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Wine Review – Chasing Lions 2017 Pinot Noir

They say that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. But in New England, April winds can roar and the lion is very much alive well into May.

Last weekend, I followed the lion of winter north and drove up to visit my fellow fully-vaccinated friends in Harrisville, New Hampshire. I left Arlington on Friday night with a couple of bottles of Chasing Lions Pinot Noir, some good sharp cheddar cheese, and my beat-up Yahtzee set, excited, after a year of social distancing, to see people again. The trees were bare along Route 3 and there were still rogue piles of snow clinging to winter in the forest shadows and on the north face of Mt. Monadnock.

Harrisville, New Hampshire is a perfectly preserved little mill town. Perched on the shores of a picturesque lake, the heart of the town (and the only place to buy provisions) is the General Store. Supported by the Historic Harrisville Foundation, the General Store has been supporting the community throughout the pandemic by providing Friday night take-out dinners. Every week’s menu is a new theme. Last week was Mexican with homemade tortilla soup, tamales, and an assortment of side dishes.

Chasing Lions Pinot Noir seemed like a fitting accompaniment. I couldn’t wait to open it. As we waited for dinner to be delivered, I sliced up the cheddar cheese, got out some crackers, and uncorked the first bottle. It felt amazing to be with people again.

Produced by the Nine North Wine Company of Napa Valley, the Chasing Lions, 2017 Pinot Noir is easy to love. My friend Andrew and his wife Mary Lou are well versed in wine and they noted notes of cherry and citrus. Our host commented that she tasted a bit of spice and I simply proclaimed it “delicious.”
By the time our tamales arrived, we were ready to open the second bottle and the laughs and conversation flowed as easily as the wine.

Now, the lion of winter has seemingly moved on. The daffodils are blooming —even in the shadows of Mt. Monadnock— and I’m delighted to have found a wine that I’ll be uncorking to celebrate not just the return of spring, but also the gradual return of dinner parties and lifting a glass of wine with friends. Cheers!

Thanks for reading,

Carol, Mystic Wine Shoppe’s Wine Connoisseur

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New England Style Weather for Award-winning wine

I confess, I often pick wines because I like their label. I picked this one for that very reason. The clean, graphic type on the bottle of Oinoz Crianza, caught my eye. But, when I tasted it, I wanted to know the story of behind this delicious, drinkable red.

A dry, harsh winter, a miserable wet spring, and a summer drought sound like what we endure here in Arlington, but in 2014, at the northern end of the Rioja region of Spain, that weather pattern led to a late budding in the vineyards of Gallamate La Canoca in San Vincente. Those late buds produced grapes of extraordinary quality— so good, that this particular vintage won a Gold Medal at the Consurso Mundial de Bruselas, one of the most prestigious international wine events.

Crafted from Termpranillo grapes, Oinoz Criaza pairs well with pungent cheeses, aged beef, and roast goat. I didn’t have any of those on hand, but my kids were coming over, it was a rare warm spring night, so I decided to throw some burgers on the grill and share a couple of bottles of my newest obsession. 

We cracked the first bottle open and poured. The Oinoz Criaza is a beautiful ruby red color with an aroma of cherry, vanilla, and pepper. We sipped and dove into a baked Brie that my son had made. The gooey cheese was a perfect complement to the dry, fruity wine. My daughter, who tends to drink hard seltzer and white wine, commented, “I can tell that this is a good wine, because I actually like it.”  Smart girl. The 2014 Oinoz Criaza is the highest-rated vintage for this wine. 

We pulled the burgers off the grill and poured the second bottle of wine. It had been breathing for about an hour and the flavor really opened up and mellowed. The night was getting chilly, so we moved inside (four out of six of us have been vaccinated) and ate around the fireplace in the living room. The menu was burgers, tater tots, and salad. It was a double celebration of my daughter-in-law’s birthday (we also had a killer Key Lime pie from Petsi’s Pies in Somerville) and a send-off for my son who was being deployed with the National Guard to Washington DC. Oinoz Criaza proved to be a wine that is fitting for multiple occasions, but I plan to drink it often and for no particular reason at all. Here’s to getting together again.

By: our favorite wine connoisseur, Carol Band

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WHO DO YOU INVITE TO A HOT DOG DINNER? ANGELS & COWBOYS.

These days, I try to find any opportunity to feel normal. So when a day of working at home, washing my hand, and sitting in Zoom meetings gave way to an unseasonably warm evening and an invitation to eat hotdogs with friends, I jumped at the chance.


Good friends don’t have to impress each other. Good friends don’t need a formal invitation or fancy food. They can get together at the last-minute and make hotdogs for dinner. Because with good friends, it’s not about what’s on the table, it’s about who’s around the table. It’s the company and the conversation that matters. Of course, the wine matters, too.

That’s why, when I hung up the phone, I grabbed a pack of Hebrew National all-beef hot dogs and a couple of bottles of my new favorite red wine: Angels & Cowboys Proprietary Red, 2018, walked over, and settled into my friend’s backyard.


As the hot dogs came off the grill, I opened both bottles, poured (into disposable plastic) glasses for my friends, slipped off my mask, and took a sip.

From Sonoma Valley, Angels & Cowboys Proprietary Red is a blend of Zinfandel, Syrah, Petite Verdot, Sangiovese, Petite Sirah, and Malbec. Founded in 2014, Angels & Cowboys is a collaboration between Yoav Gilat, founder of Cannonball Wines, and Michael Schwab, a graphic designer from Northern California. Maybe that’s why the label is so simple and appealing. Out of the bottle, the wine is a beautiful deep garnet color and tastes like autumn in a glass. I sniffed, I sipped, and immediately detected a tangle of berry and plum flavor with spicy notes of cardamom and mineral creating earthy robustness that I welcomed after a summer of drinking chilled whites, rosés, and fruity pinot noirs.


This was my first taste of the 2018 Angels & Cowboys Proprietary Red. Since that evening, I’ve shared bottles with friends from the neighborhood and beyond and enjoyed I’ve it at home with my family and with the presidential candidates during the debate. It’s my new house wine and because it’s less than $20 a bottle, I can afford to drink it with a roast of lamb, as the winemaker suggests, or pair it with hotdogs. It goes perfectly with both.

By Carol Band, our Wine Connoisseur

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Friday Night Social Distancing & Wine Tasting

Yeah, yeah…these are uncertain times. The only thing we can count on here on Bartlett Avenue is our Friday evening social distancing block party. We depend on it because these days our sanity hinges on ninety minutes of genuine human contact, which is made even more delicious with the addition of wine.

But times being tenuous, and this being May in New England, we know that although the block party is a certainty, the weather is anything but predictable. So it was last Friday when we fired up the barbecue, cranked up the music and piled on winter coats, gloves, and facemasks and joined our friends and neighbors for a chilly, overcast celebration of another week of successful isolation.

There were touchless, tooth-picked bites of sausage and cheese, a variety of beer, a bottle of optimistically chilled rose, and several red wines — including the one that I brought—a 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon from Eg by Educated Guess of the Roots Run Deep Vineyard in Napa, California. I like the name, which the vineyard founder, Mark Albrecht, says reflects how he approaches winemaking—weighing what he knows (what grapes grow well where and when to harvest) against what could go wrong (wacky weather, insects). He says that it’s similar to the process that we go through when we buy a bottle of wine.


We use what we know (I like the label), we call on our experience (I had a Cabernet Sauvignon that I liked last week) and we make an educated guess. Hence the name and a label adorned with mathematical equations. Not to be confused with the slightly pricier version, the Eg line is produced with grapes sourced from California’s North Coast. The result is a very drinkable (and affordable!) wine with a whiff of blackberry and vanilla.

It was a hit with my neighbor the musician, it was a home run with my friend the real estate agent and my next-door neighbor, who is from France, where they practically invented wine, gently lifted his face mask, took a sip and pronounced the Eg Cabernet Sauvignon “Magnifique!” There’s no guesswork required to know that this is a wine that I’ll be happy to drink for the duration of social isolation or sip with friends when we get back to normal. And, if I had to make an educated guess, I’d say that will be soon.

Thanks for following along, Carol (one of our local wine connoisseur)

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Is your wine quarantine-worthy?!

Lately, it seems we are all taking comfort in simple pleasures. We cook macaroni and cheese, we play Scrabble with our kids and we enjoy a glass of wine or two. Because after working at home all week, figuring out how to host Zoom calls, keeping the kids from going crazy inside* and watching our retirement accounts dissolve, we feel like we deserve a moment of pleasure. And we do. But before you uncork that Pinot Noir or uncap that Sauvignon Blanc, ask yourself: “Is this a quarantine-worthy wine?” A wine that’s worthy of self-isolation is one that pairs well with sweatpants and stubble, whose subtle notes of pencil shavings and the forest floor are discernable through a face mask; it’s a wine that you’re willing to commit to because you’ll be drinking all of it…. alone.

 

Such a wine is Gooseneck Vineyards 2017 Chardonnay. A white wine from Navarra, Spain, this vintage is a lovely golden color. It’s light but complex with lovely notes of vanilla, oak and to my untrained nose, a hint of pear.

Here on Bartlett Ave., when it hasn’t been raining, we’ve been social distancing with neighbors. That means we stand in the middle of the street and drink wine. Rain, however, forces us to Zoom and last Friday as the rain poured down, I thought it might be fun to bring everyone together electronically to virtually share the same wine. So I sprung for several bottles of the Gooseneck Vineyards 2017 Chardonnay (not a fortune), dropped them off to my neighbors with touchless delivery, and sent out the Zoom notice.

There were seven of us at this cyber-tasting and although my friends were impressed with my seeming generosity, I had to confess that the wine is shockingly affordable. As the Zoom party commenced, we talked about what we’ve binged on Netflix, we discussed mask designs and we talked about what we were eating with that night. One neighbor paired their Gooseneck Vineyards Chardonnay with an aged Brie and seeded crackers. Another thought that it perfectly complimented their homemade chicken tetrazzini, still another drank it with black beans and rice and I savored it with a fried haddock plate from Fresh Pond Seafood. The Gooseneck 2017 Chardonnay seemed to enhance each of these dishes and, I suspect, it would also go well exceedingly well with a bowl of popcorn and Netflix.

*It takes a village to raise a child but it takes a winery to homeschool one.

Article By: Carol Band, one of our amazing wine experts and connoisseur

 

Photos by Carol Band and Gooseneck Vineyards

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The Huntsman

The holidays were hectic. Beginning at Thanksgiving (actually, Halloween…) it’s been cooking, hunting for Tupperware tops, laundry, houseguests and dishes. It’s been fun, but I welcome getting back to the routine and a little peace and quiet. That’s why when my husband called at 5pm on Tuesday and said that he’d be working late, I was happy to have a few hours of solitude and meatloaf in the oven.

The week before, with house guests in tow, we had gone to TWK in Winchester for a burger. If I have a burger in the afternoon, I usually get a beer, but at night I’ll order a glass of red wine to elevate the burger to a higher cuisine. That’s what I did at TWK. The burger was delicious, but the wine really blew me away. Served by the glass, The Huntsman Cabernet Sauvignon from Ross Andrew in Washington’s Columbia Valley was silky, smooth and delicious.

I had two glasses and stopped by Mystic Wine Shoppe on my way home to see if they carried it. They do (!) and I picked up a bottle to share with my friends. But, in the flood of New Year’s champagne and morning-after Bloody Mary’s the Huntsman somehow, through the onslaught of guests, remained untouched.

Then, as I pulled the meatloaf out of the oven on that mundane Tuesday night, I wondered…if the Huntsman Cab could make a burger feel special, imagine what it would do for my meatloaf. Ordinarily, I might not open a nice bottle of wine just for myself – but I was savoring the solitude and somehow, it felt like a special occasion. I opened the cabinet, uncorked the bottle, poured a bit and swirled it in the glass. It was a gorgeous color— deep and fragrant. I sipped and tasted blackberries and whiff of vanilla.

I cut a generous slice of meatloaf, buttered a baked sweet potato and served myself some roasted cauliflower. It was a plate of comfort food—a post-holiday celebration of a return to normal. The owner of the vineyard named this wine The Huntsman because he likes to hunt, I imagine that this wine would pair as nicely with venison or wild boar as it did with my meatloaf.

I drank two glasses, corked the bottle and put it in the fridge. I bet it’s fantastic with meatloaf sandwiches, too!

Here’s my meatloaf recipe (it’s not rocket science, so feel free to tweak).

  • 1-½ pounds of ground beef (85% lean)
  • 1 large sweet onion chopped
  • 1-½ cups of old fashioned oats
  • Salt to taste
  • A generous sprinkling of pepper
  • Squirt of ketchup
  • Squish mixture until well blended then shape into loaf pan.
  • Frost generously with a mixture of ketchup, mustard and brown sugar.
  • Bake at 350 degrees until bubbly and done (about an hour).

Written by one of our wine guru’s, Carol Bend 

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Guess who’s coming to dinner? It’s Ken Forrester – He loves a good meal!

I am fortunate that when my daughter was in elementary school, she picked her friends well.  What I mean is that she hung out with a group of elementary school girls whose parents I adore.

Best of all, everyone lives within a few blocks of each other. So, twenty years later, the girls have all gone their separate ways, but we parents, now a group of empty nesters, continue to see each other almost every weekend for dinners, election night gatherings, holidays, birthdays and lots of laughs.

This group is bound not just by our parenting experiences but we also we share a passion for politics, travel, the love of a good argument and we are all devoted to creating good food. It doesn’t have to be fancy, (we’ve had amazing hot dog and bean dinners- homemade beans, of course-) but it’s always delicious.
Last Saturday at Andrea and Dennis’ house on Jason Street, was no exception. In fact, Andrea is probably the most serious cook in the group. She worked as a professional caterer and also had her own business providing meals to go that she made at home.  And, she knows wine. So a dinner at Andrea’s means that not only do I agonize over what to make for a dessert or appetizer, I also put some serious thought into the bottle of wine that I’ll bring to share.

Pork and chorizo stew was on the menu. Andrea had suggested a Gewürztraminer
(white and light) but I went with a red and matched the earthy flavors in the stew with a silky yet substantial Ken Forrester Renegade 2013, a blend of Grenache and Syrah from South Africa. I was glad I did.

mystic blog
This wine did exactly what wine is supposed to do. It complimented the food (not that Andrea’s cooking needs any enhancement!). The slight heat in the stew, along with the green rice, spiced with poblano papers set the wine off perfectly and revealed its subtle notes of plum, black olive and a trace of chocolate that made me pour myself another glass to accompany the bourbon chocolate cake that someone else had brought for dessert. We lingered over the table, went back for seconds on the pork stew, sliced a little more off the chocolate cake, cleaned up the edges of my lemon meringue pie and were reminded again of just how lucky were are to have daughters with such exquisite taste in parents. Here’s to old friends, a new wine and to friends who can cook!

 

Thanks for reading, Carol Band

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The Holiday Spirit is a Phantom: BOGLE PHANTOM 2015

I’m not Jewish, but my husband is and, as is the case with holidays both secular and religious, it often falls upon the woman to create the traditions…which in my house means food.Potato-Latkes-300x257

So it has come to pass that I, the non-Jew, have become an expert at making latkes. I think that the crisp potato pancakes are the one thing that Hanukkah has over Christmas.

At our annual latke fry on Sunday, I grated both sweet and Yukon gold potatoes and served them with applesauce and sour cream, of course, but also with a hearty bowl of Portuguese kale soup and a romaine-free salad.

The soup is robust and smoky with chorizo and kielbasa, kidney beans, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, carrots and kale. But it cries out for a substantial red wine to elevate it from peasant food to festive holiday fare.

IMG_1318Bogle Phantom 2015 is just that wine.

 

Don’t be intimidated by the label that proclaims “mysterious and hauntingly seductive.” This is a very approachable blend  (44% Petite Sirah, 44% Zinfandel, 10% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Sauvignon) that pairs well with comforting winter dishes like beef stew, pork loin and…my kale soup.

The girls and I opened it before dinner, let it breathe a bit and sampled it while pondering the New York Times crossword puzzle. Then we set the kitchen table and poured some for everyone.

It’s smooth but bodacious, yet it doesn’t overwhelm the tongue with tannins. This will become the winter house wine here on Bartlett Avenue.  Even my daughter (a millennial!) who tends to gravitate toward pinot noirs gave this wine high marks. It’s loaded with subtle flavors and it drinks like a high priced bottle. Good thing we had two.

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P.S. I made “Craft Beer Menorahs” for the “kids” and picked up some really interesting local brews to wish them all “Hoppy Holidays!”

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