Time is just flying by these summer months!  And as I would love for the August summer clock to tick a bit slower, I still found myself these past few weeks counting down the days to our Girls August Tasting Nite.  Blogs past recap our past events, yet none can seem to truly encapsulate the amount of passion, energy and enthusiasm that is felt and shared each time our group convenes.  Each time, I leave with a sense of fulfillment – smiling from ear to ear all the way home – recapping the combination of wine remarks, conversations and stories.  Yet, my favorite part is always the next day when I look back over the scribbled mess of wine notes I’d taken just the nite before.  The notes remind of the stories that came from each sip – listening to each girl’s account of what that ‘smell’ reminded them of in years past.  And with each account, a new story and a new memory shared between friends.

Our grandmother’s gardens, that strawberry candy we had as kids or the smell of a fresh fall September morning. 

All in all, a lovely reminiscent evening of story telling, sharing and laughter over a fabulous selection of great summer wines.  And one, I can barely wait for, as we set our date for the following month. 

And so, with a whopping 14 wines under our belts from the nite before, I transcribe  and share this lovely and unique list of summer wines for you to enjoy!

1. Rosa del Rosa Nebbiolo Rosé- IT- $17:  Dark Pink, sweet cherry & watermelon jolly ranchers in the nose.  Brite, herbal and weirdly abrasive.  Half said we liked it, other half said ‘nope’. 
2. Can Feixes Penedés Blanco- SP- $16:  Gun flint barrel and petrol in the nose, notes of sea salt and brine.  A bit flabby on the palate, but strangely alluring…because it was so unique!  We agreed to LIKE.  Perfect Pairing Idea:  Serve with a potato pancake, sour cream, chives and applesauce.    Retail:  Solo Vino
3. Valle Reale Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Rosé- IT – $20:  Dark cherry in color. Nice, strawberry, supple, juicy candy peel.  Reminds us of those shiny wrapped strawberry candies as kids – the ones with the chewy centers to them.  Really lovely wine.  We all LOVE!    Retail:  Solo Vino
4. Chateau Font Mars Picpoul de Pinet- FR – $15:  Fresh, crisp green apple.  Clean, floral, lemon curd melangé – soft and pineapply on the palate.  Delicious!  Retail:  France 44
5. Burgans Albarino – Rias Baixas, SP – $14:  Briny, creamy, white flowers and hints of kiwi fruit.  Nice.    Retail:  France 44
6. Vietti Roero Arneis- IT – $30:  Fresh oyster shell, lemon and lime scents w sweeping aromas of MN Honeycrisp apple.  A crisp September morning.  Palate is honied with drips of lite caramel.  Absolutely IN LOVE with this wine.                 Retail:  Haskell’s, Minnetonka
7. Chateau Brondelle Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon- Graves, FR – $15:  Smells exhausty, yet alluring with notes of green grass, cat pee and grapefruit.  We swear it is NZ Savi, it is so distinctively New World in the nose.  Really grapefruity as it opened up.  But were surprised once revealed!  We agree to be okay with it.    Retail:  Pairings Wine Market
8. Domaine A. Et P. De Villaine Aligoté- Bouzeron, FR – $20:  Wow!  Honey crystallized with bits of warm ginger, oily and sort of wet wool.  Had almost a creamy Creme Fraiche smell about it – nice.  I think it’s reminiscent of Chenin from the Loire – but was spoofed by this Burgundian beauty.  We like it.    Retail:  Solo Vino

9.  Aveleda Fonte Albarino- Vinho Verde, SP – $10:  Oily, crisp but hints of bar chalk.  Gr apple with a slite lime peel zest – sweet tart chalk – sort of candied.  Very easy drinking and a steal for the $$$!    Retail:  France 44

10.  Nikolaihof ‘aged’ Gruner Veltliner- Wachau, Austria:  You can smell the age.  ‘Smells Victorian, almost Baroque’ says Lindsay!  Like those little mini Cherobs flying around… What kind of tasting notes are these anyways?!  Yeasty and oily like your grandmother’s wallpaper – yet, we really like it!!

11.  Cade Sauvignon Blanc- Napa- $30:  Soapy, chalky and minerally on the nose.  Really abrasive on the palate and severely disjointed.  First wine of the nite we did not like and would not recommend.  Seriously, a bad way to spend your dollar and cents.    Retail:  Pairings Wine Market

1. 12.  Trimbach Riesling – Alsace, FR- $20:  Petrol, dry, crispy with hints of earth and spice.  Clean too.  We really like it.  A nice, clean cut DRY Riesling.  We might LOVE this one.  Oh and P.S., I love Hubert Trimbach!     Retail:  Byerlys
2. 13.  Innocent Bystander Moscato- Victoria, Auz- $14:  Yippeee!!!  A gorgeous pink bubbly.  Looks orangey, yet we are in the dark by now and have had a few, so it’s unclear what color it really is!  Notes of orange creamsicle, orangey zest, really LOVELY!  Smells like Lindsay’s grandmother’s rose garden.  Gosh, Lindz is on a roll here tonite.  This is really good, we’re pretty sure.  And, a great Buck-for-Buck Wine!    Retail:  Pairings Wine Market

14.  Quadrio Nebbiolo- IT- $20:  Earthly and mushroomy, smells like dried flower petals.  Also a bit sulfur-y.  Sulfur drops out and the palate is dry, and begs for risotto.  We are very happy to have this one red in our tasting!  We enjoy it immensely.    Retail:  Solo Vino

So there you have it.  A gorgeous array of fresh summer wines, intertwined and perfect paired to an amazing group of wine lovin’ ladies!

You’d think I went kicking and screaming, I was so ‘unenthrauled’  with going to the John Legend/Sade concert last nite at the Target Center downtown Minneapolis.  My husband, an avid live music fan, bought tickets to the concert months before and had become increasingly more excited about the event than his own birthday in a few weeks.  I honestly didn’t see the point.  We’d seen John Legend before and well, he was so much more into himself than the music that he put out, that I found no reason to see him again.  And the main act, Sade.  Wasn’t Sade something you slowed danced to in college?

As the week approached, we learned of other friends hitting up the concert so we made plans to meet first at one of our favorite downtown hot spots, The Capital Grille.  While I’m always confident there isn’t much that their famous Stoli Doli Martini can’t fix – I went along with the program.  Dinner, as it turned out, spectacular.  And after a couple of fab Croatian wines down the hatch and a crispy cold cocktail, I was ready for whatever we were about to hear. 

We missed the majority of Mr. Legend’s set, but were able to catch the last four songs of his act.  I must say, I’m not sure if it were because I was so taken aback with his slinky white on khaki linen look or if I actually thought his music and interaction with the audience had ‘matured’.  Yet I think I had decided, I liked it.  His dark husky voice sounded sort of ‘jazzy’ this time around – making me think that I wanted to listen to his music outside on a patio somewhere while sipping expensive bubbles.  Real bubbles.  Like those that snap on the ends of your tongue, a gorgeously yeasty type – Champagne.  Ahh yes, a vintaged Pol Roger ‘Winston Churchill’ Champagne, that would do nicely.

Next came what I apparently had envisioned wrong all along – The Queen of Sheba – Ms. Sade.  I mean, what does a woman of 52 and a career that seemed popular ages ago, sound like now?  (I mean, look at what happened to Stevie Nicks.)

There she was – fit, lean, with that slicked back iconic ponytail, all in black and as gorgeous as the day I remember ‘Smooth Operator’ hitting the airwaves.  With a kind of a ‘take charge’ yet, mesmerizing appearance, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.  It was that voice.  The voice and the songs that I thought I couldn’t remember a word of, that had me tuned right back into 1984, mouthing every word.  Remembering the mid eighties, I suppose was right about my Madonna stage, where I remember thinking…this is what REAL women sound like.  After all, what girl in her prepubescence didn’t want to be someone like Sade or Madonna in the 80′s?

Fabulous, is all I have to say.  And as it turns out, is quite the opposite review than my local newspaper, The Star Tribune.  They really never cease to amaze me with their music reviews.  You’d think that the people they’re sending to these concerts don’t like music, as I’ve never read a positive response from any concert they’ve reported on.  As usual, they ripped apart the staging, the melodrama and the feel of the event.  Saying that each of Sade’s slick black outfits didn’t pop enough for the stadium lighting – reporting that her figure was lost behind the satiny lighting and the gorgeous sheer curtains that fell with the transitions of each song.  I say, they didn’t see the same show I did.  My gosh, in the entire third act of her concert she appeared in a tight, white, sequin-y, floor length dress - peeping a brite pink brassiere that took over the whole front half of her outfit.  I mean, what part did they miss here?

Point is – Ms. Sade – I think I have to dredge up those old CDs of yours.  And you, my dear, deserve bubbles too.  And yes, the real ones.  While I can’t give the same wine pairing to you as I did your opening act – I will say that your music had me thinking  ‘All I want to do is drink French Wine right now!’ 

Perhaps a gorgeously, dry Chenin Blanc from the region of Savennières in the Loire Valley of France is more fitting for your act.  And, I would of course, pair you to one of my favorite producers of the region:  Mr. Nicolas Joly.  One of  THE  most powerful and gorgeously eloquent wines I’ve had in the last ten years… Joly’s La Coulee de Serrant is the perfect pairing to you, Ms. Sade.  Still rockin’ it with class, elegance and style. 

Pleasantly surprised, I guess you could say, is an understatement as to my expectation of the evening.  I loved every minute of the concert and would highly recommend to all of you peeps out there looking to ‘spice’ up an evening at home, pull out some of those old Sade albums.  I think you’ll find yourself lured right back into the Smooth Operating Tones of this hot rockin’ mama.  Salut!

Once a quarter friend Michael Agnew, Cicerone of A Perfect Pint, and I teach a joint culinary beer/wine class at Cooks of Crocus Hill with our good pal, Chef Mike Shannon, the school’s culinary director.  With every class we teach, the crowd seems to get bigger and the wait list just that much longer.  Folks line up over a half hour early to grab their seats for the class and many continue to come to every one of the classes we teach together.  From Cozy Comforts (a menu of winter warming food), The Big Thaw (a springtime menu), to our Fall Harvest dinners – the number of combinations we’ve selected for great food, wine and beer pairings continues to grow.  With a total of eight libations poured and a menu that consists of a full five courses to indulge – it seems as if the main course and the dessert pairings as we run head to head with our beer/wine picks end up on our Best of the Best list every time we teach. 

This past week, Michael and I taught one of my favorite summer classes:  Beer, Wine and BBQ. 

With a menu that both Chef Mike Shannon and I selected months earlier to execute, one never really knows our actual beer/wine selections until the nite of our class.  Nothing is pre-selected and often times I run back and forth on my selections, changing and amending my choices right up until the nite of the event.  While we flip the first few courses between Michael’s beer choices and my wine pours – it is the entrée and the dessert courses that come head to head with immaculate pairings. 

Starting the menu off with a fresh Grilled Tomatoes & Mozzarella plate, I chose to pair a wine I was most recently introduced to through my Girls Tasting Group.  La Mano Mencía.  Mencía, a Spanish grape I’ve had quite a few times in the past, yet have never really found one tasty enough at an affordable price-point, until I met La Mano.  For a whopping $10 on a retail shelf, the wine is juicy, a bit spicy and sort of smoked and tomato-like – making it a fab pairing to our grilled tomato salad.  A combination of fresh vine ripe tomatos with a wine supple enough to pair – started the class off with a bang.  Continuing on with a Grilled Romaine & Blue Cheese Vinaigrette Salad, Michael worked his magic with Schel’s Pils – pairing perfectly to the smokey side up of the grilled romaine leaf.  Next, a Coconut Shrimp dish drizzled with Vanilla Gastrique.  I paired a white Rioja from Spanish producer Cune.  A solid, slightly flowery, yet round and melony wine made from only the Spanish white grape:  Viura – a really nice compliment to the dish.  Making friends with the crunchy side of the coconut, yet lite enough as to not take over the shrimp underneath – the pairing was a really nice ‘outside of the box’ combo. 

Moving full steam into our entrée and dessert courses, Michael and I prepared our selections when the Knife and Fork Manchego Burger hit the table.  Reaching for one of my favorite BUCK-FOR-BUCK WINES, Alexander Valley Vineyards Cab, I watched as the crowd rolled up their sleeves for the pair off.  The rock ‘em, sock ‘em $18 Cabernet, with its smokey, rich, slightly herbal structure and meaty black fruited body, was an explosive combination of flavor as it melted into Chef Mike’s bacon, garlic, Manchego fresh ground burger.  Delish!  Yet, the combination of Michael’s selection perfectly cleansed the palate before moving on to our bodacious dessert pairings. 

Grilled Peaches with a Grand Mariner Cream - get out of town!  This was absolutely lovely.  While I’ve said it a hundred times before, I have no problem repeating it a million times more until we all really truly feel comfortable stepping outside our comfort zones with dessert dishes and a non ‘dessert wine’ pairing. 

Rule of Thumb:  Select a Wine just one degree sweeter than the dessert on your plate

While yes – a Sherry, Madeira or Port – work perfectly with most desserts, reach for a little something outside the box for your next wine and dessert pairing.  I selected the Ceretto Moscato d’Asti- a rich, creamy, yet gorgeously balanced Moscato from a famously reputable Italian producer was the perfect combo.  Peachy like the dessert, with notes of fresh white flower and brite citrus – a perfect pairing.  Michael’s pairing, the Lindeman’s Pêche Lambic also a fabulous pairing.  Perfectly in line with the bit of smoke and grill left of the fruit’s outside, at the same time - supple and frothy – pairing perfectly to the combination of Grand Mariner and soft whipped cream.  Ahhh, a nite to remember and a combination of pairings fit for only some of the city’s best foodies! 

Thanks so much to all who attended and tweeted (and retweeted) our perfect combinations via Twitter!  Visit Michael’s blog for a full report on his pairings (along with a few of this class’s recipes).

 And don’t forget to log on to Amusée’s Wine Events Page for more Beer/Wine Food Pairing Classes this fall and winter at Cooks of Crocus Hill.

Still looking to put together that perfect Summer Supper?  Look no farther! 

We have your answer for an entire menu of fresh, fun summer ingredients, all the way through to their recipes.

Not only are we going to share with you one terrific menu HERE, but we’re going to share some of our favorite summer sippers – both BEER and WINE – to accompany those dishes. 

Enjoy this fabulous selection of Perfect Pairings!