Monthly Archives: December 2011

Many of us use the beginning of the new year to take stock, examining our lives and bodies and, finding faults, we resolve to correct them. For the next month or two, we flail around the gym in sweaty desperation, lay siege to armies of dust soldiers in their well-defended closet fortresses, or simply try to “be more positive.” Worthy pursuits, all.

But surely you deserve a fun (and easy) resolution or two as well. Consider adding one of the following to your list:

1. Drink more sparkling wine. Many people indulge in elegant Champagnes tonight, but for most, it’s the only time of year they break out the bubbly. Cava, Prosecco, Crémant and, yes, Champagne, are wonderful at any time of year, and pair well with all sorts of foods. The pop of a cork makes any gathering feel more festive.

2. Drink some dessert wine. I’ve attended very few parties where one has been served, and I can’t think of the last time a dining companion ordered one in a restaurant. Any dessert wine worth its salt isn’t just candy in a bottle; it will exhibit a delicious balance of sweetness, acid and perhaps even some minerals, wood or other flavors. Ask for a recommendation in your price range at your local wine shop, and I am 100% certain you’ll delight your guests. Or heck, just drink it yourself.

3. Drink some rosé. Sweet, boring White Zinfandel ruined the reputation of rosé in this country, therefore any American winemaker who produces a proper dry rosé probably really puts his or her heart into it. But dry rosés from anywhere can be a delight, particularly in warmer weather. I can think of few finer ways to lunch than sitting outside in the sun, dining on simple picnic fare with friends, a glass of rosé in hand.

4. Get out of your cocktail rut. Type “Classic Cocktails” into a search engine, and you’ll find all sorts of fun, time-tested ideas (or, of course, you can click on one of the spirits listed just to the right). If you’re feeling more adventurous, make your own cocktail recipe. A good rule of thumb is to use a base liquor (like vodka, gin, brandy, etc.), a smaller amount of a liqueur (like triple sec, crème de cassis, maraschino) and a mixer (fresh lime juice, pineapple juice, cranberry juice). If it feels like it’s missing something, add a dash of bitters.

5. Go into your favorite wine shop and ask for something weird. Sometimes for my birthday, I request that party guests do this for my gift. I’ve received everything from root beer schnapps to a wine from Santorini that tasted like stone and sunshine. If the wine store employee looks at you like you’re crazy, resolve to find another wine store.

Happy New Year!

Germany has some of the loveliest Christmas and New Year’s Eve traditions anywhere in the world. But one of my favorites has yet to catch on in this country, perhaps because of its daunting name: Feuerzangenbowle (literally “fire tong punch”). Pronounced “FOY-yer-tsahng-en-bowl-eh,” this drink brings serious Gemütlichkeit to any gathering.

First, and most important, be sure your fire extinguisher has been recently recharged and is within easy reach. Feuerzangenbowle, like most great party drinks, involves an element of risk.

To make this delicious and heady punch, you set a cone of rum-soaked sugar aflame over some mulled wine. It melts into the wine, sweetening and strengthening it. Since you’re adding a fair amount of sugar into the punch, it’s best to use a very dry red wine. This year I used a 2010 Venta Morales Tempranillo, because that’s what I had lying around, but I usually opt for an inexpensive Bordeaux.

It’s also important to use a rum of the appropriate strength. A Rhum Agricole with around 53% alcohol, like Chauffe-Cœur from the island of Martinique, works quite well and flambées relatively easily (purchased for $27 at Andersonville Wine & Spirits, tel. 773-769-0858). Do not — and I can’t stress this enough — do not use Bacardi 151. The first time I attempted to prepare Feuerzangenbowle without the aid of German friends, I made this mistake. The flames almost reached the ceiling, dazzling my guests, horrifying my roommate and singeing my eyebrows.

Now, if you’re prepared to embark on the adventure that is Feuerzangenbowle, here is your shopping list:

3 Bottles of dry red wine

1 Bottle of rum with 50% alcohol (100 proof) or higher

2 Oranges

1 Lemon

15-20 Cloves

4 or 5 Sticks of cinnamon

1 Zuckerhut (sugar cone) or 250 grams (8.8 oz) of sugar cubes

Start by juicing the oranges and lemons, reserving the peels. Stud two halves of a juiced orange with cloves and place them in a large stainless-steel or ceramic-clad pot (avoid non-stick in this case). Add in the two halves of the lemon and the orange/lemon juice. Do not use store-bought orange or lemon juice — it’s important to use fresh juice and peels. (The classic recipe calls only for peels, but I enjoy the additional texture and tartness the fresh juice provides.)

Add in the cinnamon sticks and pour in the wine. Slowly heat the mixture to just below a simmer — do not let it boil. Be sure the orange halves are clove-side down, so that all the cloves are in contact with the wine. You could just toss the cloves in, rather than sticking them in the peels, but then it’s much easier for them to end up in someone’s mug.

Once the wine is heated, I like to place four pot holders on the table and set an old cookie sheet on top. With the Feuerzangenbowle pot on the cookie sheet, it’s less likely flaming rum will end up on your table.

Set a Feuerzange (sugar tray) onto the pot, and lay the Zuckerhut (sugar cone) in the tray. These two items can be difficult to find. If you live near a German deli or specialty shop, they will likely carry sugar cones this time of year. If not, you can order them online from GermanDeli.com.

Even if you can find a sugar cone, you will also need a Feuerzange in which to lay the cone over your pot of wine. These specialized metal trays can be even more difficult to find, unfortunately. GermanDeli.com sells them here, or you can try GermanGrocery.com.

Should you fail to obtain a Zuckerhut and a Feuerzange, do not despair. Instead, purchase a box of sugar cubes and a sturdy metal sieve you don’t mind throwing away (be sure the sieve has a tab opposite the handle, so that you can lay it across a pot). Place the sugar cubes in the sieve and lay it across the Feuerzangenbowle pot.

Pour some rum over the sugar. If you have a sugar cone, turn it over so that you soak both sides. Gather your party guests, and light the sugar cone on fire. It helps to have a lighter with a long neck, so that your hands are as far from the flames as possible. The flames will last a little while, but it’s necessary to spoon additional rum over the sugar cone from time to time to keep it burning and melting. Again, a spoon with a long handle is best, so that you’re not too close to the flame.

Do not attempt, in fear, to toss spoonfuls of rum onto the burning sugar. The flames will only be larger (see right), and rum flung from a spoon has a much greater chance of landing on your table, still aflame. It’s best to carefully move a rum-filled spoon over the sugar, ignite the rum while it’s still in the spoon, and slowly pour it over the sugar.

If your sugar cone goes out before it’s fully melted, spoon some more rum over the cone and reignite it with the lighter.

Once the sugar has completely melted into the wine, remove the Feuerzange or sieve, give the punch a stir and ladle into small mugs. A final warning: Feuerzangenbowle is potent stuff — it’s easy to become quickly intoxicated.

Happy New Year, and Prost!

Living in Chicago, far from any wine country of note, it can be hard to feel connected to the winemaking process, the most important parts of which happen in the vineyard. It was therefore especially fascinating to meet Bruce Curtis, the E-Commerce Manager of Artesa Vineyards and Winery, at this year’s Wine Blogger Conference. He works on the front lines of the American wine industry in Napa Valley.

Whether you prefer drinking Cabernet or Counoise, what happens in the northern California vineyards affects all of us wine consumers in the United States. I checked in with Bruce to see how this year’s harvest turned out:

2011 will go down as a winemaker’s year in Northern California, meaning each and every winemaker this side of the Golden Gate Bridge really had to earn his or her keep and be super-proactive throughout the entire season.  This was not one of those years where the winemaker could coast along on semi-auto pilot; it was a challenge the entire way, to say the least.

The season began cool and wet which lasted through most of the spring. The rain also came during the most sensitive time of year …pollination. This can lead to disaster if the vines get damaged, resulting in lighter crops. The summer was decent, and gave the vines a fighting chance to pull off a great finish to a slow beginning.  Alas, Mother Nature would not let us get away with it that easy, and she threw a massive curve ball of rain across Northern California in early fall that pretty much lasted until the end of the growing season.

Being in the Carneros region of the Napa Valley [at a relatively high elevation in the mountains], Artesa’s vineyards escaped a lot of the botrytis issues that most areas suffered heavily from, and they also managed to bring in most of their white varietals before the wet weather set in. For those growers and wineries that didn’t, the outcome was pretty tough with a lot of loss up and down the valley.

The silver lining that comes from such a hard year is that having less of a yield means the grapes picked were much more highly concentrated, bringing in super quality grapes for what we hope will be super quality wines, putting a cork on the end of a very tough, rough and tiring season!

I’ll drink to that.

It sounds like though it was a tough year, those wines that do come out of 2011 will be quite good. I’ll drink to that as well!

Thank you to Bruce Curtis for putting this report together. You can follow Artesa Vineyards on Facebook, and you can read my impressions of their tasty Pinot Noir here.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

During the dark, cold days around the winter solstice, it’s a great comfort to drink rich, hearty red wines. They warm the soul and tend to pair well with the similarly rich, hearty foods served this time of year.

I’d been saving a bottle of 2005 Tabarrini Montefalco Sagrantino, received as a free sample at the Wine Blogger Conference, for just this season. Having already sampled this wine at the Conference, I knew I wanted to try it with some steak. A recent visit to my rather carnivorous parents provided the perfect opportunity.

The Tabarrini family has tended their 55 acres of vineyards just south of the Umbrian town of Montefalco for four generations, according to their website, but they have bottled their own wines only since the late 1990s. Half of their vineyards are dedicated to Sagrantino, a thick-skinned local variety which almost died out in the 20th century. The varietal really came into its own in 1992, when it lent its name to the Montefalco Sangrantino DOCG (as distinct from the Montefalco DOCG, which produces more “basic” wines, according to The Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia).

I found conflicting opinions about the current state of Sagrantino-based wines, oddly in two books by the same author. In The Oxford Companion to Wine, Jancis Robinson argues that with some notable exceptions, “the overall level of viticultural and oenological sophistication in the production zone is not high…” But The World Atlas of Wine by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson describes Sagrantino as “packed with flavor and potential longevity,” and goes so far as to hail the varietal as one of Umbria’s two “great gifts to the world of wine” (Grechetto is the other).

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