Lessons from the Santa Barbara Vintners Festival

Of course wine festivals are mostly about marketing, but that doesn't mean attendees can't learn a bunch amidst the revelry. That was clear at the recent Santa Barbara Vintners Food Festival and Grand Tasting held in Buellton on April 25. First, labeling it partially as a food festival wasn't merely a way to get the emphasis off alcohol consumption, in a hope to make a less mad MADD. It was also deliciously surprising to have good eats on hand. To offset the over 110 wineries pouring, there were 38 food purveyors of all sorts, including tasty start-up Cultured and Saucy sharing its probiotic dips and sauces, alongside Santa Ynez Valley stalwarts like the Red Barn, Hitching Post II, and the Ballard Inn & Restaurant.

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

Sip This: Nolet's Silver Gin

Nolet’s Silver Dry Gin: Since juniper is the only thing a spirit has to be flavored by to be billed gin, the way to go different is to add to that perfectly piney taste. Enter this gin, for people wanting to wander gin’s edgy perimeters.

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

Paso Robles Cab Has Its Moment in the Sun

It's too easy to think of Paso Robles as a place you pass on your way to somewhere else -- Big Sur, Carmel, or San Francisco. The real secret is Paso Robles is on its way to better and better wine, and if you want a sense of that you should attend the CABs of Distinction Grand Tasting on Saturday, May 2 at River Oaks Hot Springs.

"Paso Robles has Napa-like climate and French-like soils," says French-born Central Coast convert Daniel Daou of Daou Vineyards and Winery, hailed as the winery of the year in 2013 by the Connoisseurs' Guide to California Wine. "It has a unique ability to achieve ripeness year after year and producing phenolic-rich [the compounds that create taste, color, and mouthfeel] wines that are yet elegant. In the last few years, Paso Robles wineries started tapping into the potential of the terroir and we are starting to see some of the results. The reality is that we have just seen the tip of the iceberg in this cabernet region and the best is yet to come."

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

It's My Saint's Day and I'll Blog If I Want To

[An oldie but, I hope you think, goodie--posted this on an old blog back in 2008. A little something for my dad, also a George, who would have been 87 today. He had a silly sense of humor too.]

April 23rd is St. George's Day, and I feel a special affinity for my namesake, given we both had our sainthood removed (it's a very painful procedure when it's done when you're an adult, let me tell you). To help polish both our images, I did some research, and found out some wonderful things, like St. George isn't just the patron Saint of England, he also is the patron saint of the Knights of the Garter, and therefore not surprisingly, of those with syphilis. Therefore everyone in England has syphilis.

He also didn't slay the dragon all at once. Nope, he opted to first get a bit kinky and then showboat, dragging his dragon into town to show how saintly he was. Here's how the Middle Ages best-seller The Golden Legend put it:

Thus as they spake together the dragon appeared and came running to them, and S. George was upon his horse, and drew out his sword and garnished him with the sign of the cross, and rode hardily against the dragon which came towards him, and smote him with his spear and hurt him sore and threw him to the ground. And after said to the maid: Deliver to me your girdle, and bind it about the neck of the dragon and be not afeard.

When she had done so the dragon followed her as it had been a meek beast and debonair.

Which, of course, begs the question, is that a dragon in your girdle, are you just debonair? And it also is the precursor to those unbelievable moments in horror/action films, when a couple, in mortal peril from a hockey-mask wearing crazy, a Cloverdale Creature, or Al Pacino's hair, decides, "Let's stop running and get busy!" and then is slaughtered in flagrante delicto, but the scene meets the audience-approved nudity-violence quotient so everyone is happy. At least it's good to see the 21st century didn't make this shit up.

So, if you want to celebrate the day, there are many ways. First, you could ask a maiden to take off her girdle and wrap it around your dragon. Then email photos to the address at the bottom of this page. Second, you could just give money to people you know named George. Third, you could do the things English Heritage suggests. Many of these things have to do with eating and drinking. Yes, English food. So let's just skip to the drinking part, which England tends to be better at and keeps you from having something called Toad in the Hole (that has to be a euphemism, but I prefer dragon to toad, at least for my ego). Then make this:

George’s Poison (adults only!)

Drink a toast to St George with this dangerous tipple named in his honour.

Ingredients: 3 parts lemonade, 2 parts ginger beer, 2 parts Pimms, 1 part gin, ice, fresh mint leaves, sliced apples, oranges, lemons, cucumber, and strawberries.
1. Measure all ingredients.
2. Pour out 2 parts Pimms and 1 part gin.
3. Add ice.
4. Add 3 parts lemonade and 2 parts ginger beer.
5. Gradually add mint leaves and fruit slices to taste.
6. Serve in a wide brimmed glass.

 

Hey, that's not a cocktail, that's a fruit punch!

I think I might celebrate with some St. George Whisky instead. From the good ole US of A. Since we need to work on the awful besmirchment to the name George that currently terrorizes our land.

An Australian and an American Walk into a Wine....

I'm having a wine tasting with at least 20 other people but I'm in a room alone. It's a digital tasting, where a select few watch on computer screens as winemakers Ehren Jordan and Bernard Hickin talk us through the new Two Lands line from Australia.

Perhaps I need to start again. The aptly named Two Lands brings together Jordan, an American who currently works with his own amazing Failla Wines, based in Napa but mostly working with Sonoma grapes, and Hickin, the chief winemaker at Jacob's Creek, Australia's largest wine brand. The four-wine portfolio they've developed, at 7,000-10,000 cases each, is made for the U.S. market only and priced to move at a retail price of $13.99. And it will move, as each one of these wines is not just tasty but interesting, too. It's what one might expect when adding the talent of maverick Jordan (best known for guiding Turley Wine Cellars to zinfandel dominance) to the might, money, and access of Jacob's Creek.

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

Sip This: Field Recordings Tempranillo

Field Recordings Ventucopa Tempranillo 2013: From the distant reaches of the Santa Barbara Highlands comes this light-on-its-feet expression of the great Spanish grape that doesn’t get grown enough on the Central Coast.

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

Big Foodie Festival in Little Bacara

If you’re gonna do a food festival, whose spirit would be better to invoke than the woman who made French cuisine safe for American kitchens? It certainly doesn’t hurt that Julia Child covered the Santa Barbara angle, too, so it makes sense that the Bacara teamed up with the Julia Child Foundation to host an annual Food & Wine Weekend, now in its second year. Going down at the resort and beyond April 16-19 are numerous tastings, demos, and a special dinner with actor/winemaker Kurt Russell, who’ll share his GoGi and Hudson Bellamy wines, which he also pours regularly in the Wine Saloon at the 1880 Union Hotel in Los Alamos.

If you want to read the rest then do so at the Indy's site.