paste.After trimming off about a half pound of the shoulder’s fat (in the final product, all that fat really is not necessary to ensure a flavorful taco), Nicole rubbed ‘er down with rock salt and cracked black pepper. Letting the beast rest in a roasting pan (although were I at home and not slave to my mother’s lousy Revere-ware, I’d have slapped that puppy in my enormous Le Creuset roaster), we set about making the spice paste.The shoulder can be rubbed 1–2 days ahead. Cover and chill. Let come to room temperature before continuing.

Fry up the spice paste: heat oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat. Toss in two bay leaves and a cinnamon stick. Once fragrant, add in the chile purée. Add pork to pot, cover with the mixture, and transfer to oven. If you are cooking stove-top, just bring up to a boil, and then lower to lowest setting. Leave for about four to five hours, stirring occasionally to make sure parts are not burning onto the bottom of the pot.

This dish can be made as much as two days ahead, letting it cool overnight sitting on the stove or in the oven covered or you can chill in the ‘fridge. The next morning, you can skim off the fat, if you like your pork tacos to be a little leaner.

Rewarm before continuing.

At this point, you can easily shred the shoulder with a fork. Meanwhile, working in batches, cook tortillas in a large heavy skillet over low heat until toasted or in cooking oil to shape them into the tacos you may be familiar with at Taco Bell. About 1 minute per side, and they’ll be done. Transfer to a large sheet of foil; wrap to keep warm.

Serve pork with tortillas, radishes soaked in a little white vinegar and salt, salsa and guacamole, chopped red onions, sliced limes for squeezing over the final taco, and chopped cilantro—encourage kids to get in on the process. My nephew loved doing the puréeing with the blender and he’s only three. But the experience of filling your own taco with whatever there is on the table makes everyone feel like it’s a special meal.

Salt and Bearss Limes--('Bare-ass Limes" as my Dad used to say!)

Purchasing dinner at La Reina, the whole birthday extravaganza came to about $40 for 8-10 people excluding the terrific Melville Pinot Noir from Verna’s Vineyard, from Northern Santa Barbara county. The 2013 vintage will be the last wine from this Vineyard, so get yourself to the stores and get your mitts on the last of this fine, earthy, mushroom/barnyard Pinot.

Nice price, when you consider how Old World it tastes.



Bringing this to work the next day is a cinch, all you need is a set of small plastic containers to carry the accompaniments separately. Then you can assemble after you reheat the meat and the tortillas in the micro.

Read more including Bobby’s slightly different take on how to make it at EPICURIOUS.COM. I’ll post our family guac and salsa recipes soon. Keep an eye out for them!

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