It is hard not to love a good Gruner Veltliner, and we were fortunate enough to pick up several bottles from Domane Wachau while at Duty Free in Vienna's airport in 2020.
The Kinrberg bottle was an interesting one from the bunch as it had an intense minerality about it that the other bottles simply did not have. This one may be a bit too mineral-forward for some, but if you like this aspect in your white you may really enjoy this bottle!
Chenin Blanc is said to be the most widely planted grape in South Africa, and after taking a sip of a bottle like Tania et Vincent Careme's Terre Brulee Le Blanc you'll understand why.
This one comes loaded with tart fruit and a bitterness that is balanced quite well.
Dr. Konstantin Frank Winery in the Finger Lakes has been a staple of the region for many decades, and with good reason. This one produces some fine wines that are quite representative of their styles and go down quickly.
So if you are in the mood for an easy-drinking off-dry Riesling, Dr. Konstantin Frank's Reserve Riesling should be right up your alley!
When reading wine websites and blogs, we can find an untold number of food and wine pairing recommendations. One of our favorite books, What to Drink With What You Eat, is a literal tome on this single topic (and is one of our most-referenced books- truly a must-own).
Our blog is no different in this respect as we include comments on the foods we pair with our wine in almost every review.
What we do not regularly see is how to cook said food to pair with your wine. That part is often left to your own devices to figure out. So we thought it would be fun to periodically share some of our own recipes for popular food and wine pairings to help get you part of the way there for an epic dinner!
First up? Steak. But not just any steak- the perfect sous vide steak served medium-rare.
Note: When it comes to cooking steaks, we don't like to speak definitively in cooking terms. There are many variables that come into play to get the perfect sear, internal temperature, and the like. As such, the cook times in this are starting guidelines. You may need to tweak some aspects of the recipe here or there for your own personal tastes, steaks (cut and thickness), and so on. But unlike cooking on a grill, you'll get to a perfect steak quickly with a sous vide!
Anthony Road is a popular winery located towards the northwest end of Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes. With a beautiful tasting room, a wealth of wines available to taste, and a visitor's garden featuring grape vines, herbs, and more, this is really the kind of winery we love to visit.
Naturally, we also left with a number of bottles.
One such bottle was their off-dry Vignoles, and we recently paired it with a spicy chicken tikka masala which made for a wonderful pairing!
When it comes to opening a bottle of wine with a corkscrew, there are a number of corkscrew varieties out there that will get the job done (read our guide to some of the most common ones at the previous link). These often range in quality, price, and of course degree of difficulty in removing the cork from a wine bottle.
Our favorite tool to open a bottle of wine is the simple waiter's corkscrew. We've used dozens of these over the years, and while there is an initial learning curve we absolutely love how easy this tool makes opening a bottle.
Today, we wanted to share the steps to open a bottle yourself.
If you've read enough wine reviews on this site, you may hear us regularly talk about one of our favorite restaurants and natural wine shops in Pittsburgh- Apteka.
There are many reasons why we love this one, but on the wine side it is because they really help us procure some lesser-known grape varieties that are often out there.
One of the first bottles we bought from them was Louis-Antoine Luyt Gordo Blanco NV which smelled of camphor and eucalyptus and tasted like a lemon-lime beverage. Naturally, they carried more from this producer and we returned to pick up the Pipeno Carrizal (100% Pais grape in a 1L bottle) on a later visit.
Rakete from Jutta Ambrositsch has an interesting backstory. First, the grapes are grown inside the city limits of Vienna (we've walked near some vineyards here before- it is very surreal). Second, it is a natural wine. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is that this particular bottle is a field blend!
Whereas being a field blend on its own is maybe not as exciting, the grapes that go into Rakete (Zweigelt, St. Laurent, Blauburger, Merlot, and “some white grapes”) are all grown side by side in just five rows.
Grapes that are grown, picked, and fermented, quite literally, together? Sign us up.
Salcheto Winery takes an interesting approach to their Sangiovese. The bottle of Obvius is made naturally with (as we understand it, at least) indigenous yeasts, no sulfites, and was not aged in barrels. As such, it was meant to be enjoyed with a bit of reduction going on as well.
But for us, the reduction notes were too intense for our liking.
When it comes to opening a bottle of wine, there are many unique corkscrews and techniques you can use to access your prized liquid. When it comes to opening sparkling wines (like Champagne or Cava), your options are much more limited.
The reason for this is because to open a bottle of Champagne, or any sparkling wine with a mushroom-shaped cap and wire cage covering, you often have to go manual by using your hands (although we've now seen some less effervescent bottles with screw-tops- this is still quite rare).
It may seem straight forward, but the technique you use matters a lot here. If you don't hold the Champagne cork properly, it could go shooting off into the distance- possibly hurting someone or breaking an item nearby. If you haven't chilled your sparkling well enough or agitate the bottle too much, the pressurized CO2 may release from the wine too quickly and result in a fountain of wine. This could also happen when pouring, too!
In this one, we want to help you get better with your technique in opening a bottle of sparkling wine because as we said, technique matters!
