#83- Vernaccia

Our weekend was coming to an end. The next morning we'd be packing up and heading home, this camping trip likely our last one for the season. The September long weekend was beautiful  and was a great overall first time camping with us experience for Owen. Alberta weather is unpredictable so it was possible to get another weekend in but not likely (and as I write this October 3, a definitive no).

That night after our hike, Craig and I had one last wine to try- the Vernaccia wine (again, being as this was an Italian wine weekend, is from Italy). It is from Azienda Agraria Le Rote Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Yeah, say or write that five times fast!

We headed back to the campsite and took to our usual positions. Craig got the fire ready, I started to make supper and in between the two of us, keep Owen occupied. He loves to play so it was a constant shuffle between duty and keeping the kid happy (we couldn't stand the prospect of him telling his mother that he hated camping with us. No, we wanted to make this weekend so damn good for him that there'd be no competition as to who his favourite Aunt and Uncle were. Exhaustion be damned!)

I decided to make chips to go along with our burgers rather than just a potato. I'm not a huge potato fan so I was up for the challenge. It was a lot of work but I'm happy the effort was worth the result as our potatoes turned out splendidly. As did the burgers. From the picture, you can see we had all the fixin's to go with out grilled AAA beef. It was such a perfect supper and ending to a magical weekend.

And while most would pair a red with the hamburger (so yesterday....) we decided to pair our remaining white with it, and to good results. The vernaccia is a light wine that for us, completented the flavourful dinner and didn't try to compete with it. I'm sure a red would have done nicely but it was great to have a light, crisp and fresh wine that evening. The vernaccia grape is acidic and usually citrus based. I did notice both, again, complimenting the dinner quite nicely.

I know there may be some hardcore wine drinkers out there shuddering at the fact that I made this wine and food pairing but all I have to say is: shut it! Life is about being real. Not all of us have the ability to spend a lot of time dissecting our wine and determining the perfect wine pairing. Especially when camping. To me, wine is about being real. Taking changes. Experimenting. Hating wine. Loving wine. Discovering new tastes. This is why I do this blog- it's not about pretending to be a wine expert which I am far from. But I do drink lots of wine and I like trying new wines so for me, this is indulging a passion and love. Nothing more, nothing less. The worst thing that will happen is I make a terrible wine-food choice. Oh well, guess I'll just have to try again!

And no one is attacking me about this. In fact, I find the wine community quite supportive, engaged and just as willing to try new things as I am. Where I find I have issues sometimes is with the wineries themselves. Of course they're out to protect their brand, to encourage people like me to pair their wines with the perfect foods and speak in nothing but positive tones about their wine. But I say get real. I appreciate the effort and should I find time to do so and want to, the pairing will be made. But then give me 5, 10 choices. What if I don't like lamb shanks? Then what?

Alright done rant, if it is one. I think it's time to move on to a new colour (red) and a new country (Greece) next. You in?

#80- Dolcetto

It was the only red wine of the whole camping weekend. And it didn't disappoint! After a full day of hiking and hitting up Old Fort Point (next post), we were ready to enjoy a quiet evening at the campsite. It was a beautiful evening in Jasper with daytime temperatures in the mid twenties so the evening temperature was just perfect.

We'd hoped that we had burned enough of Owen's energy off during the day and doing the climb but no such luck. While Craig got the fire going (so I could make us dinner), I had to entertain the kid.

I threw a ball in the air. I played bocce ball. I wrestled with him. I played I spy. I played jump over the wood logs. I played hide and seek....you get the idea. I'm not sure how people do this "parenting"  thing full time. It was time to drink.

The menu that evening included fresh potatoes (from my sister's garden), some side salad and good old AAA Alberta beef steak. They'd thawed during the day so they were spiced up a bit and once the potatoes were done, the steaks were put on and grilled to perfection.

The wine is a Dolcetto, very obviously an Italian wine. The wine is a midweight wine and not very acidic. It is often drunk very young. This was an absolutely delicious wine and both Craig and I gave this wine a two thumbs up. I thought it was a great compliment to the juicy and flavourful steak- didn't take away any of the smoky flavours of the food that had infused itself into our grilled dinner.

The dolcetto grape is grown in the Piedmont region of Italy and is known as "little sweet one" which it was. Coming off a month of drinking ports, sherries and dessert wines, it's all relative so I wouldn't call this necessarily a very sweet wine. It is actually a dry wine- this world is sometimes full of mystery and confusion.

In this wine I could definitely taste licorice and cherries and would classify this as a very balanced wine.

The winery is the Poderi di Luigi Einaudi and based on the beautiful pictures on its website, I would very much like to go there. It's exactly how I picture a vineyard to be- beautiful and romantic and mysterious. Oh, who wants to buy me a ticket? If you can read Italian, you can read more about the wine.

I still have some of the wine left so the debate tomorrow while I do some of my classroom work (yes,I'm taking a wine class- maybe one day I'll actually be able to write something intelligent about wine) and drink the bottle or leave some for Kristin and mom to taste on Sunday. Choices....

#78- Muscat Ottonel

Hello dessert wine! I had this wine just after our August wine club meeting which just happened to be ports and sherries so I was pretty familiar with tasting sweet wines.

This is a good wine. In fact, I'll probably have some more tonight with my fruit (yes, the same batch of fruit you see in the picture, I froze them so I didn't have fruit overload a while back- goes great with yogurt!)

The Muscat Ottonel grape is a white grape from Germany (though the bottle we're trying is from Austria) In France, it's known as Muscat D'Alsace. It is primarily used in dessert wines but can also be used in dry wines and some blends coming out of the Eastern European region.

The winery is House of Hafner in Austria (that's with an "a", not an "e"). Visit their site and immediately you know this is one proud Austrian company- Mozart blasts at you from their site (luckily they have an off button, I love Mozart but not when I'm visiting websites thank you very much-but you have to hit the off button every time you visit a different page-- Hafner take note how freaking annoying this is!!)

What's also interesting to note about the wine is that it's Kosher (and can I say way better than the crappy Concord Kosher wine we had a while ago....)

As I mentioned before, the Muscat Ottonel wine is a dessert wine and it pairs very nicely with many things. It's been a beautiful last few weeks here in Edmonton and I take advantage of the seasonal fruit we have available here so I paired it with blueberries, pineapple, raspberries and strawberries. Okay, one of these fruits is not grown here and I'll give you one guess only...

It's a very delicate wine on your mouth, quite acidic but very sweet. It's not as sweet as a port or sherry so you can in fact drink a glass of the wine with your dessert rather than limiting yourself to just an ounce or two.

It comes in a fancy royal blue bottle, likely to make the bright yellow label stand out.

Perusing their site, I have discovered that there are a few grape varieties I have yet to try that are grown in this region so I'll be extra careful checking out the Austrian section of the wine story to see what I can find!