Wine and Cheese 101

by Maggie Bernat Smith

Wine and cheese have shared a harmonious relationship for thousands of years, almost since the very invention of wine. They are soul mates, meant to be…you won’t find a 51% divorce rate here! Although wine and cheese understand how exactly they belong together, for us on the outside, looking in, the question of how to choose a certain cheese to pair with a certain wine can often make us dizzy.

As with food and wine pairing in general, there are rules, but rules are meant to be broken…everything has an exception. For instance, Cabernet Sauvignon traditionally pairs with Sharp Cheddar. However, this doesn’t mean that all Napa Valley Cabs or French Bordeaux taste the same from every producer and every vintage. At the same time, Brie will have many different possible tastes, depending on that particular Brie’s origins. Wine and cheese are living, changing products, which is why people all over the world are fascinated by these delicious partners.

But despite my “no rules” policy, there are general guidelines to use when you go shopping:

•White wines generally pair well with soft cheeses and stronger flavors
•Red wines pair best with hard cheeses and milder flavors
•Dessert wines match best with blue cheeses and pungent flavors
•Using these guidelines will help you get past the intimidation you might feel from wine and cheese pairing. You’ll also feel freer to experiment with different wines and cheeses. Both the wine and cheese together are supposed change each other’s tastes, thereby heightening both experiences. I recommend tasting the wine before the cheese, and then tasting them together so you can clearly notice the differences in both when they are paired.

To be even more specific:

•Sauvignon Blanc & Chenin Blanc: Try goat cheese (Chevre). The high acidity and mineral undertones of these wines from Loire Valley (and beyond) love the richness and earthiness of chevre.
•Chardonnay: Taste this with Brie, Camembert, Gouda, or Provolone. The full-bodied, rich Chardonnays work well with washed rind cow’s milk cheeses as well as many cow’s milk blue cheeses. The apple, pear, and citrus flavors of this grape usually meld with the acids found in goat’s milk cheeses as well.
•Champagne: In my opinion, champagne can pair with anything and everything! Its high acidity cuts through rich and creamy cheeses such as triple-cream Brie but also pairs perfectly with Edam and Gruyere.
•Pinot Noir: If you have a “stinky” wine then pair it with a stinky cheese! Pinot Noir from a region such as Burgundy is heavenly with Epoisses (pronounced ay-PWAHSS). Epoisses has a pungent flavor and washed rind, and comes as spoonable, silky paste. Spread onto a French baguette and enjoy!
•Merlot & Cabernet Sauvignon: These wines tend to favor cow’s milk cheeses. The high acids in goat cheese tend to clash with the tannins in these wines, making for an unmemorable experience. Try hard, aged cheeses such as Cheddar, Stilton, aged Gouda, Parmesan, or some milder blue cheeses.
•Port: Port with Stilton is one of my all-time favorite combinations. This sweet wine seems to cut through the creaminess and saltiness of the cheese and classifies this pairing as a rule-breaker in every sense of the word. For dessert wines, the more pungent cheese flavors pair best.

Cheese and wine should act as a symphony playing in unison—delicate cheeses go with lighter wines, strong cheeses with more powerful wines. Experimentation is key. Try multiple cheeses with multiple wines and see what you like best.

Dessert wines for Valentines Day!

by Maggie Bernat Smith

If you seek pleasure in life and wine; then you should not miss out on dessert wine. This red-headed step child of the wine world rarely gets the attention it deserves anymore. Once the wine of kings is now rarely indulged by us. Valentines day is the perfect time of year to get reacquainted with this lost soul of the wine world. This Valentines day why don’t you skip the heart shaped box of chocolates and pour some tawny port over some ice cream (or whatever your delight). Lose the over-priced roses that are predicted, expected and show the utmost unoriginality and go for a bottle of Eiswein and serve it with some Humboldt fog blue cheese instead.

Dessert wines are deliciously high in alcohol, and high in sugar content. They are heavenly on their own but really shine when paired with cheeses or desserts. Although the common misconception is that they are cloyingly sugary sweet, the fact is the high acidity in these wines is what makes them glide across the palate, make your mouth water and crave sip after sip. Here’s just a few examples to entice your palate:

• Moscato d’Asti - Moscato d'Asti is a unique wine where the beautiful aromas of the grapes are enhanced by a crisp, nice acidity, a light fizziness and the sweetness of the natural residual sugar. The low alcohol content makes it a very easy, pleasant wine perfect to finish a meal with dessert, or alone as a nice mid-day break.


• Eiswein or Ice Wine - A German term meaning "ice wine," referring to a rich, flavorful dessert wine. Eiswein is made by picking grapes that are frozen on the vine and then pressing them before they thaw. Because much of the water in the grapes is frozen, the resulting juice is concentrated-rich in flavor and high in sugar and acidity The resulting wines have tropical fruit, peach or berry overtones. Older eisweins suggest caramel or honey


• Tawny Port - Tawny Port is a sweet or medium-dry dessert wine made from red grapes grown in Northern Portugal’s Douro Valley, fortified with grape neutral spirit (brandy) and aged in wood casks. Prolonged wood aging is the key ingredient that differentiates Tawny Port from Ruby Portt. It is vital to start out with excellent grapes in order to withstand the rigors of extended wood-aging, maintaining fruit flavors and supple structure. As a Tawny Port oxidizes in cask, the color of the wine slowly evolves from a purplish-ruby color to a lighter topaz-amber-brown. With this process you can expect this dessert wine to taste like pecan pie, roasted nuts, toffee and raisins.
  
  These are just a few examples of what to expect in dessert wines. They truly are a practice in decadence. The Noble Grape is having a sale this weekend, Friday through Monday, for Valentines day. Stop in, the knowledgeable staff there can answer any questions you have. Dessert wines come in all colors and flavors, depending on your fancy, it guarantees a good time!

Left Bank Bordeaux

by Maggie Bernat Smith

There’s not a lot of easy lessons about French wine, their labels are confusing and who knows what you are taking home to drink that night. Here’s the “easy button” for French wines.

• Red wine from Burgundy is Pinot Noir, the white is Chardonay



• Red wine from Bordeaux will be a Cabernet or Merlot dominated blend, the white is a Sauvignon Blanc blend



• Red wine from the Rhone valley will be Syrah or Grenache based. Their white wine is Viognier



• Languedoc is no rules, anything goes, but most times they will label which grape type you’re drinking

This is just the basic of the basics of French wine, there’s a multitude more to learn about each village, soil type, where the vineyards are located, who is making the wine, and you can just keep going. We are going to just focus on the left bank of Bordeaux today.

When a red wine is labeled Bordeaux, this means it’s a blend dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and possibly seasoned with some Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot or Malbec. The grapes can come from anywhere in the entire Bordeaux Region and can range from disappointing quaffs to great bargains so unless you know the reputations of the thousands of producers, then you just have to taste your way through them (or go to a small reputable wine shop who knows their wines). If you see Bordeaux Superieur on the bottle this means that the wine needs a minimum of .5% more alcohol which can translate to a fuller bodied style and they generally will use better plots of land with older vines to make a wine with more complexity then just your basic Bordeaux. A traditional basic Bordeaux will have characteristics such as red fruit, black currant, pencil lead and should be a soft easy-drinking wine. Great with warm weather braised dishes. If you are interested in these basic Bordeaux check out a wine shop like The Noble Grape, they have a great selection of these value wines.

Now when you hear about the Bordeaux wines that are the greatest wines created on earth, there are just a handful of producers and communes within Bordeaux that they are talking about. On the northwest part of the Gironde River running through the heart of Bordeaux is the Haut Medoc, within this region are communes (basically small geographical areas) that produce most of the First Growths (the best of Bordeaux wines). Here they are, you may have heard some of these names on Frazier over the years:

Chateau Margaux
Chateau Lafite-Rothschild
Chateau Latour
Chateau Haut-Brion
Chateau Mouton-Rothschild

These are the prized, most expensive, rarest wines of the world. If you don’t have several thousand dollars to drop on these wines that don’t reach their full potential for a couple of decades -- the key is to seek out the great second growths that have over the years proved themselves worthy of First Growth status but it’s just too hard to change laws in France so we call them Super Seconds. Although these wines generally start in the low hundreds, they are worth every penny. Some of the names that make this list are:

Chateau Leoville-Las-Cases
Chateau Leoville-Barton
Chateau Pichon-Longueville-Baron
Chateau Cos d'Estournel
Chateau Montrose
Chateau Palmer (although actually a third growth but it is so well respected that it is included on this list)

This is just a basic Bordeaux lesson that covers the Left Bank of the Gironde River. We will do another to provide you with a Right Bank lesson. Too much information can overwhelm when you are trying to learn about French wine. If you want to partake in the splendor of these great wines then go to Binny’s. They have a reserve room under lock and key for these wines. I recommend asking for a manager to really guide you through these at the time of purchase or just email me, I can help you sort through the magnificence in these bottles.

Napa Valley Wine

by Maggie Bernat Smith

Napa Valley is Napa Valley is Napa Valley. Unfortunately this is what the general consensus is when talking about the wines that come from here. But that is wrong and is comparable to saying that Chicago is the same wherever you go in this great city. Napa Valley is divided into 15 sub AVA’s (equivalent to neighborhoods in Chicago) with each “neighborhood” having its own personality, style, depth, longevity, and price tag. They range in prices from thousands of dollars to the low teens. So what is the difference between them? Take the fish they serve at Laurent Gras’ L20 compared to a fish fry at the local American Legion. Laurent buys and prepares fish that inspires and overwhelms people and changes the way they think about such a simple creature. The American Legion will buy the cheapest most basic fish that is edible and serves it in masses to the community; there is a price tag associated with each experience.

This is the same concept that goes along with Napa Cabs, Merlot, Pinot Noir and all wine that we consume. Take for instance the rugged terrain of the hillside or mountain fruit that comes with those higher price tags. There is limited space to plant vineyards up there, it’s more difficult to farm, these vineyards are generally hand picked and cared for because you can’t use machinery up there, you don’t get as many grapes per vine as you do in the valley so your production is lowered; however the grapes that you do get, and the wines that are produced from them, are the most tannic, structured, intense, concentrated, flavorful, has the longest ageing potential and arguably the best wines in the valley and therefore are priced higher.

If you buy one of these wines they are meant to be aged typically about 10 years before consumption. This lets those big tannins soften, flavors will develop and become more complex. It’s the equivalent to picking a flower before it has bloomed to enjoy it. Now if you want to enjoy your investment right away then buy a decanter and let it breathe for a couple of hours before consuming (just opening the bottle and letting it sit does nothing contrary to popular belief). The wine has to get out of that bottle and let oxygen hit most of it, that is why decanters have such large bases on them, its so the majority of the wine sees oxygen. This speeds up the ageing process and will show much more flavor then just pouring it into your glass, consuming it and wondering why you just paid all that money for this wine.

The reason that there are 15 sub AVA’s within the Napa Valley is that there had to be a proven difference between each area and that it will express itself in the wine (it’s what the French refer to as terroir). There is a flavor difference between a wine labeled Rutherford and one labeled Oakville. It’s up to us wine professionals to taste thousands of wines a year to really observe these differences and to pick up these flavors no matter how subtle and figure out the best value and which wine represents that region well (it’s a rough job). Since you probably don’ want to memorize each flavor and style profile each region or winery has just go into the smaller more boutiquey wine shops that are hands on, know their wine, and can advise you on the differences and pick out a special wine for whatever price and mood you may be in that day.

Stags Leap Napa Valley

by Maggie Bernat Smith

Since moving to Napa, I wanted to explore the different “neighborhoods” in the valley. In a previous article I had written about Napa, I compared it to different neighborhoods in Chicago. There are 15 sub AVA’s in Napa and I’ve decided to taste my way around them and compare notes and report back (I realize what a terrible life I have by the way). Yesterday I drove down the Silverado Trail which is off of the main highway 29. If you look to the east, Silverado Trail is the road right before the Vaca Mountains start to rise up. While traveling down this path, you will recognize the wineries that pepper both sides of the road are known for amazing quality. Wineries such as Clos du Val, Chimney Rock, Shafer, the list of historical wineries go on and on. If you are planning a trip to the valley and want to visit some of these places, I suggest calling ahead. A lot of these wineries are by appointment only and are in the pricier range for tasting (but worth the experience).

While grapes were planted in the valley mid-1800’s, the focus was not on European varietals (Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay – basically all the wine we drink and know today,) there were missionaries from all over settling here and planting their native grape varietals. Although this was a time when it was discovered that Napa’s volcanic soil was ideal for grape growing, it wasn’t till the 1960’s and 1970’s where the global recognition came and was hailed as a top quality growing region for Cabernet and Chardonnay. The infamous 1976 Paris tasting (see the movie Bottleshock) was a huge turning point to get not only California noticed but also the Stags Leap district. As you may know a snooty Englishman who had a snooty wine shop in Paris wanted to increase his sales of French wine so he organized a blind tasting pitting our relatively new California wines against the best wines of France. Well history was made, nine French judges awarded first place to the 1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon over first growth Bordeaux such as Mouton-Rothschild and Haut Brion and guess what ten years later when exactly the same wines were tasted a second time, the winner was yet another wine from the Stags Leap District: the 1972 Clos Du Val Cabernet Sauvignon!

So tasting my way through this historical district I came across mainly Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. The Cabernet’s while they all tasted different, each winemaker puts their own stamp on the outcome, were very soft and elegant. I didn’t see the harsh tannins that you can find when tasting in this price range (Stags Leap wines generally are around the $75 price point). I tasted mainly the 2007 current releases which is what you will find in the stores right now. The wines from Stags Leap seemed to have a lot of expression and were really enjoyable at such a young age. Although ageing them for 5 years would be my recommendation you certainly don’t need to. I saw generally dark fruit notes (plum and black berry) with mocha, tobacco and were elegantly spiced. I am seeing more French oak on these wines then traditional American which is more subtle and not overpowering on the palate. I especially loved the Chardonnay’s I tasted, again the movement away from American oak is such a happy change for me. They are much more Burgundian in style (soft and dreamy). I am hoping people will revisit Napa Chardonnays, they are not what they used to be (at least in Stags Leap, I’ll update you on my travels to what I find). When looking for wines in the stores from Stags Leap, go to the Napa Valley wines, they will be labeled Stags Leap if at least 85% of the grapes come from that district. Happy drinking!

Champagne vs. Sparkling Wine

by Maggie Bernat Smith

Bubbles vs. Bubbles, what's the difference? There are endless choices now of fizzy wines to choose from. Champagne being the most well known and most expensive of all the fizzy wine is where the tradition started, it's the original masterpiece. Champagne is the region outside of Paris where the bubbles were perfected and is the gold standard of sparkling wine today. Depending on your budget and palate, you can get a wide range of fizzies now and this will help you pick the right one.

How Bubbles Happen

Champagne Method or Traditional Method. This is where the second fermentation in the bottle was invented and perfected. A natural biproduct of the fermentation process (fermentation is where the yeasts eat the sugars and the result turns into alcohol) is carbonation. If you ever looked into a bin of grapes fermentating, you would see the juices bubbling. Wine goes through one fermentation process and gets bottled. To make Champagne, you will introduce another yeast and sugar cocktail, put a crown cap on the bottle and now the bubbles are trapped inside. This method creates the most refined and complex type of sparkling wine. The entire Champagne process takes a minimum of 15 months to complete and most will age for at least 3 years longer then this at the winery. This is one of the reasons why this method is so expensive.

Charmat or Tank Method. This is a cheaper and more timely way of creating bubbles in wine. This is where the winemaker conducts the second fermentation process in large tanks instead of individual bottles. This way they can make and bottle sparkling wine within a few weeks. Italian Asti's and Prosecco's are a good example of this method of sparkling.

Transfer Method. This method follows the same path till the second fermentation however after the second fermentation these bottles are opened under pressure and then they are emptied into a big tank to be filtered and fined in a larger quantity. This process saves time and is not that expensive too. However, the wine made through this process lacks the benefits of aging of yeast lees, which is supposed to add complexity and character to the wine. The transfer method delivers more quatity with low cost.

Differences between the processes are readily noticeable in their end products. Both the transfer and Charmat wines usually have larger, less-long-lasting bubbles. Méthode Champenoise bubbles are usually more integrated into the wine and longer lasting. Also, because of the additional time Méthode Champenoise takes to clear the wine of sediment, the flavors of yeast autolysis (chemical breakdown) add complexity and a creaminess to the wine that is absent in the faster methods.

Now that you're all educated on how bubbles get into the bottle and how that can affect the price, lets talk about the style and price you want to pay!

Champagne - obviously the most expensive, refined, finessed, toasty, creamy, most Heavenly sparkler on earth. You can buy good ones starting at $35 and going on up to whatever you can afford. I would stick the lesser known producers that don't market their product heavily since that is what you are paying for in a lot of these Champagnes. Duval Leroy is a great starter Champagne. Charles Krug is a favorite among wine people in the know but more pricey.

California Sparkling - a good quality alternative to Champagne. Many producers from Champagne have set up shop in California (such as Louis Roederer, Taittinger and Mumm) to make quality sparkling wine outside of Champagne. Since the climate in sunny California is much different then cool gray skies of Champagne; so your grapes get much riper giving you a more fruit driven style then French Champagne.

Cava - from Spain; this is a great area for less expensive sparklers. Clean, crisp, citrusy, minerally and fresh are the adjectives I use to describe this fizzy wine. Cava is made in the traditional method which gives you that extra added complexity but at a fraction of the price of Champagne ranging from $5 - $20 for a good one.

Prosecco - from Italy; a more fruit driven, almost sweet style of sparkling wine. This is great if you don't like your wine too dry. Ripe apples, pears, apricots and stone fruit are typical of this Italian Sparkling. Most of these range from $10 - $15 per bottle. Perfect for Mimosas, brunches and apertifs.

These are all sparklers I recommend for whatever occasion you may be celebrating or if you just like drinking fizzy wine like me!

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Excellent quality also comes in a box

Cuvee de Pena is a "Vin De Pays" (country wine), a step in the French wine classification which is above table wine, produced in Pyrénées-Orientales in the South of France near the border of Spain.

It is imported by Hand Picked Selections, who Robert Parker says is "Perhaps the top importer in the United States for specializing in wines that sell for less than $10."

Wine critics call this a very "friendly" wine. I tend to agree. Usually I have been disapointed by inexpensive French wines, but this one was an exception. Friends that tasted it were pleased as well.

Made with Grenache, Carignan, Syrah and Mourvedre - "Not only friendly, maybe the world’s most versatile wine. Just try to find a food it doesn’t work with! Cuvee de Peña happily accompanies hot dogs, tuna casserole, gourmet burgers, roast prime rib of beef, fish sticks, chinese carry-out, pizza... You get the picture.

In warm weather stick it in the fridge for half an hour - it won’t lose aromas or flavors. Keep it on hand!

The world’s friendliest red wine. “World’s Best Wine Values”
Robert M. Parker, Jr.’s The Wine Advocate

"The Wine Spectator Ripe, dark fruit flavors dominate this medium- to full-bodied red, with lovely chocolate pudding notes and smoky elements on the finish. Drink now through 2007. 20,000 cases made." Score: 87. —Kim Marcus, August 31, 2005.

"The Wine Advocate Available in a 3-liter bag-in-a-box, the 2003 Cuvee de Pena reveals plum and blackberry aromas. Light to medium-bodied and silky-textured, this excellent value (3 liters for $20 comes out to $5 a bottle!) displays spicy dark fruits intermingled with hints of cedar in its expressive character. Drink it over the next year." Score: 86. —Pierre Rovani, June 2005.