Wine Snob: My First Chianti

Another one in my series of "firsts" of various types of wines (see my review of my first Zinfandel). I am trying to expand my palate so that I have a better understanding of wine. Cerinthus and I had our three year anniversary recently so when I went up to see him we had a series of anniversary dinners. One of the nights, Ponticus picked out an Italian Chianti for me. It wa  "Il Tarocco" 2008, a chianti classico from a vineyard a little ways south of Florence in "Greve in Chianti". It was made from 90% Sangiovese grapes and 10% Canaiolo Nero grapes. Ponticus told me that real Italian Chiantis (I am not entirely sure how these differ from "fakes") have a seal around the top that says "Chianti Classico" and a picture of a rooster. I decided to trust his judgment and I was not disappointed. The wine, a fairly cheap vintage, was a dark red with a slight purple tinge and ruby accents in the light. It was just shy of a medium body and filled one's mouth with a pleasing warmth. The warmth was accented with a hint of cloves and nutmeg and had a peppery finish with a slight tannic undertone. The flavor came out more strongly as the wine breathed and seemed to solidify it's flavor after about an hour (I think). Cerinthus remarked that this was a wine he could actually drink rather than just sipping along with food. I also quite enjoyed the wine and would recommend it alongside light Italian food such as a chicken picatta. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the wine.

My First From-Scratch Pie Crust

My Apple Pie!

Last night, after making a meal for Cerinthus that unfortunately looked a lot better than it tasted, I decided to comfort myself by making an apple pie-- completely from scratch. A few nights ago we went to the nearest local/organic food store--  a little establishment famed for it's over 700 spices-- and bought some apples and a little bit of salt (Cerinthus had the rest of the ingredients).

I wanted to make an all-butter recipe for pie crust because I do not like the idea of lard and I hear that crisco has very little flavor. Although crisco makes the crust very flaky, it also makes it bland. I took this recipe from All Recipes, doubled it, and added a tablespoon of vodka in instead of some of the water. It made approximately three full pie crusts, so I made a pie and an apple crisp. According to Cerinthus' mother, substituting vodka for about half of the allows for increases flakiness of the dough because the vodka evaporates faster than the water and allows the crust to dry and flake more effectively. I also read somewhere that not entirely combining the butter, but allowing patches of butter allows it to liquidate and expand and creates flakiness. I guess I will find out.

As I mentioned in my "Simple Family Recipe for Apple Pie," I do not actually like pie. I will have to wait for Cerinthus to try some at lunch to find out.

The Apple Crisp

Update 03/15/11: The pie crust was a success! It was lovely, flavorful, and flaky. However, it needed more salt. When I arrived, Cerinthus did not have any salt (can you believe that?) and he did not want to buy a gigantic container he would rarely use, so I bought a little $0.75 baggy of Sel Gris (gray sea salt) at the local organic food mart (that has a rack of 700 spices you can purchase by weight instead of in jars). The Sel Gris is a courser grain, and I did not compensate for this by increasing the volume of the salt in the crust. Oh well. Anyway, Cerinthus claims the pie is a 9 out of 10, so I am pretty happy.

Update 03/18/11: The pie (crust et al) got rave reviews from other quarters. Ponticus even said didn't need more salt. Anyway, I am very glad it was such a success but have no idea how I can replicate it.

Wine Snob: Esterlina 1998 Pinot Noir

This is my second installment of Wine Snob (which should demonstrate how little I drink wine). One of the wines that my mother was given by my uncle was a 1998 Esterlina Pinot Noir grown in Anderson Valley.

The wine was lovely. I have only once before had a similarly aged Red Wine. It was a Pinot Noir from the vineyard of Ponticus' extended family in Santa Cruz. It was fabulous. The Esterlina wine was also fabulous, but it was totally different.

Quick Detour: My family took a trip to Anderson Valley this past summer. We went to Husch, an adorable, family-run vineyard which produces some fabulous wine. We had been there before and really enjoyed picnicking at the vineyard as well as the women working in the tasting room who provided a lot of great insight on the wines as well as talking to me about my classic background. During the trip, we stayed at a bed-and-breakfast where the proprietor recommended to look at the view in Esterlina. So we made an appointment and drove up to the vineyard.

To get there, we had to drive a long way up one of the hills that surrounds Anderson Valley. Once at the top, we were greeted by an old hippy-ish looking guy by the name of Dan who turned out to be (as he claimed) a retired aerospace engineer of some sort who now owns a fruit farm. Instead of the usual wine-tasting method at places like Husch-- where you are poured a few different wines of your choosing in small quantities-- at Esterlina it's a whole floor-show. Dan spoke about each of the wines, as well as pouring 15 or so different wines for us. He also poured half-glasses of wine, instead of about a tablespoon, because he claimed that the wind (and it was very windy) would obscure the bouquet if he poured any less. This may be true, but I traditionally do not drink more than one glass of wine, so even dumping much of it out, it proved quite intoxicating. We were also given large dishes of Cheetos and pretzels to clear our palate. I primarily used the prezels to try to soak up some of the alcohol in my stomach.

The wine-- all of it-- was exquisite. Really top notch. We bought a little bit, but fortunately the other four people at the appointment bought a lot so some of the high pressure sales were off of us. The winery is currently owned by the Sterling Family and is the crown jewel of the Sterling vineyards. They bought it off of the original owners in (I believe) 1999. The Pinot Noir vineyards are something like 40 years old and are the oldest in Anderson Valley (closely followed by Husch's vines).

The view was incredible. I highly recommend the winery to everyone who visits that area, but definitely beware of high-pressure sales and bring some people with deep pockets so that you can deflect it off of yourself.

Picture from Esterlina's Website [1].

The Wine: This wine, bottled in 1998 was one of the last years of the original owners of the vineyard. The Pinot Noir had a slightly fruity beginning. It was extremely smooth with a tiny bit of a bite about halfway through and a light, long finish. Much better with food, I had it with homemade pizza. It seemed to pair very well with the flavor of the tomato and basil.

Endnotes

1. © 2010 Esterlina Vineyards & Winery

The Starter Lives! and Adventures in Pizza

Tonight I decided to make pizza. Amusingly, pizza is Cerinthus' food. His mother makes it a lot, but he has never been satisfied by the crust. Tonight he says "this is what pizza should taste like." WIN!

The pizza was not perfect, to be sure, but it was much closer than any homemade pizza he's ever tasted. Here is what I did. I took this recipe (which is technically a deep-dish recipe):

Pizza Dough (1):
1 1/2 cups warm water (about 110 degrees F)
1 (1/4-ounce) packages active dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup semolina flour
1/2 cup olive oil, plus 2 teaspoons to grease bowl
1 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl, combine the water, yeast, and sugar and stir to combine. Let sit until the mixture is foamy, about 5 minutes.

Add 1 1/2 cups of the flour, the semolina, 1/2 cup of the oil, and the salt, mixing by hand until it is all incorporated and the mixture is smooth. Continue adding the flour, 1/4 cup at a time, working the dough after each addition, until all the flour is incorporated but the dough is still slightly sticky.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth but still slightly tacky, 3 to 5 minutes. I used the method of mixing recommended by Steve from Breadcetera (2).

Oil a large mixing bowl with the remaining 2 teaspoons oil. Place the dough in the bowl and turn to oil all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set in a warm, draft-free place until nearly doubled in size, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. (I wish I had a picture. For me I kept the dough in a very warm area. It practically TRIPLED in size.)

Divide into 3 equal portions (I needed to make pizzas on a 12x12 pizza stone). From here, the original recipe requires deep dish pizza pans. I didn't have them, and I had just bought a pizza stone.

Note: this pizza stone is actually the unpolished part of a piece of granite that Cerinthus got for $4 at a tile store since I am a college student on a budget. I rubbed olive oil into it and the dusted it with semolina flour.

From there, I rolled out the dough, plumped up an inch or so for the crust, and then added tomato sauce (from Trader Joe's) and mozzarella. The dough was way too sticky (and the pizza peel I ordered has not arrived yet) so I used a flour-caked cookie sheet. It worked ok. When it was time to take the pizza out, it had solidified enough that I could move it freely, which was nice. I cranked the oven up to 500 degrees F and cooked the pizza until the cheese bubbled and there were patches of brown.

As is obvious, the first pizza got totally mangled as I put it into the oven. However, the crust rose admirably. The problem was that it didn't cook all the way through. I definitely need a solution to this. Ponticus, who came over to have some pizza, said perhaps heating the oven stone up to 500 degrees F and then bringing the oven temp down to around 400 to cook the pizza. I might try that next time.

While the pizza was rising, I decided to check on my yeast starter which, after 12 hours didn't seem to have much going on. But much to my surprise, as the pizza dough rose, so did the yeast in the starter. My starter still looks terrible on the top:

but looks great from the side:
If you can't tell from the picture, it's all bubbly, which means it's alive! I'm SO HAPPY. Sadly, tonight when I feed it I'm going to have to throw half of it out, per Breadcetera's instructions (3). I thought I had killed it because on of the tablespoons of flour I put in to start it was bleached flour (by accident). However, I found out that it grows anyway, although at a slower pace. I'm not sure if this is because of my apartment's heating, or because of the flour, but either way I'm totally happy it lived.

Endnotes:

1. From Joelean's Culinary Adventure: http://joelens.blogspot.com/2008/12/chicago-style-deep-dish-pizza.html
   
2. Mixing tips and video: http://www.breadcetera.com/?p=9
3. Breadcetera instructions: Starting a Starter