u/papavino39

This was my first Sicilian red. Having absolutely loved Etna Bianco this seemed like a good entry point.

Decanted 30 minutes and paired with pasta alla Norma and veal involtini (food not pictured due to chaotic toddler dinner situation)

Very light color. Red fruit on the nose. Surprisingly acidic but not in a bad way.

I really liked it, especially the pasta alla Norma pairing, but it didn’t blow me away. Will definitely try more Etna Rosso to form an opinion though.

Biggest win of the night: toddler liked pasta alla Norma- I’m talking eggplant, weird sheep cheese, and everything.

He wanted to try the wine too but mom wouldn’t let him (booooooooo)

Have been waiting patiently to pop this bottle until lasagna was present, yesterday was my day.

Always gotta have veggies too so I air fried some brussies (wife’s request) and sautéed some eggplant in onion, tomato paste, grated parmigiano reggiano, a little olive oil and a lot of garlic.

Chaotic day so only had a chance to decant for like 35 minutes before drinking.

Nose was not giving much up. On the palate raisins and ALCOHOL. Silky smooth texture, my goodness. Interestingly it didn’t feel that “hot” but could very clearly taste the alcohol. Maybe that’s because I had it around 60 degrees (in freedom units).

On my final little Pygmy half-glass it finally gave up some cherry, while still maintaining that beautiful silky texture 😐

This was only my second Amarone, but I think I’m settling into some learnings:
- Pair with rich food
- Decant 1 hour
- Can drink slow: pair 1 glass with a whole meal. I have my best bottle still in the cellar planning to Coravin it over maybe 3 meals.

Let me know if you think I’m off on any of this!

PS pairing was excellent, sautéed eggplant was the right veggie

Never drank pure garnacha before, was very excited for a silky smooth experience.

Paired with pork albóndigas in a saffron almond tomato sauce, manchego cheese, escalivada, and pan con tomate (not pictured).

Sun was behind the food when I snapped this pic and I am the father of a toddler so I didn’t have time to re-stage. In fact taking this picture cost me valuable time. So I just turned the brightness up before posting 🤷‍♂️

When I uncorked the bottle, got a blast of fruit to the nose. But it faded quickly. Decanted for 20-30 minutes.

Cherry on the nose, some raspberry as well. Cherry, raspberry and plum on the palate. I had a couple other notes but then toddler chaos happened and I forgot them before I could write them down.

Now look, I love me a good medium bodied red, but this one left me wanting a little bit more from it. It was _too_ smooth! I have a couple other garnachas to try before writing off the varietal as Merlot 2.0 only belongs in blends. But this did leave me wishing I’d picked a Rioja. Maybe it was the food pairing? idk

This was my first ever Sicilian wine. Drank it over two days.

Day 1:
Paired it with tomato caper salsa over grilled mackerel, air fryer potatoes, and a fennel orange salad on arugula with a pistachio vinaigrette.

So. Good. Exploding with lemon on the nose. Perfectly balanced acidity. Faint mineral. Peach on the palate. So many more notes, but I’m also new-ish to whites so I couldn’t articulate them well.

Paired well with everything on my plate.

Day 2:
OK so I feel like if I had asked yall if I should use a Coravin for a white wine overnight you would all have told me no way. And then I could have blamed you for this disappointment.

I was so excited to take another crack at tasting notes after my experience on day 1. But when I poured a glass, it smelled like… white wine. And on the palate… also white wine. All the complexity and different fruits were gone. The acidity was still well balanced and it tasted good, but nowhere near the same experience.

Paired it with black bean spaghetti, shrimp, and zucchini (clearing out some pantry/freezer inventory) which was OK but nothing to write home about, some pistachio fig crackers with imported Pecorino that was so salty the only thing it should be paired with is a big glass of fresh water.

Toddler was throwing food all over the place. Wife was grumpy with me.

So yeah, lesson learned about white wine and Coravin. Come at me if you disagree... I have a whole tangent about wine and air but I’m holding back for now.

Or if you have other Etna Bianco recommendations, would also appreciate.

So this is my second ever sherry. Lustau Los Arcos, an Amontillado. My first was a fino.

I tried pairing with pan con tomate and anchovies, a recommendation from a Spanish government website actually lol. Then a pipirrana for veggies, some olives, and some manchego.

Wow. I liked this so much better than the fino. Beautiful brown color. Same sherry flavor which to me smells like barrel but I’m told it’s actually the flor yeast. But this also had beautiful caramel notes. I could easily have drank the whole bottle and been a shitty drunk dad but I didn’t! The second half is tucked away in the fridge because I’ve been told it keeps especially well.

The anchovy was too salty for pairing. The salad too fresh. Did great with manchego and olives though.

Anyway, I will definitely be drinking more amontillado. I can totally see how that guy got lured into live entombment hoping for a case of this.

I think my next move will be trying some of the sweet sherry 🤔

I think I’ve posted this same wine before. And I have a few more bottles left so I’ll do it again! Not apologizing.

I adore this wine. I’m not sure if it’s the half bottle or what but at 11 years it’s just beautiful 😘🤌

Left it in the basement to decant for 45 minutes, when I walked back down to grab it the whole room smelled like fruit 🤩

Cranberry and leather on the nose. Cranberry and ripe cherry on the palate.

Had some old ground lamb, red peppers, and pita bread that I had to clear out of inventory so I cooked up the ground lamb with garlic, onion, coriander, cumin, parsley, and mint, then made up some yogurt with garlic, olive brine, and herbs, grilled some veggies, and roasted chickpeas in za’atar (not pictured).

It was my toddler’s first meal in the new booster seat and that actually went really well so I actually had a little bit of peace to enjoy this meal. Toddler eating calmly and cleanly is a rare gem that makes the whole evening better.

It was chilly and rainy this weekend so figured I’d make myself feel warm and homey with a nice burg.

Definitely young but honestly I don’t mind that for Pinot Noir. I’ve still never tried a red Burgundy with 10+ years on it, fwiw, and I’m scared to for my wallet.

Paired with a chicken quarter, roasted carrots, and had to make those mushrooms with shallot in Armagnac again.

Not pictured, a crusty baguette with truffle Brie and Comte.

Plum and raspberry on the nose, sweet and delicate on the palate: cherry and raspberry. I got a little forest floor on the nose at one point but that was when I had mushrooms in my mouth so that note remains suspect.

This wine was so delicate that it got its ass kicked by the truffle. So that was the wrong pairing, no regrets on trying it out though. Even the chicken came close to overpowering it. Comte was perfect though.

Amazing meal. Lovely wine. It’s so unfortunate that Burg is worth the money.

This was my first Georgian wine experience, I’ve been interested in the region for some time, since it has a reputation as one of the great ancient culinary and winemaking cultures of the world.

This producer uses the region’s distinctive traditional kvevri method to make their wines, which was something I wanted to make sure to experience with my first Georgian.

Wasn’t sure what to expect from this young wine, so decided to try it with only 15 minutes of air at lunch and then leave it to breathe in the bottle for 5-6 more hours before the next pairing.

For my first pairing, bought a khachapuri, steamed some spinach, and also made some cabbage with tomato paste and fenugreek.

This wine is definitely too young to drink with no decant lol. I actually don’t mind young tannic wines, but it was giving me nothing. So I enjoyed it, but… My tasting notes for this, my first time trying a new wine from a grape I’ve never tried either: smells and tastes like young tannic red wine.

Dark purple color. Sorry, forgot to take a pic that shows it. Can’t even blame the toddler for this one I just forgot.

For dinner I made some khmeli suneli lamb skewers, roasted red peppers with bazhe, and some beet and spinach pkhali.

I’d say overall the meal was good but the khmeli suneli is a bit too strong and colorful for ideal pairing with red wine imvho. And I put too much garlic in the bazhe lol

Anyway, the wine finally started to open up when I only had two sips left 😩 interestingly it was definitely giving both red and black fruit. I would have loved at least a whole glass to explore it some more but nope it was gone.

I have another bottle, very glad I do, but won’t be drinking it for quite a while. In the meantime gonna try to pick up a Georgian amber at some point to pair with a khachapuri and some veggies.

Wife decided she wanted steak on a whim Saturday, so I took a pause from my sherry adventure to drink some Bordeaux. Quick snapped this pic after playing before rushing to eat before toddler’s attention span expired.

I’ve had this exact wine before fwiw.

Decanted for an hour at cellar temp in Pyrex (which is better than your pretty decanter because it holds temp).

On the nose it seems maybe too young: leather, pennies, no fruit at all. But the palate is pure smooth beautiful black fruit. Soooo good.

Paired with:
- Ribeye, souse vide with thyme then seared quickly at 600+ degrees on the grill (with skillet)
- Mushrooms sautéed in shallots and Armagnac (‘83 Pellehaut, I’ll take some flak for that)
- Green beans steamed with salt pepper and a little lemon

Can’t recommend those mushrooms enough. Holy smokes

So I’m just beginning my white wine journey, and also, this is my very first sherry. I tried it with 3 pairings. Trying to cover a lot of ground here.

I’ve tried jamón ibérico and Spanish chorizo so many times with Rioja and finally just admitted that super sharp salty cold sausage does not work with red wine. That’s where the idea to try sherry came in.

First pairing was chorizo on a whole wheat Portuguese roll and some grilled sardines. I bought the sardines whole. Fuck that, never again. Huge pain in the ass. I will always pay someone to gut my fish. Toddler was throwing food everywhere all through dinner. My understanding is that sherry is made using barrels called “soleras”… after taking my first sniff of the wine I can tell you confidently that I know what a solera smells like. So yeah, old smoky barrel on the nose. On the palate… excessive acidity.

Got the toddler to bed. Turned on some cheesy restaurant Spanish guitar playlist. Cleaned the kitchen. Made some gambas al ajillo. Inner peace. Ok, much better. The solera essence paired so well with the strong garlic. I’m understanding better now.

Sunday. Put the toddler down to nap. Tried some jamón serrano, mítica cheese, the rest of the chorizo, olives, figs, etc etc. now we’re talking. God chorizo and sherry pairs well. Also with olives, wow. I started to get some pear on the nose and the palate. This is good.

So I’m officially now a sherry fan. I also have an amontillado in the cellar, excited to try that as the next step of my sherry journey.

Also, I made a Pipirrana and had that with both pairings, in large volume. Included an ugly picture of that because vegetables are the MVP and we don’t talk about it enough. And it went really well with the sherry.

I really wanted to try pairing Amarone di Valpolicella next time I had deep dish, but wasn’t really in the cards this weekend (based on inventory and what my wife wanted to eat), so I went with this Chianti. Maybe next time I’ll get to try my experiment.

Drank this bottle over 2 days using a Coravin. Paired with pasta and some old sweet Italian chicken sausage from the freezer on the other day.

Almost forgot to take a pic entirely, dinner (and life in general!) can be a bit hectic with the little one.

I feel like the floor is high on Chianti but maybe the ceiling isn’t that high? Used to be one of my favorite types of wine but impresses me less nowadays. I do love how easy it is for pairing with food though. Check me for sure if you think I’m wrong!

Anyway, good wine but not a stunner. Black cherry on the palate but not on the nose, interestingly.

I’m working through all the old frozen meat in my freezer, and pairing wines with them as a fun little culinary challenge.

This week was 2-3 pounds of chicken breast.

My chosen pairing was a bottle of Produttori’s basic Barbaresco from 2021 over two days this weekend using a Coravin.

For day 1, I put a big chicken breast in the crock pot with shallots (also trying to clear from inventory), Dijon mustard, garlic, thyme, and juuust a splash of white wine balsamic. Then I put that over a truffle polenta with some old pancetta that I was also trying to clear from inventory. Wish I’d gotten pics of that meal, but was a bit chaotic so didn’t get the time to snap one.

For day 2, I made chicken parm sandwiches and added truffle. Wanted to frame a nice pic but ultimately only had time to snap this one… you see what I’m working with here lol

Anyway, the day 1 pairing was perfect. Not only was the combo S Tier but also cleared out a bunch of tricky items from inventory. Flawless victory (except for the missing pic). Day 2 less perfect but still can’t go too wrong with chicken parm sandwiches.

Tasting notes: day 1, I had cranberry. A little whiff of oak, but mostly just pure ocean spray cranberry. Super clean.

Day 2, I read the label and it said “black cherry and violet”. I didn’t even think violets smelled like anything, so whatever, didn’t get that one. But shamefully kind of started to come around from cranberry to black cherry. Crazy how the power of suggestion works.

Overall, I’d say this wine isn’t winning any medals but is an excellent example/primer to what Barbaresco is. I made the right choice for a freezer-clearout pairing.

Lastly: I defend my choice of decanter. Pyrex is thick and holds temperature well, which is wonderful when you decant at cellar temp then pour yourself a couple glasses from the decanter over the course of a dinner. Get on my level!

Chateau Musar 2015.

I think the half bottle helped here, the wine definitely did not seem too young despite what I’ve heard from others about the 2015.

I got leather and olives. So beautifully clean and dry.

Paired with grilled lamb rib chops, ancient pepper charred on the grill, and za’atar socca bread.

Made my week. Can’t stop thinking about it. I’m gonna have to do this exact same pairing again at least once this summer.

A crying toddler rushed my dinner plans so I didn’t get to decant this young Brunello as much as I could.

Mostly I tasted tannin. Got a note of… cement? Which I usually taste in Brunello. On my final glass I finally started to taste some cranberry and cherry coming through the tannins.

Lesson learned. And of all the bottles, I’m ok learning on this one.

To be clear, I don’t mind tannins and I love Brunello so I actually did enjoy the bottle. But those are my notes 🤷‍♂️

Paired with pork tenderloin slow-cooked with onion, garlic, tomato paste, celery, carrots, sage and rosemary over gniocchi and a lot of Parmigiano Reggiano.

My other lesson learned is that this is the perfect pairing. I had over-indexed on tomato when pairing brunello in the past. I was worried that the tenderloin would be too lean, but nope, it was perfect.