Spot Prawns: The Bisquening

It was not so long ago that we devoured the first spot prawns of the season.

Aya has become very good at re-purposing the left-overs into magical, delicious prawn bisque.

Here is how she does it:

Sauté the basics.

Then fry up the heads, shells, legs and any other good bits left over from the spot prawn feast. Crush the shells as they turn brown and brittle.

Simmer them in a large soup pot with a little water, tomato paste and brandy. This takes a long, long time. Skim off the foam when it gathers. Brush off the building manager when he complains about smell in the hallway.

The liquid will reduce and darken.

Rich, murky and pungent. Bisque is an amazing concentration of the best, deep seafood flavours.

We also use some of the bisque for making risotto, here served with garlic and saffron mayonnaise.

What goes well with bisque and bisque risotto?

If, like us, you don't have a Merusault tucked away somewhere, you need to have a chat with your cellar master. We don't have a cellar master, either.

But we do have access to something almost as good. Seriously.

Here is what we wrote about this Chilean Wild Ferment Chardonnay from Errazuriz back in February of 2012:

And it's such a good Chardonnay. It has a little toasted oak influence but it is gentle and rounded by the malolactic fermentation. There is a classic, lemony backbone all the way through with some lovely, delicate flavours developed by the ambient yeasts. Restrained and complex, this one unfolds leisurely over a long finish.

At only $22 here in BC, it's a great way to experience a risky and rewarding style of wine-making.

Foxtrot Pinot Noir, 2009: The Opening

It is no secret that we are big fans of Foxtrot Pinot Noir from the Naramata Bench in BC's Okanagan Valley.

Readers of this blog may remember that we volunteered to help with their 2009 harvest and ended up picking about 3500kg of grapes over two very happy October days.

We stopped in to see the good Foxtrot family again in August 2010 and were offered a taste of how the 2009 was developing in the barrels.

In April of 2012, the day we were waiting for finally arrived, and the 2009 Pinot Noir was released.

Aya made an appropriate feast for our first taste: roast pork with a mushroom cream sauce, polenta with truffle oil, and delicious summer green beans with garlic.

The wine was amazing.

We chilled it for about 20 minute, and straight out of the bottle it showed those New World, cool-climate Pinot Noir characteristics of bright red fruit. But it quickly began to reveal a little black pepper, tea and earthiness that Foxtrot is famous for. The big surprise, however, was how it developed over the hour and a half that it was open; it just got better and better, more and more complex, while staying balanced, nuanced and supple. It still had not peaked by the time our glasses were empty and we found ourselves sniffing our glasses all through dessert and afterwards, hanging on to the last whiffs of this wine's deep character.

We received our bottles just before we left for Japan, so we were able to take one to Aya's father. We didn't open the Foxtrot while we were there, but stored it safely in his cellar. With any luck we will open it with him next time, and, after tasting this first bottle, we are sure he will enjoy it as much as he does his favourite Burgundies.

Meat And Alcohol: Pairings

Kirin Beer Company has a restaurant in Namba (in the south part of Osaka) and that is where you have to go if you want to try some of their specialty beers, served by specially-trained bartenders.

I mean, look at that foam.
Just look at it.

A plate full of spicy, garlicky sausages are the perfect match for our bitter, hoppy beers. We were hungry and dug in before remembering to take a photo.

The foam was much more bitter than the beer itself. The bartender told us that the trapped air increases the bitter qualities of the hops (I'm guessing through oxidation). The first sip of the liquid under the foam was sweet by comparison.

La Rosa (1997) is a classic Barolo with rose petal, tea and tar aromas. The tannins mellow deliciously with a mouthful of grilled, rare steak.

Chateau Margaux's Pavillion Rouge (2006) could rest in the bottle for another few years, but it opened up beautifully with a little time in the decanter. Grilled steak is the perfect match.

Tune in next week when we eat a vegetable.

Spot Prawn Season

We look forward to this time of the year the way kids look forward to Christmas, counting down the days on the calendar.

BC is very fortunate to have a strong, sustainable spot prawn fishing industry.
With the fishing area just a couple of hours north of Vancouver, we have access to these delicious sea-bugs for 4-6 weeks, beginning in mid-May.

Three pounds, bought from the boat and taken straight home.

Usually we sautée them with a little white wine and garlic, but this year we thought we'd start off by grilling a few, with a little salt, as an appetizer.

Japanese mayonnaise has a little more vinegary zip, according to Aya.

One of us was raised in North America, and grew up eating only the fat, white tails of shrimp and prawns. The other has enjoyed the amazing, acquired taste of the tomalley all her life. She somewhat regrets sharing her enthusiasm for this delicacy, since it is now eagerly devoured by all members of our household.

The grilling was such a success that we never got around to sautéeing any of them. We just stood there in the kitchen, reveling in the soft flesh and blackened leg tips. Absolutely, outstandingly spectacular.

Except for this bit. Don't ever bite into it. Srsly. Bleh.

We usually turn to a very reliable Sauvignon Blanc to go with our prawns, but our good friends at Liberty Wines on Granville Island recommended this tiny Languedoc appellation, Picpoul De Pinet (#7 on this map), and it did not disappoint. Bright, acidic and with a little more mineral than Sauvignon Blanc, it was an excellent match for the prawns. A steal at $18.

Interestingly (for one of our regular readers, at least) Picpoul De Pinet is also the principal grape in the famous vermouth Noilly Prat.

*A reminder to anyone digging into spot prawns or other shellfish: keep the shells in your freezer for making bisque! Aya's recipe will appear in an upcoming post.

What Does Modern Wine Taste Like? Descriptor Statistics

We have mentioned British Columbia's governmental branch of liquor distribution before. One of their excellent products is their quarterly Taste magazine. Loaded with articles, reviews, recipes and information, it is a very well designed magazine that covers a lot of ground in 160-odd pages. And it is free.

They include a huge amount of product reviews in every issue, most of them squeezed into 1/12th of a page and reined in at a succinct 40-50 words. In the Spring 2012 issue, we counted 137 separate wine reviews (red, white, rose, sparkling, and sweet), not including beer and spirits.

Why did we count them? Because we read them all, and the concentrated blast of adjectives describing taste and aroma sometimes makes our heads swim. After a few pages, our minds swirl with images of black cherries, herbs, chocolate, mineral, honeysuckle and spices (Christmas, baking and Asian) and it can be a bit overwhelming.

We realized that knowing the frequency of the descriptors packed into each issue of Taste would give us an indication as to what wine styles dominate the market. So we counted every adjective in the latest issue to find out what BC is currently drinking.

We started with the aroma descriptors for red wines (click to enlarge):

Vanilla comes from oak exposure, so its strong showing is no surprise in the red section. Spice looks like the front runner, but notice how some entries were broken up, like cherry and cherry (black). They combine for a total of 19 mentions. Fruit (dried), fruit (black) and fruit (red) combine for 16.

Let's take a look at the descriptors used for red wine flavours:

Fruit flavours have a very strong showing. When combined, they outrank even oak and spice.

White aromas show a similar breakdown: vanilla, toast, oak, caramel and browned butter could all indicate barrel influence, but the fruit descriptors dominate.

White wine flavours also show fruit of all kinds leading the descriptor list.


So what does this tell us? Mostly it confirms what should be obvious: most wines on the market these days are made in a modern, fruit-forward style, often with some oak influence, and are intended to be consumed within a year or two of release.

And why not? Fruit-forward wines are generally inexpensive, popular and are easy to drink on their own or paired with simple meals.

These numbers could also suggest that some winemakers are following specific trends, creating products that meet existing expectations rather than reflecting regional or varietal flavour profiles.

These statistics certainly reveal the bell in the curve: red wines overwhelmingly taste like cherry, plum and spice, whites like apple, citrus and mineral.

Knowing this, we can start to hunt around the edges of the data for wines whose flavour profile is out of the ordinary, maybe even surprising, rather than aiming for familiar territory.

BC Liquor Stores App

Sir Oliver Mowat, great great uncle of that Mowat, was Premier of Ontario from 1872 to 1896 and one of our Fathers Of Confederation. He was instrumental in wresting control over rights to natural resources and other goods away from the federal government in favour of the provinces.

One of those "other goods" was alcohol and this decentralization of powers meant that the provinces could make up their own rules when the Temperance movement started influencing politics in the early 20th century. Each enacted legislation that kept tight control of what the people could drink, and when and where, in the hands of the provincial governments.

Since then Alberta is the only province that has completely privatized retail of alcohol and although it operates through a private contractor, it still has a monopoly on wholesale distribution.

Why is this interesting?

Because it is another example of Canada's essential conundrum: the delicate balance between what the people think they want and what the government thinks they should have.

From the number of Alberta license plates in the parking lots of Okanagan wineries, we can assume that some Albertans are fed up with the shelves full of Yellowtail and Molson Canadian in their local liquor shop.

In BC we love to complain about the Liquor Distribution Branch and their retail wing, the BC Liquor Stores. Their monolithic policies and control of imports and distribution can be maddening. That Rhône red you wanted to try? Only available in Prince Rupert. That 90-point Mosel-style Ontario Riesling selling for only $18? Not going to see it here.

But they do many things very, very well, too: their Signature stores are a pleasure to visit (and are open on Sundays, which hopefully infuriates a priest somewhere), they give lots of shelf space to BC wines, and their website is excellent.

Another thing they do alarmingly well is the BC Liquor Stores iOS app.

Free from iTunes, the app is stable, well-designed and updated regularly.

The landing screen ties in to the content of the latest issue of their in-house magazine, Taste, which is handy if you're trying to find a product you just read about.

Here we are looking up a Wild-Ferment Chardonnay from Errazuriz. Text-recognition finds the product after typing in only a few letters.

As well as the price, details, tasting notes and pairing suggestions, it tells you the nearest open store that actually has the wine in stock. This is the best use of government funding we've seen in since paved roads.

You add your own rating and notes about the wine and then organize them into lists of Favourites, Recommendations, Under $20, Never Again, or anything that makes sense to you. You can share these lists by e-mail or you-know-what.

One excellent feature is that the lists are stored on your device so you don't need to go on-line to review them (like when you are standing in a shop). This is very helpful for people like us who are using an iPod Touch that relies on wi-fi access.

Got a bottle and wondering what to eat with it? Scan it with the iPhone's camera (or type in the bar code number) and check the tasting notes for pairing recommendations. There is also a Pairings section that works the other way, showing suggestions based on a variety of typical dishes.

The Pairings section could use a little improvement, we think. One option in the "Meat" category is "Pork or Veal in Cream Sauce with Mushrooms". Why mushrooms, in particular? Strangely, one of their four wine recommendations for this specific dish was "Pomino Bianco" which actually yielded no results in the product list. Oops.

Here is another issue: if you don't spell the item correctly the search feature doesn't help at all. By now we are used to Google interpreting our typos and suggesting what we really meant, so this old-school, "Chardonnat? Does not compute!" kind of result is no longer acceptable.

Over all, this is really a very, very well-done app and the LDB should be congratulated. However, there is one glaring omission: 

Where is the Android version?

While it is not always easy to decipher the stats (Google counts in units shipped and doesn't sell phones (yet), while Apple counts retail sales), by many reports the Android platform now outsells Apple's iOS.

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/android-vs-iphone-share-2011-10

There is no longer any rationalization for not developing an app for Android devices, especially if you are a publicly-funded branch of a provincial government, awash in tax revenue.*

*Edit April 25/12: We just received a call from someone at BC Liquor Stores who tells us that they do have plans to make an Android version of their excellent app. There is no release date yet, however.

How does BC Liquor Stores' app compare to those offered by commissions and boards in the rest of the provinces?

Alberta has LiquorConnect which doesn't seem to have a mobile app at all, which is what happens when you privatize retail.

SaskLiquor  doesn't either, but for different reasons.

From the design of Manitoba's Liquor Marts Online it looks like apps of any kind are still a couple of decades away.

Ontario's LCBO is on the iPhone but doesn't have an Android app.

Quebec's SAQ does.

New Brunswick's ABNL leads the maritimes with apps for both platforms.

The NSLC in Nova Scotia has a series of podcasts and videos, but no mention of mobile apps.

Neither PEI nor Newfoundland seem to have a mobile app between them.

Nunavut Liquor Commission... well, you can read their annual reports.

Northwest Territories Liquor Commission...
 
The Yukon Liquor Corporation isn't doing much better.

So congratulations to BC's LDB on a job well done. We look forward to reporting here that an Android app is on the way soon. Can't let New Brunswick out-shine us, can we?

And to our northern brothers and sisters, we offer a hearty ᐅᒥᐊᕐᔫᑉ ᐳᓪᓕᓕᒫᐸᒐ ᑕᑦᑕᕐᓂᖅ ᐊᒻᒪᔭᖅ (Umiarjuap Pullimmaqpaga tattaurniq nimiraq.) and we hope you can find a good bottle of wine this summer.

Roast Pork and Anciano Tempranillo

Recently we had good cause to wander into the bit of Main Street history that is Windsor Quality Meats (AKA Windsor Packing Co, not to be confused with another shop in North Vancouver) and lighten their stock by the amount of one pork shoulder, skin on.

Rubbed with salt and pepper, it came out simply beautifully:
 

Note the big piece of crackling on the block. It was next under the knife:

Speaking of the knife, it is a special treat to ourselves that we splurged on when in Sakai, Japan, last fall.

Sakai was historically a steel town, manufacturing swords, and later guns, for the Samurai. After the war, arms-makers were forced to apply their skills to other kinds of manufacturing, and Sakai became famous for its bicycles and kitchen knives.

A good reason to slice up a roast pork is the opening of a bottle of Tempranillo like this one: Anciano Gran Reserva 10 year-old Tempranillo from Valdepeñas. Spanish winemakers take the risk and burden of aging their wine for us, releasing it only on a pre-arranged schedule.

This 2001, then, has been aging gently, developing wonderful flavours, and is now somehow available to us for the unbelievable bargain of $16. Still tannic when opened, it could continue to age for another 5 years at least.

We left it for about 30 minutes and it opened up beautifully, showing red and black fruit, leather, spice and nutty-earth. It was still developing as we poured the last drops.

We were tipped off to this under-valued treasure by the weekly e-mail we get from Canada's own Wine Access magazine. This one recommendation alone is worth the annual subscription. If we were under the illusion that anyone actually read this blog, we would be much more reluctant to post about this case-worthy wine.

Two Wines From Errazuriz (Chile)

Yeast. It's everywhere. It floats around, looking for sugars to eat and makes every surface grubby. Like children.

This "ambient yeast" may have helped us invent baking thousands of years ago by invading an Egyptian bowl of warm water and ground grains, but it can be a real challenge for winemakers.

In order to reliably convert the sugars in their crushed grapes (the "must") to alcohol and CO2, winemakers select specific varieties of yeast, usually a strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, according to the climate, wine-making style, and the kind of grape they are using.

The problem with relying on ambient yeasts to do this important job is that there are so many strains floating around. The winemaker can't be sure that the ones that take over the fermentation will be hardy enough to survive the build-up of their own output as they convert all the sugars. Or they might add unpredictable flavours to the wine. Brettanomyces is notorious in the wine industry for leaving an animal, "barnyard" scent.

The benefits of using ambient yeasts, however, also come from their unpredictability; they can add complexity to a finished wine. It is interesting, then, to see a large winemaker like Errazuriz take a gamble* on ambient yeasts and release a Wild Ferment Chardonnay.

Errazuriz Wild Ferment Chardonnay, 2010

This comes from the Casablanca Valley (see map below) where the ocean-influenced climate slows the build-up of heat with morning fog, and cooler night temperatures encourage complexity in the balance of acids and sugars.

And it's such a good Chardonnay. It has a little toasted oak influence but it is gentle and rounded by the malolactic fermentation. There is a classic, lemony backbone all the way through with some lovely, delicate flavours developed by the ambient yeasts. Restrained and complex, this one unfolds leisurely over a long finish.

At only $22 here in BC, it's a great way to experience a risky and rewarding style of wine-making.

*Okay, we know they aren't just throwing the doors open and risking their entire production on whatever floats in, but it makes a better story.

Carménère also makes a great story. Originally one of the six Bordeaux varieties, Carménère has found unique expression in Chile, especially in the Aconcagua valley in the warmer north.

Surrounded by ocean, mountains and desert, Chile escaped the Phylloxera plague that devastated vineyards across Europe in the 19th Century. As a result, some of the Carménère vines growing there now are among the oldest in the world.

Imagine how frustrating it must be for a winemaker to try making one kind of wine only to have it come out tasting like something completely different. This is exactly what happened, because for a long time Carménère vines in Chile were mistaken for Merlot, which didn't help it build much of a reputation.

Of course that reputation is being put right these days by bottle after bottle of high-value Chilean Carménère that arrives in our stores, and this effort by Errazuriz is a perfect example.

Errazuriz Single Vineyard Carménère, 2010

The Aconcagua valley stretches from near the coast to much further in-land, following the Aconcagua river. While not coming from pre-Phylloxera vines (the vines were planted in 1992), this Single Vineyard Carménère is a great opportunity to try the pure expression of a small terroir at a very affordable price.

It really delivers that expression: black fruit, pepper, tar and tobacco, with a rich, full mouth-feel, a well-balanced backbone of tannins and acids and a velvety, flavourful finish. While we drank it, the initial fruity nose coalesced into secondary complex aromas that had us scrambling for descriptions. It held together beautifully over an hour or more, never faltering for a moment.

At $23 here in BC, this is really a great example of Chilean Carménère.

Map of Valle de Casablanca and Valle de Aconcagua, Chile.

Morse Code Shiraz

You probably know Australian Shiraz. You may even have a bucketful of it kicking around somewhere just in case someone drops by with an armload of bacon cheeseburgers or you want to demonstrate to a friend what it was like to get hit in the face with a fruit pie when you went to clown school.

Cheap, plentiful and easy to drink but usually lacking in character, complexity or any sense of place beyond "Wine Lake, Australia". What a nice surprise to find a bottle with a flavour profile that over-shoots its low-end price tag.

Morse Code Shiraz
2009
Henry's Drive
Padthaway, Australia
$14 in BC


A slick, eye-catching label on a $14 wine is usually a sign that more money went to the graphic designer than to the grower or wine-maker. But we decided to give it a try based on some tasting notes we read in the store.

When we found that this company also makes Pillar Box our hopes rose, since Pillar Box has a similarly bold, stripped-down label wrapped around a delicious value-packed wine.

The nose had the kind of power that might be expected, but was in no way just a poke in the eye with a fruit pie. Along with blackberry there were more complex aromas of tar, spice, Christmas cake, graphite, mint, eucalyptus and peppercorns. The eucalyptus was particularly interesting, since we were taught to look for it in wines from other South Australian areas quite near Padthaway: Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale.

The palate matched nicely, with concentrated black fruit, cooked plum, spice and Christmas cake flavours. The scores were "medium/medium-plus" across the board for acids, tannin, fruit and finish. We were impressed by the balance, which belied a high alcohol level, and how the fruit-and-spice flavours were uncluttered by oak characteristics.

The wine kept its balance nicely over 60+ minutes of drinking time, not falling apart or turning flabby in the slightest. In fact, the nose developed wonderful complexity over that time.

We drank it with big bowls of garlicky mabodofu, which matched very nicely indeed.

For a very different take on this wine, take a look at this dismissive review by a man in a tuxedo. He tasted the 2008 vintage, although I doubt there is much vintage difference in a "product" wine like this.

Nero D'Avola

We found out about Nero D'Avola when we were in Sicily, its homeland. It's a funny little grape that does very well in the dry heat and volcanic soil there, and often comes out tasting like a medium-body new world Syrah. It was cheap and plentiful and we could grab a bottle anywhere when unpacking a picnic lunch.

It's also poorly represented here in BC so whenever we find a bottle from a winemaker we haven't tried before, we buy it. Our most recent find was this one by Purato.

It was not a success. When Nero D'Avola is good, it is plummy, spicy and backed by a tannic structure that you might expect from a grape that grows in mineral-rich pumice. This stuff was too light-bodied for a hot climate grape, and what it lacked in fruit it made up in an strange chemical, brettanomyces quality.

We're not surprised about the "brett" characteristics. Organic vineyards cannot use sulphur dioxide, the simplest and most effective solution to this notorious yeast problem.

We hope Purato will be able to control these challenges in coming vintages. It would be great to have a Nero D'Avola that lived up to our memories of meals in Sicily.

Picnic lunch on the ferry from Palermo, Sicily to Tunis, Tunisia. The big plastic cup is filled with Francesco Nicosia Nero D'Avola (see below).

These are some Nero D'Avola labels scanned from our travel journals:

Baroni San Lorenzo: Notte Di San Lorenzo

Our notes say we had this with shrimp and pasta and then finished it the next day with leftovers. Did we like it? Probably, although we didn't buy it again.

Rallo Vesco Rosso

Blended with Cabernet Sauvignon, as is much of what is available in BC. Again, no tasting notes in the old journals, unfortunately.

 

Francesco Nicosia Due Neri

This blend was our second favourite. The Nerello Mascalese is another Sicilian grape that makes earthy, flowery wines, which goes nicely with the fruity, peppery qualities of the Nero D'Avola.

Francesco Nicosia Nero D'Avola

This is the one we grabbed whenever we could find it. It was only 3 Euro per bottle. Rich, fruity, peppery with still enough acid to make it a great food accompaniment. Probably not as good as we remember, but if we never have it again, our memories will remain pure.

Cono Sur Organic Cabernet Sauvignon/Carmenère

After knocking organic wines at the top of this post, we feel we should mention an undervalued, organic treasure. This Chilean star is only $14.50 here in BC, and that is a steal for what you get: well-made Cabernet Sauvignon with cherry-leathery darkness and a mid-palate backed up by the tobacco and black fruit of the Carmenère. We have been drinking this one since the 2006 vintage and it has been a reliable, delicious treat. Highly recommended.

Bonus points: the cute pun in the company name. It should be an eye-roll, but it's actually pretty clever.