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Liquid Refreshment
The 2004 Maccari ‘Templaris’ Merlot was picked up, on a whim, from an independent grocer in North London, called Woody’s, for £7. Woody’s also has a kebab shop next door, so how dedicated can they be to wine? Well, they do alright. The Templaris Merlot is kind of a rare find. As a wine, not […]
A big hand for Sean for coming up with some great pairings for wines and American dishes. However, I still can’t seem to come to terms with seeing the words ‘prawn’ and ‘po-boy’ in the same sentence. InterWined reckons that it’s time to offer its own advice for picking an excellent American wine.
Finding decent American […]
Each Friday and sometimes Saturday, InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results along with the recipe in a little feature it likes to call ‘Blow the Bank’.
This week, ‘Blow the Bank’ introduces InterWined’s All American, a month-long celebration of some of American cuisine’s greatest dishes from classic comfort foods to the unsung greats of American soulfood.
First up is All American Meatloaf with Crème Fraîche Mashed Potatoes.
Whether its origins rest, as some varyingly contend, with the mogul invaders of China, Italian meatball-makers, German Hamburgers, British shepherd’s pie-bakers, or the recipe books of eager home-meat-grinder salesmen, there can be little doubt that the humble meatloaf is 100% American and 100% classic.
Just as its histories are numerous, its variations and varieties are both countless and unpredictable. So, while some recipes call for the inclusion of pineapples or scotch eggs — ingredients that would be anathema in others, still others quibble over the significance of using barbeque sauce or ketchup or Bolognese in the name of authenticity and correctness. In the end, like so much confort food, it all comes down to what you like and what you think is right.
Indeed, there is little doubt that many chefs (and many of their mothers) will find InterWined’s All American Meatloaf far from correct. For one, it includes a couple of rather unorthodox ingredients, such as cubed pancetta and stale sourdough bread. For another, it’s topped with streaks of bacon.
And, because one classic deserves another, paired with InterWined’s All American Meatloaf is the 2005 Château Amarande (13.5%) Grand Vin de Bordeaux. A mix of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2005 Amarande has the familiar nose of a classic claret — a bit of eart, spice, and forest. On the tongue, it’s surprisingly soft, rich in fruit, and mildly tannic with a touch of pepper that marries brilliantly with the both the crusty edges of the meatloaf and its slightly fatty, chewy middle (thanks in no small part to the cubes of pancetta). At 13.5%, the wine is a tad too high in alcohol and, therefore, attention-seeking to be a perfect wine to serve with food; but it high-alcohol wines are all the rage these days and this one proves a superb match for the meaty ground beef, fatty pancetta, and crispy bacon all the same: 9.4.
InterWined’s Own Recipe in Full
All American Meatloaf with Crème Fraîche Mashed Potatoes
Click on the post to view and download the recipe
Wine number five from InterWined’s tour of Italian wines is the 2003 Feotto dello Jato ‘Rosso di Turi’ Monreale Merlot.
A plump little Sicilian number with surges of sugar plum. Sweet little California raisins here and there as well. This wine dances with black currant. Not very Italian, but still quite fun and bright. Many Sicilian […]
Whether it be a bottle of champagne served in celebration or a simple glass of table wine poured to help end a miserably long day, InterWined.com believes in the power of wine to mark each and every occasion as unique. It’s just one of ways that we find life and wine intertwine.
So, when Joel of […]
For most of us, getting our hands on the best of the 2005 vintage in Bordeaux is unlikely; the price of this exceptional vintage is well out of reach in the higher echelons of wine production.
For InterWined.com’s standard, that is only rating wines worth drinking, usually in the £5 to £10 range, 2005 Bordeaux would […]
Sadly, the aroma of this 2003 Les Ailes de Paloumey Haut Medoc (13.5%) is a little flat, which seems to be the norm these days for mid-priced Bordeaux, with a little liquorice.
The wine is nice and soft, but 2003 was a weak year for the region. In fact, you can taste all the rain. There is some tannin, though not enough for a good grip. This is the most understated of the wines and perfect for an easy drink by the Christmas tree on Boxing Day: 8.3 alone; 8.5 by the Christmas tree or in a mixed case.
Last Friday saw InterWined invited to four parties: a dinner at the Italian Embassy…a wine party for Covent Garden designers, Will and George…a gathering of amateur actors at a pub in Islington…and a Christmas Party for the Islington Conservatives.
InterWined.com is sorry to report it only was able to attend the latter, due to a […]
The christmas press party at Moody’s Investors Service was held last night in the upper walkways of Tower Bridge, high above the Thames. PR guy Daniel told InterWined that the place gave the ratings agency a good deal on the evening’s rental, £15,000 for three hours.
You think the Tower could serve decent food for that […]
Earlier this week, InterWined was asked to name the perfect wine to go with the Daniel Radcliffe vehicle, My Boy Jack, directed by my friend Brian Kirk.
While there may be numerous excellent pairings, the best choice seems to be the 3 de Valandraud 2001, St. Emilion Grand Cru. The wine is a classically […]
InterWined faced an interesting challenge last night: to pair wine with a very specific movie. I rang my friend Brian Kirk to tell him I was eagerly anticipating watching the movie he just directed, My Boy Jack, starring Daniel Radcliff, the actor who came to fame as Harry Potter. I asked if I should have […]
After a two-week hiatus, ‘Blow the Bank’ is back.
And, just as it has for the last five months, each Friday InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results, along with the recipe.
This week’s ‘Blow the Bank’ comes courtesy of its own recipe for Lamb Shank with Breakfast Mushrooms and Mashed Potatoes.
Shanks are tough, lean, temperamental cuts of meat from the tibia that require a great deal of attention, time, and cooking in order to become the big softies everyone loves. Cook them right and they reward you with a soft, tearaway flesh that falls of the bone onto your fork and almost dissolves in your mouth. Cook ‘em wrong and you forget what all the fuss is about.
To better illustrate the point, if you’ll forgive what is likely one of the most bizarre of food metaphors, shanks are pre-Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger. (You remember him, don’t you? He was that great actor from such tour de forces as Jingle All The Way and that film about male pregnancy that must have seemed like a good idea to some since-replaced studio bigwig, Junior.)
Uncooked, the shank’s just like Arnie à la the first Terminator — all relentless and badass, but, if you can hold out long enough, it’ll come back out of the oven re-wired and on your side just like Arnie the Protector in T2. It’s all about patience. If you’re impatient, if you rush it by cooking it on a higher heat for less time for instance, it’s game over. The Connors are dead, and the future’s fit only for machines. Good Job, ‘girlie man’. Now, instead of forking through some tender Schwarzenegger, you’re left with piping hot rock-hard heap of Vin Diesel! And let’s face it; no one wants that to happen. Not you; not me.
Sure we could argue for days on end about merits of both men, whose less wooden or whose better at looking tough under the lights, their muscles glistening from a last-minute olive oil rubdown. Yet, whatever the outcome, it’s just cosmetics. We’re talking meat, not musclemen. And, the real fact of the fact of the matter is we’d all rather watch a limp Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop over a cloying Vin Diesel in The Pacifier. Don’t deny it (Especially you, Gaffney — I’ve seen your video collection: It’s all Raw Deal, Red Heat, Last Action Hero, and Batman & Robin with you. Not a single copy of A Man Apart or Find Me Guilty in the bunch.)
And so it is with lamb shanks, it’s about the meat not the muscle — better an overcooked softie than an undercooked tough guy, which is exactly what happened with this week’s dish.
InterWined had high hopes that it’s breakfast mushrooms with onion, pancetta, and red wine would serve as the perfect jus for a soft, fall of the bone, lamb shank. And it would have paired beautifully too, had Sean proved more patient. Instead, the shank hung to bone far more than it should have done, coming in somewhere between Vin Diesel in XXX and Arnie in True Lies. If only it could have been Twins — where’s Danny Devito when you need him…right?
At 14.5% alcohol, the 2005 Chilean Matetic ‘Corralillo’ Merlot Malbec packs a punch. This is a muscle wine for a muscle shank, or so that was the thought when it was selected to accompany the lamb shank. It’s deep red in colour wine bouquet that’s falls somewhere between a campfire and a petrol station forecourt. For obvious reasons, one suspects most reviews would highlight the campfire over the forecourt. After all, the only people likely to get excited by the words “petrol station forecourt” probably drink a very select number of beverages that begin with White Lightning and wholly approve of Mark Vincent’s decision to change his name to Diesel.
For Vin Diesel fans and gasoline fetishists: 10 points.
For the rest of us: given the £11.99 price tag at Oddbinns, a-nothing-to-write-home-about 7.7 — too much alcohol, too little finesse.
InterWined’s Own Recipe In Full
Lamb Shank with Breakfast Mushrooms & Mashed Potatoes
Click on the post to view and download the recipe
A recent lunch at One Blossom Street presented InterWined.com a unique opportunity: to try a very, very expensive wine, compared to a not-so pricey wine.
Owner Roberto, and wine merchant Antonello, were there for the private tasting. Roberto broke out his 2003 Barrua Isola Dei Nuraghi , made by the same folks who produce the super tuscan Sassicaia, which he said will be the next great wine to come out of Italy. He’s going to sell it for around £85 a bottle ($175).
Antonello brought his 2004 Piantate Lunghe, Conero Rossini, which would sell on a store shelf for a much more forgiving £12 ($25).
So which taste better?
Roberto isn’t a huge fan of his Barrua. He believes it is produced to appeal to more “international” tastes, and isn’t distinctly Italian enough. And he’s right to an extent, as it is a blend using French varieties: Carignano, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. The wine is incredibly well-balanced. Flawless, even. Violets, plum and a strong helping of liquorice. The tannins are weak for an Italian wine, but this just makes the Barrua incredibly mellow. The loamy clay soil can also be tasted, at least that’s InterWined’s guess on what kind of earth the grapes grow in. The wineceller, Enotria, says that the wine pairs well with spicy food. They’re lying. Spicy food kills this wine. Ruins it. We tried the wine with a spicy tomato pasta with olives and hated it. 9.3 points. Drink by itself or with cheese.
Antonello’s Piantate was fuming with alcohol on the nose, but for some reason, it cut right trough the spice. His wine is a blend of Montepulciano and Sangiovese — very Italian. Medium body with surprisingly soft tannins. It had nice grip, sure, but still a year too young. InterWined noted a chalky flavor, which Antonello confirmed: the vines grow in chalky soil.
How about that? 8.9 points.
Being actors, the fools here at InterWined couldn’t help but notice a wine from Drama. Yes, Drama, a region near the Adriatic in Greece. Available at Oddbins for £12.49. There are two types of labels for this wine, the clean and the dirty, both are available to view at Nestor Imports.
InterWined went for the […]
It’s a Chianti! It’s a Sangiovese!
No, it’s a Super Super Tuscan!
A super Tuscan is any wine from around Tuscany Italy that “breaks” the rules.
In this case, the 2000 Le Fioraie “Piemaggio”, has some Cabernet Sauvignon (wah?) and Merlot (gasp!) blended into the mix. Not being 100 percent Sangiovese grape means it can’t call itself a […]
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