12-17 Think about Pink

It used to be tough for me to decide what to serve at a dinner party when I knew the group would be headed out afterwards, but I think I've come up with a great solution after a couple trial events. The best wine to serve at a pre-party or pre-evening out dinner is Pink. It is usually lighter in alcohol then red wine and doesn't leave you feeling sleepy, so you'll have plenty of tolerance and energy to continue your fabulous evening. It will also stand up to bigger foods than white wine, so you can still serve that rack of ribs, instead of being forced to work with chicken or fish (which it also pairs rather nicely with). This New Year's Eve, my husband and I are planning on having a small group over to dine with us, prior to opening our doors to a much larger audience for the turn of the year. I'm planning to serve my famous lemon confit ribs, and a little pink wine to go with it!

Pink wine has been dealt a bad rap. Some of it is deserved, and most of its not. Pink wines are very popular among the French, known there as Rose (pronounced Rose-ay). They were very popular in America too, in the 70s and 80s, and have since developed a reputation for being cheap and sweet. Back then they were deserving of that reputation, however today, you can find very delicious pink wines made in the U.S. as long as you keep one key thing in mind: don't buy anything called "white (insert grape name)". This means, no white merlot, white cabernet, or the ever popular white zinfandel. These wines are going to be the sappy, inexpensive wines you're probably not looking for.

White Zinfandel was first introduced by Sutter Home Winery in the early 1970s. The story I've been told is that the winemaker was trying to make a more concentrated zinfandel wine and removed some of the juice so that there was more skin in contact with the juice that remained (giving it more flavor, tannin, etc). He decided to ferment the juice he had removed and see how it turned out. During fermentation, the wine stopped converting sugar to alcohol early (winemakers say this got "stuck" in fermentation). The result was a lower alcohol sweet wine that consumers loved. White Zinfandel continues to maintain popularity, but it is not considered the sophisticated beverage that most wines are today. However, it should be highly regarded by wine snobs and wine slobs alike, as it most likely saved the zinfandel plants from being torn up back in the 80s, when Cabernet began to reign supreme, as white zinfandel was still a big seller.

Happy Holidays!

12-5 Cheating words

The most important thing to remember about tasting is that whatever you think you taste is what you should say you taste. I recall one time in my degree program at the Culinary Institute that a well respected wine student confidently stated that the riesling we were tasting reminded her of a woman in an orange tu-tu. While I, and many of my classmates giggled, our teacher just asked her to explain. Since I was giggling, I missed the explanation, but the teacher seemed satisfied. The moral is, that if a Certified Wine professional can taste a woman in an orange tu-tu in a glass of riesling, then you can easily taste just about any fruit or spice in your glass of wine. I do recommend, however, sticking to fruits and spices (and maybe some vegetables), until you've got some real street cred behind you.

Even with that vote of confidence, most people still want some guidelines that our easy to remember. Tonight I'll give you some safe, bare bones tasting notes and someday soon I'll elaborate a little based on varietal. You should be able to remember these without writing them on a secret piece of paper stashed in your pocket, or worse, the palm of your nervous little hand!
Pink to Pale Red Wine- Strawberries, raspberries, cherries, white pepper
Medium Red- Raspberries, black cherries, violet, white pepper
Dark Red- Plums, blackberries, cassis, black pepper (maybe even leather or tobacco)

Pale Yellow (like albarino, tocai fruilano, sauvignon blanc)- lemon, minerals (think wet stones), zippy
Medium Yellow (like sauvignon blanc, chenin blanc, pinot gris)- grapefruit, pineapple, peaches)
Darker Yellow (like chardonnay, viogner)- apples, pears, peaches, butter, cream, toast

Hopefully this will give you some confidence at your next tasting, and help you pretend you know a little something.

12-2 Holiday Cocktailian

In addition to being a wine and food fanatic, I also enjoy a side gig as a cocktailian. The definition of cocktailian, one who designs cocktails, cannot be found in the Miriam Webster dictionary, so I'm pretty sure it was created by my favorite cocktailian and writer for the San Francisco chronicle, Gary Reagan. He has a great bar book called The Joy of Mixology that can help you on your way to becoming a cocktailian too.

Here are my latest creations for the holidays. The recipes are all designed to make by the pitcher. Pitcher drinks are great for parties because they can be self-served rather than making each drink individually, which means a lot less hosting and a lot more socializing!

Mistletoe Kiss

3 1/2 cups cranberry juice
1 1/2 cups vodka
3/4 cup creme de cacao
4 1/2 tablespoons orange juice

Mix all ingredients in a pitcher and chill in the refrigerator. When you are ready to serve, fill four short drink glasses with ice and pour drink into glasses (or, as may be the case...let your guests pour themselves!)

Reindeer Cheer
2 bottles of red wine (sweeter is better, but remember that it must taste pleasant!)
1 cup sugar
6 Limes, halved

Wash your limes. With a lime juicer (available at Crate and Barrel, etc), squeeze the lime juice from all 12 lime halves into a pitcher, reserving the skins. Cut each of the halves into four pieces and add to the pitcher (this is just for aesthetics, you can also just dump the halves in if you don't care if any end up in the glass when it is poured). Add the sugar and mash the limes with the sugar (a muddler is the best tool for this, but you can use any large spoon or spatula). Pour in both bottles of red wine and stir mixture until the sugar is dissolved. Serve over ice in wine glasses. This is a lot like sangria but the red and green makes it very festive!

Feliz Caramel

3 cups Apple Pucker
1 cup Butterscotch Schnapps
1 cup tequila
1 cup water

Mix all ingredients in a pitcher and chill. Serve over ice in small cocktail glasses. You can vary the amount of water to determine the potency of this one. If you add no water, serve as a shot.

My husband and I just threw our second annual Best Holiday Cocktail Party last night. The party is themed around an hourly cocktail, usually of my own mixology. On the hour, each hour, the drink is announced and the cocktail team (me and two highly evolved tasters), don cowboy hats and circle the room to serve it. One of us holds the pitcher, another the ice, and the third holds the cups. We dish out the cocktail to anyone who is empty (and some who just have an empty hand), giving us the opportunity to touch base with all the guests. The recipes above were from this years cocktail list.

A special thank you to all of my wonderful tasters who attended the party last night for helping me determine that this list of recipes was worth sharing!