Thanksgiving Recipe: 1998 Aligote and Pumpkin Ravioli Pierre Morey Burgundy France

Posted on November 12, 2015 by waywardwine

So we cook dinner most nights. We also drink wine. Sometimes, we manage to do both simultaneously.  And sometimes we don’t regret it.  Why not share our marginally passable pairings with you, the internet?

This Fall, we grew a sea of pie pumpkins. Last week our squash went into a beer (read here). This week, we work pumpkins into a cozy cream sauce with squash ravioli.

Ingredients:

1 whole pie pumpkin – ravioli (preferably fresh, and squash or cheese) –  1 once butter – 3 cloves garlic – 2 cups whole milk – 2 teaspoons salt – 2 teaspoons cardamom – 2 tablespoons flour – 2 teaspoons fresh grated ginger – Parmesan to finish

Preheat oven to 350 F. Skin and chop pie pumpkin into two inch squares. Bake on greased pan until golden and smelling amazing. Meanwhile, start water boiling. Also melt butter in a sauce pan add finely chopped garlic. Once garlic is brown, set heat to low, add one cup milk and two tablespoons of flour to sauce pan.  Stir frequently.  Add in pumpkin chunks. Use hand-blender or fork until it integrates with cream.  Add more milk or flour to maintain creamy texture.  Don’t forget to boil the pasta (ravioli takes forever). Since pumpkin doesn’t taste like much, follow the way of the Starbucks P.S.L, add 2 teaspoons of cardamom and 2 teaspoons of fresh grated ginger.  Taste the dang thing and add salt until satisfied. Plate and grate fresh Parmesan all over the place.

Now for the wine.

With Fall foods, my heart turns to old French whites. Today, we luckily have a 1998 Aligote from Pierre Morey from Burgundy (17.90).

Pierre Morey Aligote BurgundyAPPEARANCE: Brilliantly clear, pale gold, with thin, washing legs, and a long colorless rim.

AROMAS: Sulfur leads but clears in 30 minutes.  Lemon pith, dried verbena, white rose, and wax waft about with medium plus intensity.

PALATE: Bone dry, medium plus acidity is there but somehow mellowed, soft. Alcohol a mild medium 12% providing a slight viscosity and a medium body, with a plump little core.

FLAVORS: Medium intense soft lemon curd, vanilla powder, and wax last a long, long, long length. It reminds me of an unsweetened lemon cream pie.

Morey’s 1998 Aligote is very good (4 of 5) and drinking beautifully now and for the next 2 years. Acidity ensures its knife-like edge can cut through the rich pumpkin sauce and fresh squash ravioli. Meanwhile, tertiary notes of wax and vanilla meld seamlessly with the nuttiness of the gourds.  If you can’t find an obscure, 17 year old wine, a moderately oaky Chardonnay or a dry Sherry could also do wonders.

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In Bruges 2: Many Many Beers: Delirium tremens, De Halve Maan

Posted on November 9, 2015 by waywardwine

Wayward Wine will soon cease its waywardness. I promise. For months now this wine blog has chatted up German, Dutch, and Belgian beer. Why?  Basically because beer reigns where we toured in the cold north.  So, next Monday, we will return France and surround ourselves in wine.  But Bruges is our last stop in Belgium.  Last Monday we explored its sights and sounds and barely survived the countless geese (read post here).  We even released a Belgian saison last Wednesday (read here).

Bruges Belgium GeeseToday, we warm back at our hostel with beer.  Over eight days in Belgium, we have enjoyed 45 bottles of beer.  Before Belgium, we never realized beer could match the intensity and complexity of wine. Here are Bruges highlights:

Let’s start with a familiar cliché, Delirium Tremens: that pink-elephant-ed, gateway drug into Belgian beer for British college students on vacation, when they’re not getting high on weed. Consider it a palate cleanser between smoke breaks.

Delirium Tremens Belgium BeerBrasserie Huyghe Brewery, Delirium tremens, Strong Beer, Triple Fermented, Melle, Belgium. €1.26 33cl  APPEARANCE: looks a clear, mild yellow, with small fast fizz, and a cm white head. AROMAS: smell ripe with watermelon, nice musky sweat, malt, and vanilla extract. PALATE: feels somewhat sweet, nicely tart and bitter, but with a warm lump of 8.5% alcohol, a medium body, and kicky fizz. FLAVORS: taste strong surprisingly precise with melon, grapefruit, green, fresh herbed hops, and vanilla that last a medium plus length.

Ok, ok, look past the silly label. Delirium tremens showy but very good (4 of 5).

Let’s try a local Bruges brewery: De Halve Maan. Since 1856, the Maes family has brewed in Bruges. In recent years they have expanded and modernized, yet remain family owned.  We bought four.

Brugse Zot Belgium BeerBrouwerij De Halve Maan, brugse Zot, Bruges, Belgium. €1.35 33cl  APPEARANCE: looks a hazy, moderate gold, with medium fizz, and an off white head. AROMAS: smell of salt, lemon, honey, and pot-like hops. PALATE: feels dry, with medium plus acidity and hop bitterness, a warm 6% alcohol, and medium body. FLAVORS: taste very grassy, green, lemon, something salty oddly like beef blood. Medium length. Brugse Zot is hoppy, green, and good quality (3 of 5).

Brouwerij De Halve Maan, brugse Zot Dubbel, Bruges, Belgium.  €1.58 33cl  APPEARANCE: hazy again, but a fairly rich ruby color with amber highlights. AROMAS: smell ripe and full of blackberry jam, caramel, and rye. PALATE: feels more subdued with medium acidity, fairly high bitterness, a bigger 7.5% alcohol, and a fuller body. FLAVORS: taste of red apple, rye bread, salt water taffy, and black licorice that last a medium plus length. This is punchy, spicy, rich beer and also good quality (3 of 5).

Their second tier, Straffe Hendrik, features more traditional Belgian styles, including their Tripel Bier 9, Bruges, Belgium. €1.65 33cl

Straffe Hendrik Bruges BeerAPPEARANCE: Their Triple looks a hazy, medium intense amber, med fizz, and off white head. AROMAS: smell more intense and of orange liquor, vanilla cream, and dry leaf. PALATE: feels dry, pretty tart, moderately bitter that cancels the higher 9% alcohol creating a medium body. FLAVORS: taste moderately of green, grassy hops, licorice, and sweet ethanol that lasts a medium plus length. Their Triple has a bit more going on and is very good (4 of 5) and needs bar food to cool the palate.

Finally, De Halve Maan’s, Quadrupel Ale 11, Bruges, Belgium. €1.65 33cl

Straffe Hendrik Quadrueple Beer BelgiumAPPEARANCE: looks a hazy, pronounced ruby amber, with a cream color lace. AROMAS: smell of pronounced black cherry, cinnamon, clove, and vanilla.  PALATE: feels dry, with medium acidity, bountiful bitternes, a high, caffeine-like 11% alcohol, making for a full body. FLAVORS: taste ripely of fruit with a bitter coffee character, think of cherry cobbler cinnamon, lingering tart apple, and drinking chocolate that last a long length.

Their Quad is outstanding (5 of 5), probably because it’s the last beer of 5+ like every night and it can stand above other fairly big beers.

So De Halve Mann makes solid beverages. Let’s try a Gruut or herbed beer:

Steen Bruge, St Peters Abbey, Blond, enriched with Gruut (herbs from Bruges), Steenhuffel, Belgium. €1.39 33/cl  Founded by the Saint of brewers, St Arnold in 1084.

Steen Brugge Beer BelgiumAPPEARANCE: looks slightly hazy, with medium intense gold, medium bubble, and an off white 2cm head. AROMAS: smell moderately of caramel, orchard fruits, and nuts. PALATE: is all balance with medium acidity, tannin, body, and a tick higher alcohol at 6.5%. FLAVORS: taste of medium intense apple pie, dry white flower, finished with a light lemony hop twist of medium length.

Steen Brugge’s Blond is very good (4 of 5) because it is mild, easy, but secretly complex. It tastes brilliant with pancakes from Bruges…proving that synchronicity of places and flavors matters more than the classic pairings.

From that light, lovely beer lets shift to some wild, earthy and funky. A barrel aged, wild fermented, lambic, Gueuze from Mort Subite:

Mort Subite Geuze Beer BelgiumMort Subite, Original Gueuze Lambic Beer, barrel aged, Asse, Belgium.  €1.69 33cl  APPEARANCE: looks clear, medium amber brown, with an off white cm head. AROMAS: smell of medium intense lemon, grilled garlic, and coffee. PALATE: feels moderately sweet, but tart, mildly bitter, and only mildly alcohol at 4.5%, with a medium body. FLAVORS: pounce with orange, lemon, followed by clove and moss, turning to café latté (lactic?) and lasts a medium plus length. Mort Subite’s Gueuze is complex, bright yet soothing and very good (4 of 5).  It mellows massively with olives.

Because Belgians get bored easily, and seem to have been experimenting way longer than today’s craft brew scene, let us try a beer made with peaches.

Timmermans, although now brewed under license, still claims to being the world’s oldest lambic brewery: 1706. Here is their Pêche Lambicus, Itterbeek, Belgium. €1.24 25cl

Timmermans Peach LambicAPPEARANCE: looks clear, mild in amber color, with medium fizz, and a cm high white head. AROMAS: smell of…well…peach, but rose and barely aromas help it. PALATE: is medium sweet, with medium acidity, and lower bitterness and mild 4% alcohol, making for a medium minus bodied beer. FLAVORS: do not overwhelm either with light peach juice, citrus, and odd mocha of medium length.

This peach beer is delicate, trying to be a real beer and not peach cobbler, which merits a respectable good (3 of 5).

Timmermans’ Bourgogne des Flandres Bruin Bier (Iterbeek, Belgium. €1.33 33cl) is a more serious suitor.

Bourgogne des FlandersA richer ruby amber color, with a caramel colored head. It smells of peat smoke, feels drier, tarter, and tastes fairly fully of tart red apple, toasted graham crackers, salt, and dark chocolate, with a medium plus length. Wild, zippy, toasty, even if under license, their Bourgogne des Flandres is very good (4 of 5)

We buy a bottle of Corsendonk, because it has a funny name and a cool looking bottle.

Corsendonk Beer BelgiumThis is their Agnus-Tripel Blond, beer, Turnhout, Belgium. €1.04 33cl  APPEARANCE: It looks a hazy, medium intense gold, medium fizz, with off white head. AROMAS: smell richly of pine forest, hoppiness, and honey. PALATE: is dry, tart, tannic, quite alcoholic at  7.5% abv. but still medium bodied. FLAVORS: taste of medium intense lemony hops, grass, wheat, and apple that last a medium plus length. Corsendonk (tee hee) is very good (4 of 5) intense but not overwhelming Belgian Tripel.

For some reason, either we bought many blonds or Belgium brews a few.

Van Steenberge, Augustijn (under license), Blond, Ertvelde, Belgium. €.98 33cl

Augustijn blond beer belgiumSo Augustijn. APPEARANCE: looks a hazy, medium intense gold, with medium fizz, white 2cm head. AROMAS: smell of honeycomb crunch cereal (no really) and light caramel. PALATE: feels dry, twangy, moderately bitter, with medium plus alcohol 7%, and a medium body. FLAVORS: ratchet up a bit rich with honey-drizzled graham crackers, corn flakes, and butter. Med plus length. Easy, too much to be very good. Good, round, but dull and under focussed.

Van Steenberge, Piraat, beer, Ertvelde, Belgium. €1.20 33cl

Piraat beer belgiumanno 1295, Hazy, med intense amber brown, med bubble, off white head. Clean, burnt creme brûlée top, molasses, dry, med acid, med plus bitter, high alc 10.5%, full body, med plus flavors of alcoholic figs, raisins, evergreen hops, malt. Med plus length. Very good. More hoppy and bitter than their Dracon.  45 belgian bottles in 8 days.

Belgian beer defies generalization. They range from light to near Port.  Anyone who claims to hate Belgian beer needs to keep drinking. There is a style for every palate. Each brewery has a unique character to it.  Equally the complexity and intensity possible with their beer is astounding.

We look forward to France and returning to the land of wine with next Monday’s post.  But damn it, Belgium surprised us.  Luckily many we tried today exist in the states.

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Fresh Hop Butternut Saison Belgian Beer

Posted on November 4, 2015 by waywardwine

Tonight, around 6:30, at the Green Dragon in Portland, Oregon, my wife and I will release a beer.  But not just any beer.  Our beer.  Our take on a Belgian Saison, which coincidentally occurs while Wayward Wine reminisces on our EU Austerity Drinking Tour in Belgium (read recent post on Bruges: here).  But there is a twist.

Summer HarvestThis summer, our backyard exploded with gourds.  Everything from pie pumpkins, to decorative pumpkins, to French pumpkins on strike.  Yet we did not plant butternut squash. Nonetheless, we got over 10, alien, questionably phallic growths from one sprawling plant:

Butternut SquashInspired (and moderately intimidated) we decided to add two of them to a beer.  First off, we got out the big knives and started hacking:

Tracy Hacks SquashThen we baked the butternut. Why do this?  Well, butternut kinda, sorta, maybe just tastes like mush, nice mush, but mush. By caramelizing them our beer gains complexity of aroma, flavor, and a lovely orange tint:

Tracy Bakes ButternutThe next day, we strap on our boots and disposable clothes and head to the Green Dragon Bistro and Pub.  Here countless taps feature beers from around the world, including those brewed by the Green Dragon Brew Crew.

For over a year, my wife has brewed and released beers on the Crew’s 1 barrel system.  For whatever reason, she chose to put up with me for an entire brew day.

We start at 9 am. While she stares at a kettle refusing to boil water, I clean, organize, and generally get in the way.  Then, finally, I get to help.

Aaron Grain BillIn goes our pale grain bill from which starches shall convert to sugars and sugars into glorious alcohol. We decide to add half the squash now.

Somehow, magically, it all keeps rolling with the boil.  Normally, one might expect a glue blob of barely and butternut to create a stuck mash. But I add rice hulls (possibly a bit too quickly) to create a filter bed that breathes:

Tracy PanicsWe then break out the sparge arm or, um, lautering… ring.  Whatever, this thingy below increases circulation, clarifies wort, stabilizes temperature and generally gives butternut chunks a wort shower.

Sparge ButternutAt this point I just keep quiet and pretend to help.  Hours pass.  Bittering hop pellets go in.  And then, one of her Brew Crew members, Rich, pops in with a bag.  Inside await five pounds of freshly picked Newport hops. For a second we waver. We never planned on a fresh hop Saison. The entire country of Belgium would laugh at us.

But this is Oregon. Also, they smell glorious: like mild lavender, dried lime peel, and verbena.  So we decide to add them towards the end (like pasta sauce, add basil at the end, otherwise its flavors burn away with the steam).

Tracy Adds Fresh HopsMeanwhile, I peel the rest of our squash.

Butternut Squash Second AdditionI decide to smash the refrigerated butternut with my frozen dead hands.  Once it is a pulp, I add it to increase butternutty flavor extraction…probably.

Aaron Adds Squash to Hops WortWhile this collusion of Fall’s harvest melds into something greater than the sum of its parts, we turn to cleaning the fermentation tank and all its stainless latches, hoses, locks, hooks, seals, arms, screws, chiller, and lid.

Butternut in Wort

The chill plate and seals gives us some trouble. But at last our strained wort is in the fermenter. We add yeast, set the temperature, and roll it into another room.

Another hour of cleaning and our brew day draws to a close. Somehow, we avoided both divorce and domestic violence.  Today, I learned to listen, help, and trust my brilliant brewster.

Also, really, I learned that one does not brew beer. One just keeps cleaning for hours until a beer appears.

Worse, imagine cooking a single dish for an entire day. And then, you have no idea if it will be edible months from now.  I miss making wine.

Luckily, we tasted our Fresh Hop Butternut Saison last week. How did it hold up? Could we release it today?

Our beer looks a beautiful, golden straw, with orange highlight and a frothy white head.  It smells of honey, biscuit, lemon, lavender, and golden pear.  It tastes dry, bright, and refreshing, yet with just enough roundness, caramel, and fruitiness, thanks to the squash (probably). The 6.7% alcohol warms unexpectedly.  The 61.1 IBUs of hoppy bitterness tighten its structure just enough to avoid flabbiness. Our Green Dragon Brew Crew Fresh Hop Butternut Saison is an enjoyable, quenching beer that demands another pint (4 of 5).

In celebration of Fall, 2015’s harvest, and avoiding marital dispute, come to the Green Dragon tonight and revel in our our first beer.

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In Bruges 1: Beer, Geese, Religion, and Beer Belgium

Posted on November 2, 2015 by waywardwine

I hate cobbles. I do not care how adorable, quaint, or photogenic they appear. Cobbles are muffins of the devil, sent to drive every wheeled piece of luggage straight to hell.

So it goes in Bruges. We slush through snow, trying in vain to find our hostel. We have no time to look at anything, only which rut will eat our wheels next.

Get a taxi, you say. Well, this is an EU Austerity Drinking Tour. 179 days of travel add up.

EU Map New York To Bruges Day 180Finally settled and fed on bland hostel breakfast, we find a small grocery store and stock up on food. And let us not neglect this Carrefour’s beer selection:

Aside from local pride in beer, Belgium has a morbid fascination with cliche American food:

American Cookies Carrefour Bruges BelgiumMade with real Americans…probably. Tastes like freedom to me. It gets worse outside:

Extra Burger Cheese QuikBut this is our last stay in Belgium.  So we load up on beer and then head back out (a beer post will follow this post soon. Stay tuned).

Bruges, sans luggage, now looks charming, heck, boarder-line cloyingly adorable.

Bruges Adorable StreetIt is impossible to take an ugly photo here.

We pop our heads into churches with holy blood, city halls, and historic buildings. However, actual entry costs 10 to 20 euros everywhere. Tourists must have it rough. So instead, we explore the city. Town square holds a massive tower that chimes constantly:

Countless canals spiderweb throughout the city.  Bruges Adorable RiverCute as they look. It is bitterly cold today.  Even the canals have iced over:

There are more geese than people in Bruges.

UNESCO Bruges Ten Wijngaerde beguinageWe find a bench to watch them attempt to ice-skate.

We stumble into an alley, that turns out to be Bruges old red light district:

Stoofstraat BrugesKnown as Stoofstraat, lads looking for a good time would enjoy steam baths and hot tubs with naked ladies. Sadly, today, it is cold and the baths are gone.

In need of moral rectitude, we visit the UNESCO Ten Wijngaerde beguinage. Once a vineyard, around 1240, pious women set up a cloistered space for beguins. One accesses it via a bridge through a fortified gate.

Inside, Bruges somehow becomes even more silent than before. Whitewashed dorms and work spaces frame a snowy courtyard. Slowly freezing, we enjoy the warm gift shop with countless hand made jams, honeys, and art. We then head to chapel.

Beguinage chapel Bruges BelgiumNow a Benedictine nunnery, we warm up alone in the chapel.  And then, a few adorable old ladies walk in. You may want to turn up your volume:

Later, more wandering finds children after school sledding beneath historic windmills. We consider going into the postcard business.

Windmill Sled Bruges BelgiumWe want to pop into a cathedral but it costs 16 euros. Instead we walk through a seven hundred year old hospital and spend the 16 Euros it would have cost on a meal of pancakes. Fed I make a Japanese-inspired Neko cat (our trip’s mascot) near one of Bruges’ many turreted gates.

Bruges Belgium Neko CatBut that’s the trouble with Bruges. There is far too much to see and do. Entry fees to museums, churches, and the like are outrageously expensive.

So check back for Wayward Wine’s review of the best beers we had in Bruges.

 

 

 

 

 

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Halloween Wine: Barossa Valley Estate Shiraz Australia 2013

Posted on October 31, 2015 by waywardwine

We all need ammunition this Halloween to defend our doorstep from the endless delinquent denizen hordes descending upon us. No food pairings. No nonsense. Just a solid Shiraz from Barossa Valley Estate. Happy Halloween!
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