Sip This: Refugio Ranch Barbareño

This red blend’s name, a reference to one of the Chumash dialects, hints at how the wine is a native expression of the Santa Ynez Valley. With 75 percent syrah and 25 percent petite syrah — at least in this vintage (the 2015 is sold out and the 2016 just released, and those percentages are slightly different) — is big and bold, hale and hearty. There’s a lot of French oak, but it’s very well integrated.

Want to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

Quixote Wines: To Drink the Undrinkable Bar

Nobody quite knows who put the petite in Petite Sirah/Syrah, since it's anything but; sometimes I like to think of it as the bastard love child of cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel after a night they both imbibed too much of each other. (I know it's probably related to the grape Durif, but that's a less interesting story.) Big, bold, dark, delicious, it's easy to see why it's often used for blends as it's almost too much: a true teeth-stainer and a testament to tannins and the vintners who tame them. For when you drink one like Quixote's 2005 Petite Sirah, you realize some wine has to exist to take on the deepest BBQ of summer.

Want to read the rest then do so at KCET's blog.

A Pig in Pig's Clothing

Still sort of recovering from the double barreled blast of contest that was the Indy's Third Annual Sizzling Summer BBQ & Cocktail Soirees, so I can't post a ton, but I did need to give a big shout out to what my better half aptly dubbed Pig-Pig-Fig. That's the dish above, my lovely entree Monday when we were out celebrating the birthday of a good old friend who shall remain nameless as he feels past birthdays and all that (but he sure does have a good radio voice).

What you see above is pork tenderloin that still owns the rights to the tender part of its name--how often does that happen out?--wrapped in bacon, so you get crispy and fat in each doubly porky bite. Very clever. The sauce is a port and fig reduction that might pass for 10W40, and I mean that as a compliment, gooey and tasty. It all gets to sit on some mashed potatoes that are light as a starch can be, yet still tater-tasting, and a bit of spinach--for color, for health, for a couple of Popeye jokes.

Goes mighty well with a Jaffurs Petite Syrah, the wine equivalent of the reduction, a jammy delight.

Petit Valentien's the place, if you're wondering. What I wonder is how they get by without a website.