Holiday Gifts

I know it's early, but it's never really too early to think about gifts for those you care about. And especially with the rush of the end-of-the-year holidays, it's best to start early so you can enjoy yourself later.
That's why I was scrutinizing the books and gift boxes that came to my attention in the last few months for holiday gift-giving potential. Following are my favorites:

For those who love to choose the wine but leave the food to others: Harry and David “Founder’s Favorite Gift Box” $79.95.  Attractively packaged in one gift box, this culinary treasure trove was a treat to open and savor. The Founder's Favorite (there are many different gift boxes to choose from) showcases fresh pears, apples, cheese, black pepper-encrusted dry salami, crackers, pepper and onion relish, and snacks and desserts like Raspberry Galettes, Chocolate Moose Munch, truffles and Bing Cherry Chocolates. It’s an easy, elegant picnic or portable lunch for 2-4 in a box. All you have to do is add a bottle of wine!

 For anyone who likes to cook and craft: Gourmet Gifts by Dinah Corley; Harvard Common Press, $19.95 (paperback). This book of edible gifts contains many recipes, from nuts and cookies to more unusual items like handmade herbal tea sachets and creme fraiche fudge. What adds to the fun is that Corley makes the presentation of the gift as important as the gift itself. She suggests such novel presentations as a chocolate chiffon cake in a hat box, and a poster-sized peach fruit leather in a shipping tube. Includes recipes for Orange Essence Wine (a staple in Southern France) and Cool Cucumber Vodka.

For Francophiles: The Bonne Femme Cookbook by Wini Moranville; Harvard Common Press,  $24.95 (hardback).  This book takes you from amuse-bouches to desserts using the ideas, techniques and traditions of the French home cook (bonne femme roughly means housewife). It focuses on casual, everyday cooking rather than 12-step recipes for culinary masterpieces. A sample of the recipes: Cucumbers with Mint, Chickpea Soup, Blanquette of Pork, French Lasagne and Tres French Green Beans. Along the way, the author tells amusing and informative stories of her personal encounters with French food, culture and people. Great food to go with your French wine.

For Italian food junkies: Piatto Unico: When One Course Makes A Real Italian Meal by Toni Lydecker; Lake Isle Press, $19.95 (paperback).  Another look at home-style cooking, this time from Italy. This book focuses on the one-course Italian meal, traditionally peasant food or that associated with religious festivals and funerals. Peasant food never sounded so good: Rice, Beans and Sausages in Red Wine Sauce, Brothy Bread Soup with Poached Eggs, and Mountain Salad with Bacon, Fontina and Sweet-Sour Onions.  Especially helpful are the author's shopping and cooking tips in such asides as "Italian Market Strategies," and "At the Butcher, Fishmonger and Deli Counter."
 

Interesting Box Wine from Octavin

Just when I was thinking of whipping up a great sangria for a party (according to my friend Marimar Torres's classic Spanish recipe), I was introduced to Octavin's Osborne Seven, a blend of seven red Spanish varietals.
At $21.99 for a 3-liter box that keeps the wine fresh for as long as six weeks, it's quite a deal.
Now before you start questioning the idea of wine in a box, consider this: boxed wine, or bag-in-box, as the French call it, is the fastest-growing segment of the French wine market. If France, that stronghold of wine tradition, can accept wine in a box, I think we can too. For more on this issue, see my story in Wine Enthusiast magazine's November issue.
Osborne Seven has classic Spanish red varietals: Tempranillo, Garnacha, and Graciano, along with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah and Petit Verdot, in a yummy blend that is moderate in alcohol (13.6%) and high on soft tannins and luscious fruit. Mixed with a little gin, Cognac and orange liqueur, plus lots of fresh fruit, it made a fantastic sangria.
Octavin has a line of eight-sided, self-serve packages that contain premium wine, including the one I tried after my sangria success, Herding Cats, a white blend from South Africa. Crisply acidic, with moderate alcohol (13.5%), the blend of Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc was a pleasant aperitif and accompaniment to grilled fish and chicken at a barbecue. $24 for a 3-liter box. Available nationally in the U.S.

China a Power in the Wine World?

Wealthy Chinese buyers are snapping up the world's most valuable wines at auction and, at home, they are entering a whole new world of wine production, enticing some of the world's best brands to their shores.

Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite) is currently planting vines on property the company bought in Shandong Province. See my story on this on Wine Enthusiast's web site.  Moet Hennessy is also planning to make a premium sparkling wine in China. 

 Wine Enthusiast magazine will soon publish another story I wrote on wine investment and China figures into this story, too. Chinese buyers are actively involved in making wine one of the most dynamic of the so-called "investments of passion." The Chinese seem to have a special affection for First Growth Chateau Lafite, but it doesn't stop there.

   

Le Sole Mio in Port-Vendres

This is fideuà, a Spanish dish that is a type of paella with short pasta strands instead of rice. This one was made with fish stock and large "gambas" (shrimp), and served to me and a group of wine writers recently at the beachfront Le Sole Mio restaurant in the picturesque southern French town of Port-Vendres near the Spanish border. With it, we drank some lovely local wines, Les Clos de Paulilles Collioure rosé (Syrah and Grenache) and Les Clos de Paulilles Collioure blanc (Grenache blanc). The restaurant is next door to Clos des Paulilles winery, the makers of some very good fortified Banyuls wine.


This last picture is of a very smart cat who waited until the humans were finished to sample one of the gambas.

Typical Sicilian Street Food?

I don't know how typical it is, but across the street
from the excellent Caruso and Minini winery in Marsala, I encountered a street food vendor with this pile of spiky sea urchins looking like round porcupines.  

One of my traveling companions, wine critic and
educator Michele Shah, forked over two Euros for
two of the creatures and the vendor cut them open with what looked like a pair of pruning shears and  then offered them for eating right there on the street. Michele offered a taste to everyone, but I wasn't hungry.


Even after living for almost six years in Japan, I am not a big raw fish eater. Interesting-looking, though.

Just Another Day at the Office

Dinner at Chateau Lafite Rothschild in Bordeaux and a tour of the private cellar:

With my foie gras ravioli and main course of sauced turbot I drank a 1990 Lafite. Diane Flammand, one of the winemakers at Domaines Barons de Rothschild, explained that it was an unusually opulent vintage for Lafite and one of her personal favorites. (She‘s a fan of California wines, too) The 1990 Lafite was amazingly fresh for a 21-year-old wine and the feature I was most entranced with was its mouthfeel: so silky you hardly need to swallow, it just glides down your throat.

Had the rare opportunity to descend stone steps to the private wine cellar of Baron Eric de Rothschild in the main chateau he calls home when he’s in Bordeaux and was astounded to find dusty, cob-webbed bottles dating as far back as 1797. Besides its heady aromas, stimulating tastes and mood-softening properties, wine provides an amazing link through time. In the same room with me were wines that survived Napolean, The French Revolution and WWII when Nazis occupied the Lafite grounds and plundered most of the recent vintages. The family, knowing that the Germans were coming, hid many of the historic bottles.

　

The Sweet Life

The setting: Chateau Rieussec in Sauternes, France, next door to Chateau D’Yquem and considered second only to Yquem among Sauternes producers. It was a beautiful, bright May morning and the vineyard property -- a chateau for receiving guests, a wine production facility and more than 300 acres of neat, orderly vines with vibrant red rose bushes edging the vine rows -- all spelled quality with a capital Q. I tasted the 2002 and 2010 vintages to see how the latest vintage -- a stellar one according to reports -- tasted, and to see one that has been evolving in the bottle. The 2010 was luscious and heavily concentrated in the mouth with firm acidity but lacked distinct flavors and aromas that will emerge during the planned two years in the barrel before it is released. The ‘02 had a powerful honeyed nose with flavors of apricot , white flowers and that sumptuous mouthfeel Sauternes fans luxuriate in. Michel Negrier, export manager for Les Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite), which owns Chateau Rieussec among other properties in Bordeaux, Languedoc and around the world, told me that Europe is still the main export market for Sauternes, but Asia -- especially China, South Korea and Japan, is the real emerging market for Sauternes.