Holiday Party Wine Pairing 

 

November 27, 2007 

 

It's that time of year again, crackling fires, snowy nights, runny noses, turtle necks and eggnog. Ah the holidays, time to be selfless and huddle in close with friends and family to celebrate, relax and make merry. For those of us who will be entertaining this holiday season, it can also be a time of stress and anxiety, short tempers and impatience, and ultimately missing the point of the literally thousands of Hollywood movies made to give us perspective on the ?reason for the season.? If you are like most people, you will undoubtedly have guests in your home for the holiday?s who you will need amuse and satisfy, and there is no better way to both amuse and satisfy than by selecting the right alcohol for your holiday gathering.  

 

Having the right wine to compliment the h'ordourves for your cocktail party can sometimes be needlessly stressful. The main thing to remember is to relax; armed with a basic knowledge of wine style and a general idea of the food it will be paired with, you will actually enjoy your wine buying experience. The possible food and wine combinations are only limited by your own imagination and you should experiment whenever possible keeping in mind just a few general guidelines.  

 

For the majority of people the most intimidating aspect of food in wine pairing is understanding exactly what is supposed to be accomplished when a specific wine is paired with a specific food. Perceiving what you are tasting and ultimately what pairs well with what is a learned skill of which we are all capable, it just requires a little more intention than most of us are used to in preparing a meal. The most important aspect of food and wine pairing, and it may be counterintuitive, is that wine flavor is secondary to the wine?s mouthfeel, texture and aroma. Wine should never be the centerpiece of a meal, but rather used to enhance the character of the dishes you create. Wine should be viewed more as salt and pepper and not a separate course. 

 

Here are some examples of typical appetizers and wine styles with which to experiment. Seafood, shrimp, lobster, scallops, crab, fish etc., when it comes to lighter more delicate meats, white wines are generally preferred. The bright acidity of many white wines tends to accentuate the buttery and creamy nature of most seafood. Acid in wine is like a turbocharger for flavor sending the taste buds into a frenzy and drawing out the mouth?s perception of flavor. Sauvignon Blanc and Fume Blanc are favorites among sea food lovers. The nose of a Sauvignon Blanc will generally have citrus and tropical fruits coupled with a slight asparagus or tinned vegetable, followed by a shock to the tongue with a bright, acidic, long lasting mouthfeel. New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc?s are recognized as the best and will vary in price, but a very good bottle can be found for less than $12. Try Park Farm?s Fume La Crosse or Sunday Afternoon with your next seafood dish or appetizer.  

 

One of the more challenging appetizers to pair with wine is cheese. The array of cheese and its variable intensity must be taken into account when selecting a wine. Lighter, milder cheeses go well with less intense and neutral wines. Mild cheddar, for example, will go well with Pinot Grigio, Riesling, Vidal and Beaujolais, where more intense and robust cheese like Monterrey Jack and Gouda go well with a heavy Cabernet or red Zinfandel. The naturally high protein in cheese will soften rough tannins in most heavy reds, resulting in a more round and even mouthfeel. Very intense cheeses like Brie or Blue Cheese are in a special category and call for special consideration. Port, a high alcohol, fortified wine with high residual sugar is about the only selection that will stand up to the powerful flavors of Brie and Blue cheese. Port is also an excellent after dinner or dessert wine and pairs very well with dark chocolate.  

 

Fresh fruit, nuts, crackers and bread are other common h?ordourves and can be paired with a variety of wines both red and white. Take into consideration the texture and flavor of your appetizers when trying to decide which wine goes with which dish. Fresh fruit often pairs well with fruitier wines like a White Zinfandel, sweet rose?s and blushes. Rich nuts like walnuts lend themselves to full, bodied, high tannin red wines. Again the protein and the oil of the nuts will help round out the tannins and give heavy reds a more even mouthfeel. Bread and crackers are somewhat neutral dishes and can go well with a variety of wines. Try herb bread with olive oil paired with a California Chardonnay or dry Riesling.  

 

Ultimately it is your choice and preference of what wines pair well with what foods, these are just ideas and are by no means rules. Whenever possible, try and have a variety of wines to pair with your h?ordourves, even if they do not seem to go together it will at least give you a reference point and maybe an understanding of why they do not pair. Ask your guests which wines they prefer paired with specific dishes and make it an activity of your holiday party. Both you and your guests will be amazed as to how dramatically wine changes the flavor of your dishes and vice versa. Have fun and enjoy this holiday season.  

 

Jim Cushman 

 

Tips On Buying Wine 

 

December 11, 2007 

 

One of the most arduous tasks for any novice wine drinker is knowing exactly which wine to buy. With an almost endless selection in any liquor or grocery store, the tendency for most people is to choose a wine based solely on the look of the bottle and label. There has been extensive research in the wine industry on what drives a consumer to purchase a specific bottle of wine and overwhelmingly it is what is on the outside of the bottle rather than its contents that secures a sale. From an industry perspective, this is what we expect and in fact hope. If we can entice a prospective buyer into trying our wine based on the label and the bottle, chances are he/she will continue to purchase the same bottle again and again if in the end he/she was satisfied. Essentially it is human nature to stay within our comfort zone and to stick to what is familiar.  

 

I will be the first to admit that I have bought wine based on the look of the bottle and the label and unless I have tasted the wine before, it is how I still choose what wine to buy. In no way do I feel this is a wine buying faux pas, you can learn a lot about the profile of a specific wine based on clues and keywords from the label and even the style of bottle. 

 

When you walk into liquor store intent on buying a bottle of wine, it is important to understand how the wine section is organized. Generally most wine is categorized first by region, (California, France, Italy, Iowa etc.) second by style, (white, red, blush, dry, sweet, etc.) and finally by grape varietal (Cabernet, Riesling, Zinfandel, La Crosse, etc.). For the sake of space I will assume that you already have an idea of what region, style and varietal you want to buy and have found your way to that section of the liquor store. Find the prettiest bottle with the sexiest label, in your price range, remove it from the shelf and immediately turn it over. The back label of almost any bottle of wine will give you an indication of the wine style and if you know what to look for, it can sometimes, but not always, give an indication of the wine?s quality.  

 

Let?s assume you are looking for the highest quality, reasonably priced Merlot. First, read the wine description. When I read the back label I am looking for specifics on the year of the harvest (vintage) the style in which it was made, (full bodied, heavily oaked, etc.) the character of the nose (jammy, notes of blueberry, hints of cherry etc.) and finally if the wine was produced by the winery that is selling it. Being specific in wine descriptions is often, but not always, an indication of higher quality. There is a multitude of regulations, both industry standards and federal/state government laws that dictate what can and cannot be printed on a wine label and often if a winery takes the time to mention certain specifics, vintage, appellation, varietal, and vineyard name, that bottle of wine is one of which they are particularly proud.  

 

The one area of the back label that is the most important to me personally is written at the very bottom under the description. Not the alcohol content, but rather one of four, required phrases describing the way in which the wine was manufactured, Cellared and Bottled, Vinted and Bottled, Produced and Bottled, or Grown, Produced and Bottled. Cellared and Bottled means the wine was most likely made by a winery other than the winery that is selling the wine. Produced and Bottled means the winery selling the wine physically fermented and finished the wine and similarly, Grown, Produced and Bottled means the winery grew the grapes, fermented and finished the wine. Vinted and Bottled is the most generic descriptor and can mean the winery produced the wine, bought the finished wine and bottled it, blended finished wine with wine it produced, or uncorked and recorked a bottle of already finished wine. Often wineries will use Vinted and Bottled on non vintage wines (wines without a year on the label) so they can save money on labeling costs by not having to change the label year after year. This is why there are fewer wines with Produced and Bottled on the label.  

 

My personal theory is that when a winery takes the time to go through the laborious, government label submission just to put a few specifics on the label that are not required and most people do not understand, then that particular wine is something they want you to associate with their winery.  

 

Unfortunately there is no real way of knowing if you are going to be satisfied with a particular bottle of wine just from the label, but as you browse the wine aisles reading the back labels and trying different wines you will most likely recognize commonalities in the labels of wines you know you enjoy. Once you familiarize yourself with wine label vocabulary, it is much easier to recognize specific standards. Ultimately it comes down to what is important to you, if you know you like a wine buy it regardless of label, but if you are looking to branch out remember the more specifics on a wine label, the higher the industry standards are for that bottle of wine.  

 

Jim Cushman 

 

Napa Valley Travel Journal 

 

January 8, 2008 

 

About a month ago, I had the opportunity to tour ten different wineries in Napa Valley as part of the CAEP post harvest tour. The CAEP is the California Education Program and is a way for foreign viticulture and Enology students to come to the United States and experience harvest and crush in California. The students on the tour were from all over the world and had varying degrees of experience ranging from master winemakers to professional cellar rats. As part of the tour we were introduced to most of the winemakers at each winery and we had the opportunity to pick their brains and ask questions about equipment, technique and winemaking philosophy. It was, to say the least, a very humbling experience.  

 

Winemaking and winegrowing in Napa Valley is on a completely different scale than here in the Midwest. Most of the wineries we visited could fit the entire 2007 Park Farm vintage into one of their smaller tanks. A few of the wineries had estate vineyards hundreds of acres larger than all the vineyards in Iowa combined and many ?boutique? wineries had a production larger than the state of Iowa?s wine production. One of the wineries we visited, Artesa, had a 60,000 gallon royal cuvee? blending tank which they mainly used for storing water (Dave Dobson, head winemaker at Artesa said they would drained the tank in two days during peak water usage).  

 

Two of the wineries we visited, Rodney Strong and Simi, had over 40,000 barrels with two fulltime crews who spent their days topping off, emptying and filling barrels year round. I would venture to guess that these wineries have more money in bungs (the cork on top of a barrel) than the state of Iowa has in oak barrels. Needless to say, the scale of California?s wine production is enormous, but their focus is the same as ours in the Midwest, to grow the best fruit and to make the best wine that Mother Nature allows in any given growing season. 

 

I would have to say the highlight of the trip for me was our visit to Quintessa winery. Quintessa is by no means a typical Napa Valley winery. The head winemaker Charles Thomas had a very unique take on commercial wine production. Thomas is a very unpretentious, down to earth individual who spends as much time in the vineyard as he does in the winery and he has adopted biodynamics as the method for wine growing and wine making. Biodynamics is an up and coming fad in agriculture (if there is such a thing) and focuses on creating a symbiotic relationship between the crop and its natural environment without using manmade chemicals. Everything in biodynamic agriculture is done naturally and organically, but it also has an element of spirituality. Those who rigorously practice biodynamics believe that field work such as planting, fertilizing, pruning and harvesting should be correlated with specific stages of the moon so as to realize the full potential of the crop. Charles Thomas at Quintessa doesn?t take his biodynamic vineyard quite to that level, but he does believe in being as natural and as gentle as possible when growing and handling the fruit.  

 

There were many elements of Quintessa that made it the most interesting stop in Napa Valley and set it apart from any other winery. First, the winery itself is not open to the public, only through special appointments and some serious cash can someone off the street get a tour and tasting. Second, Quintessa only produces one wine each year, a cabernet blend, for which they use only the best grapes from their vineyard and charge around $125 a bottle. Third, all the grapes were hand harvested at night and hand sorted in the morning. Workers removed any MOG (matter other than grapes) and loaded the grapes from the top of the tank rather than crushing and pumping the must (grape juice, including skins and seeds) into one of the valves on the tank. Fourth, no yeast is added to the must and fermentation is left to the natural and wild yeast living on the skins of the grapes. This is almost unheard of in large scale commercial operations and can be very risky if not monitored. Finally, Quintessa does not filter their wine, they believe that filtering the wine is too rough on the finished product and strips away the more delicate flavor components that are essential for the profile of wine they are attempting to produce.  

 

So the question is, is all this pie in the sky, hocus pocus really worth paying $125? Well, maybe not every day, but when we began to sample Quintessa?s 2004 vintage and the room began to fill with an aroma of blueberry, dark cherry and spice it was apparent that it is a very special wine. What impressed me most about Quintessa was that it managed to somehow bypass the modernization of winemaking, to resist the temptation of commercializing and mass producing a product and take us back to the most basic elements and what winemaking has been for thousands of years; dirt, water and sunshine. 

 

Jim Cushman 

 

Iowa Grape Varietals 

 

January 22, 2008 

 

When I occasionally work the tasting room at Park Farm I am often asked the question of why we do not make a Cabernet, Merlot, Chardonnay, Riesling etc. I had mistakenly thought that it was common knowledge that Cabernet, Chardonnay, etc. are grape varietals and not wine styles. Being in the industry and living and breathing wine every single day it is easy forget that most people couldn't care less what grape the wine is made of as long as it tastes good. Nevertheless I think it is a worthy topic for discussion. Wine has traditionally been defined by the climate and soil in which it is grown or terroir and is generally more important than even the variety of the grape.  

 

The short answer as to why we don't make wines from vinifera varieties (Cabernet, Chardonnay etc.) is that they are extremely difficult if not impossible to grow in this part of the country. Iowa's climate presents a dilemma to the grape grower. First, as illustrated by the current weather, Iowa winters can be bitterly cold and unfortunately most vinifera have an absolute threshold around 0 degrees Fahrenheit. You could, if you were very determined, bury the vines each winter; however this is very labor intensive and requires special trellising techniques and also special equipment if it is to be done on any large scale.  

 

The second dilemma for the Iowa grape grower is the growing season. We have a comparatively short growing season and even if vinifera varieties could withstand Iowa's winters, chances are the fruit would never ripen sufficiently to make wine. Finally, Iowa's summers can be very hot with high humidity. Unfortunately most molds and mildews thrive in this kind of environment and become difficult to control. This requires either labor intensive or chemical intensive programs in order to properly manage and sustain on any commercial basis. 

 

So the obvious question is what are we doing trying to grow grapes in Iowa? There really is no short or intelligent answer to that question. The best I can figure is Iowans are stubborn and if someone tells us we can't do something chances are we'll try to do it just to prove he or she is wrong. In all honesty the main reason why we grow grapes in Iowa is actually due to a stubborn man from Wisconsin named Elmer Swenson.  

 

As a hobby, Elmer Swenson began cross pollinating French vitis vinifera grape varietals with the native American or vitis riparia varietals. The idea was to create a hybrid that could withstand harsh winters, ripen in a short growing season and be less susceptible to molds and mildews. The resulting seedlings were called French Hybrids and are what we currently plant in the Midwest. Elmer Swenson began breeding in 1943 and continued to his death in 2004 producing hundreds of French Hybrids, nearly a dozen of which are planted heavily throughout Iowa and the Midwest.  

 

From the work of Elmer Swenson, two highly respected grape breeding programs were born in the late sixties, one at the University of Minnesota, the other at Cornell University in New York. Almost all of the remaining 50 or so grape varieties grown in Iowa came from either of these two programs, with more varieties being released every year. Although we have numerous varieties that can survive, ripen and are somewhat disease resistant, we now need to determine the best varieties to grow and where to grow them. This is where the French term terroir comes from. Terroir is essentially the sum of all the variables that go into an individual vine or vineyard's fruit production, i.e. soil composition, rain fall, slope, temperature, humidity etc. It is also the historic method of describing the wine's character.  

 

Grape vines are very fickle and every aspect of their environment is expressed in the fruit they produce. In our small vineyard alone, there is a very noticeable difference between fruit on the east exposure and fruit on the west exposure on even the same vine. The wine which results from any given vineyard in any given vintage is essentially the sum of all the different ripening stages of all the different vines.  

 

Because the Iowa wine industry is so young and the focus is spread on so many separate varieties the correct terroir for the correct varieties has yet to be defined. Also, because the majority of Iowa wine is made with residual sweetness, the true fruit character is often masked by sugar.  

 

Despite the youth of the commercial Iowa wine industry, I know there is a bright future. With the determined nature of most Iowan?s and our strong history of agriculture, it won't be long before we determine the best areas for grape growing in the state. If the developing wine culture in the state continues to grow, as I think it will, it won't be long before we are producing high quality fruit and subsequently high quality wine with a distinctly Iowa character.