Wine Snob: Servia Reviews a Wine from Down Under

Today I have something a little different. I did not get my act together to write a review of the last wine that we opened, so I asked Servia compile her notes and write one. I thought she wrote a lovely review and I posted it:

 

Our weekly tradition, a relaxing Sunday picnic supper and Downton Abbey, now includes a wee bit of wine tasting. Week Two's offering was Australian: a 2004 Yering Station Shiraz-Voignier (5%). Not well-versed in wine attribution, I must say the Australian wines I had encountered previously left me wishing for something less heavy-handed. This wine however, proved a different experience. The color was a soft maroon and it had damp, woodsy aroma. It offered a medium body, with notes of ripe blackberry, wild raspberry and smoky cedar with a touch of pepper near the end and long finish. I favor Shiraz from Washington these days and this Australian cousin seemed to have the Northwest style in mind. We all agreed it was too bold for this particular meal (a rustic spread of fresh sourdough, cheese, and seasonal fruits and vegetables) but I would happily try it again, perhaps decanting it longer.

Follow Up on Dolphin Comunication

In March, I posted a piece on a group of scientists who were trying to create a common language in order to communicate simply with dolphins. I thought it was pretty cool. Recently, the New York Times did a feature on the same topic so I thought I would post it.

Now time to study for my prose composition quiz.

I Take It All Back...

No-Knead Bread

I admit it. I didn't think it could be done. I thought the no-knead revolution was absolutely absurd. Unfortunately, my increasingly busy schedule has kept me from making some of my traditional breads. So I tried a no-knead bread from from The Fresh Loaf and it worked just as it did in the pictures. I could not believe my eyes.

Crust is crisp and thin.

The crust was thinner that I usually like but is crunched and shattered beautifully. Also, although all of my breads have sung recently, this one I could hear cracking all the way across the room. It was beautiful.

Beautiful Crumb.

The crumb inside was fantastic. I had no idea it would turn out this well. The beginning stages did not look promising.

Yum!

The one thing this bread lacked was the lovely sweetness of the sourdough I like. It was nutty and flavorful, but neither sour nor sweet. This may have been the semolina.

It may be gone by morning.

Ingredients

• 30g Whole Wheat Starter
• 346g Water
• 300g Bread Flour
• 105g Semolina Flour
• 45g Whole Wheat Flour
• 9g Salt

Directions

• Mix water and starter and stir vigorously until starter is fully dissolved. Mix flour and salt to fully distribute salt. Put flour and salt together and use a dough scraper to work the flour into the water. Continue working around the bowl scraping dough from the side toward the center and pushing it down in the center, until you have a shaggy mass.
• Wait 5 minutes.
• Do a few stretch-and-folds.
• Place dough in covered bowl to rise at 75F for 4 hours.
• Place the dough in the refrigerator overnight. For about 16-30* hours.
• Take the dough out and let it sit for 2-3 hours or until it starts to warm to room temperature and bubble.
• Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and pre-shape.
• Let the dough bench rest for 30 minutes.
• Shape the dough and put it into a linen-lined bowl dusted with rice and wheat flour.
• Let it have a final rise for two hours.
• Turn it onto a peel, slash, and bake as follows.
• After a 30 minute preheat at 500 degrees F, bake the bread under steam at 450 degrees F for 30-35 minutes and then bake for 20 minutes or until 100 degrees C (212 degrees F) on the inside and chestnut brown and crispy on the outside.
• Wait for at least 1 hour before cutting.

I am a convert. I will try this bread again.

* - (Note 10/7/11) I tired this bread again and I did not let it bulk rise for long enough so the crumb was really lackluster and unfortunate.

I also made some bread the other day. I tried to make Frankie Olive's City Bread, but I made every possible mistake so it came out misshapen. It still tasted fantastic. I will try again.

Crust: A little thin, but good.

 We ate it last night and this morning.

Irregular holes, but a little dense in spots. Still good.

Now I need to go study Sallust and Latin meter (not at the same time, obviously).

Math Games

Back when I was in sixth grade, we had a warm up everyday on the whiteboard when we came into class. For a few months in the middle of the year, our project was the "Four 4s," where we had to make every number from 1 to 100 with the combination of four 4s in any mathematical sequence. I had a dream last night which involved switching math games with a friend. I eventually suggested the "Four 4s." I got stumped at 13; I am a lot better at math when awake. I wrote a few down and added a couple of alternatives.

 At the doctor's office today I started working on them while I was waiting and I am now stumped at 31.

Over the Past Weeks

I have been incredibly busy starting school and returning to teaching after a few weeks of break. I thought I would catch everyone up on some general updates.

School: I am only taking three classes at the moment, but it is a full course load in terms of units. I am taking Sallust's Bellum Catelinae, Greek Prose Composition, and a seminar on classical research. It is a reasonable amount of work, although the vast amount of work in prose composition makes up the majority of my load. I am also planning on reading little bits of Homer with Properitus II once we finish the Crito. I also am going to attempt to work on my thesis revisions and start on my term paper for my classical research seminar.

Teaching: I am teaching a new class. It is an interesting group because I teaching in a different geographical area than usual (near school rather than near home).

Bread: I made another loaf of my newest sourdough recently. It was also fantastic, but I forgot to take photos. I am going to try to make Francis Olive's City Bread this weekend because it looks fantastic and I should have a little bit of time.

Wine Snob: Another Argentinian Malbec

Malbec

This wine, the Gascon 2010 Malbec from the Medoza Region of Argentina, was really lovely. I tend to like Argentinian Malbec and this one was recommended to us by the person who sold us the lovely shelves that now hold the majority of our wine. We didn't decide to have the wine until about 20 minutes before dinner so it tasted a little, I don't know, condensed at first. I am not sure what the proper term is, but basically the flavors were less discernible but became increasingly differentiated the longer the wine sat out.

It was a medium bodied wine with a slight tannic bite and the taste of black cherry with a pinch of pink pepper. Instead of finishing, it seemed to vanish at the end of the taste. I really enjoyed it though I think I would let it breathe a little longer next time.

Like One of those High School Movies

So I had my orientation today. It was like one of those horrible high school movies where the geeky girl does everything wrong and the day is a complete disaster. I took my placement exams for Greek and Latin at 8am this morning. Greek was a mess. It was a piece from Lucian and I just completely missed the vocabulary and it was a disaster.  The Latin was better, it was some 4th century AD historian and I actually knew a significant portion of the vocabulary.

Of course, that wasn't the end of it. Due to a mix-up, I ended up really early for the luncheon. Worse, afterward the professor who was grading my Greek exam ran up to talk to me. I felt so completely embarrassed. Luckily he hadn't graded it yet, but that actually made me feel worse because he was so nice and he was going to soon look at such a complete disaster.

Going to see a production of the Trojan Women tomorrow. I will write a review.

A New Sourdough

Boule

I mentioned in my blogpost yesterday how much I loved this bread. It's really fantastically sweet-- which may be a combination of the flour mixture and that I managed to use the starter right at the peak of it's feeding when it smells slightly sweet. I am including the recipe here so anyone can try it. It is a modified version of Peter Reinhart's San Francisco Sourdough Bread from Artisan Breads Every Day. This bread spends an incredible amount of time rising, but it does not require a significant amount of interference.

Ear-- finally able to use the lame properly

 This bread is 76% hydration. However, I used a lot of all-purpose instead of bread flour this last time so I might up the hydration to 77% to compensate. I also need to incorporate a bit more air when I am kneading as my last two breads have not had quite the open crumb that I desire.

Not perfect crumb, but still quite good

Ingredients: 
Starter

•  56.5g 100% hydration starter
• 227g Whole Wheat Flour
• 150g Water, room temperature

Dough

•  All of the starter
• 445g Water (warm)
• 567g Unbleached Bread Flour (I used a combination of bread flour and-- when I ran out of that-- a high-protein all-purpose flour-- King Arthur's)
• 18g Salt

Directions
Starter (Day 1)

• Mix the ingredients for the starter together about 8 hours befor you plan to use it.
• Make sure you mix it with a for or something that will help incorporate a little air.
• Cover the bowl or jar and leave it to mature overnight at room temperature. Otherwise, the starter can rest in the refrigerator for up to three days.

Final Dough (Day 2)

• The starter, by now, should be all bubbly and smell slightly sweet.
• Dissolve the starter in the water.
• Then add the unbleached flour and the salt and mix into tacky ball. Let the dough rest for five minutes.
• The knead the dough by hand for 3 minutes. Try to incorporate air.
• Then do the first Peter Reinhart stretch-and-fold. Do four total with 10 minutes in between each.
• Depending on how warm your kitchen is, let the dough rest out (covered) for 1.5-2 hours before placing in the refrigerator. It was about 75 degrees in my kitchen and I let the dough sit out for 2 hours. Place it in the refrigerator overnight.

Shaping and Baking (Day 3)

•  Take the bread out of the refrigerator 5-6 hours before baking. Let it rest on at room temperature for 2-3 hours, depending upon the room temperature. The bread was still very cold at 2 hours, so I waited the extra hour.
• Then turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide it. It can make two 1.5lb loaves or three 1lb loaves. Preshape.
• Let the dough rest for 20-30 minutes, and then do the final shaping. Cover the loaves and let them rise for 2-3 hours. My loaves needed three hours. The first loaf we baked after two hours and I think that it could have used a little extra rising time, while the second one we baked at three hours and it turned out better.
• 20 minutes before baking, heat up the your oven with your stone-and-broth-pot or dutch oven to 500 degrees F.
• Turn your dough onto a floured peel and score it right before you put it into the oven. Turn the oven down to 450 degrees F (425 convection). 
• Let the dough bake under steam for 30-35 minutes, making sure that the edges of your scoring marks have turned golden.
• Then bake it for 20-25 minutes without steam, ensuring that it has an internal temperature of 212 degrees. It should be fairly light in weight and dark brown in color.
• Wait at least 30 minutes before slicing.

 Enjoy!