2014 Cabernet and cherry muffins
International Cabernet Day is coming, and we celebrate by having our tasting sheet focus on all Cabernets and Cabernet blends. For the next few weeks, I will be sharing stories and recipes about our estate Cabernet Sauvignon. I am choosing this week our 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon that has yet to make an appearance on our tasting sheet but has last year during our vertical tasting. This is a wine; we haven’t opened up in a long while. But, this past week, I did! Every so often, I go into the closet…
ioned last week how I enjoy Robby’s Blend with plum dishes. Well, now I am craving a…
I’m gonna start off in the negative this week even though I try not to. I must share I had the world’s worst tasteless plums last week. They were so bad… How bad were they? Sounds like the start of a bad joke. Well, I bought five, I took a bite of the first one and struggled to take a second bite. I ended up not finishing it and I bit into the second one and it was just as bad as the first and really didn’t know what to do…
rday would have been my mom’s birthday. Its been three years yet it feels like yesterday she was here. I was thinking, what I should make for dinner that I know she would have loved. In the meantime, while I was thinking about different things she liked, I noticed this pan she had in the kitchen that she used for a few things like Stuffed Bell Peppers, Thanksgiving stuffing balls, and a few other dishes. It held 6 peppers perfectly. It…
Yesterday, for the first time I made pretzels and pretzel buns. They came out perfect and they were so delicious. We had hamburgers with the buns. But I was trying to figure out what I should do with the fresh strawberries I bought at the farm on Monday. I was running out of eggs and I wanted to use one for the hamburgers, so I kept thinking what to do. Then it hit me as I starred into the fridge, Strawberry lemon cake! I took a fresh lemon from our tree…
I knew that I wanted to write about a specific wine this week, but I didn’t know how many different things I could share about this fabulous new wine. So, next week will be about this wine but a different angle. I am sure you had enough of the suspense…. it’s the 2017 Amber Chardonnay. The style in which it is made fascinates me. Every time I share what Amber is, I reminisce to when I read my first article about…
Tartar sauce is a mayonnaise-based sauce or what we usually categorize it as a condiment. I love to read about the history of things and all week I’ve been trying to figure out when tartar sauce became a condiment for fish rather than meat.
This past week was my dad’s birthday, and every year I like to make him something special. This year I made crab cakes and tartar sauce. I got up that morning and made him breakfast, lox eggs and onions. We then went to the cemetery to visit my mom and then for lunch we ended up having a scoop of ice cream.
Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay goes well with butternut squash, pumpkin and sweet potatoes. For this dish, I…
been a little different than I am used to. For instance, tonight ‘s…
This past weekend, I opened a 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon to see how it is developing. 2014, was a tough year for our grapes. We didn’t have a lot of water, which made the wine a bit astringent. If you follow me, you are aware that we have a Cabernet Vertical coming next week. I had someone ask me what type of petite bites I serve. Well, depending upon the wine and what is in season, from cheese to dessert and anything in-between. Last year, the 2014 was paired with a dark…
A crisp cool and refreshing wine with a lighter dinner on a hot night. Most of us will agree, that when we get home from a long day at work during summer that sometimes we don’t feel like cooking. I tend to cook a few meals at one time and then enjoy them all week. I will say, I do have more of a challenge than others on reheating foods, since I don’t have a microwave at home. With this…
In previous articles, I have mentioned about the history of a port-style wine, and single varietal ports, but not all the styles of a port-style wine. Solera is a process for different beverages like port wine. Some whiskeys can also be processed in this fashion. It is a process of blending in such a way that the finished creation is a mixture of a port style wine from different vintages, with the average age that continues as every year, as a…
I am probably writing for the last time about the award-winning 2009 Syrah, since we only have a few cases left. This has been one of my favorites since I started to work at Reyes Winery. I thought I would focus this week on a Syrah again, since it is International Syrah Day on February 16th. Last year for our annual Winemaker Valentine’s Dinner, I prepared a leg of lamb and served it with the 2009 Syrah. Currently, I…
This past weekend someone asked me about why do wineries blend wine. Last July, I wrote an article about wine blends and I mentioned about combining two or more wines makes each one better than they would be on their own. Sometimes wine varietals need other wines to help them have the complexity that a wine needs. Sometimes a wine can be flat and if you blend an acidic wine, it will create a blend that is balanced. By blending you…
Usually when I decide upon a topic to write about, I usually choose a wine first. This week I chose the food before I decided upon what wine I would pair a dish with.
What wines to pair for your family Thanksgiving dinner?
For anyone who knows me, you know I love M&M’s and thought was my grandma’s fault. Every time, I go shopping at Target, I HAVE to peek at the seasonal flavors. I love to pair the flavors with notes from the wines. For instance, our 2009 Merlot paired well with the mint, the 2010 Merlot with the pumpkin pie and the 2011 Merlot with the coffee nut.
This week, I had a customer ask is there a difference between a cooking a wine and wine that is called for in a recipe. The answer is yes and no. It depends upon the wine that is part of the recipe. But for the most part, the main difference is the quality of wine. Drinking wine is a much better quality. Cooking with a drinking wine will give you a better dish because…
I had gone to a wine and spirit tasting and they had a cinnamon vodka. So…me and my inquisitive nature asks, what kind of cinnamon did they use? I did ask before I tried it. The response I got was, uh…there are different types? Yes, there are many different types of cinnamon. Not all cinnamon is the same, just like grapes. There are so many varietals of grapes.
About 20 years ago, I remember being in the tasting room of Wente Winery during my internship and the tasting room manager was doing a wine pairing with me. He made beef jerky and paired it with their Cabernet Sauvignon. He also showed me a brownie mix they sold, that you add eggs, oil and Cabernet Sauvignon. I was sold! I have adapted this concept and made my own brownie recipe. Reyes Winery 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon has a sweet aroma gives this fruity wine its huge popularity. Raspberries, Cocoa and Blackberries…
Come celebrate National Wine and Cheese Day at Reyes Winery…
My mother and grandmother always made casserole when I was growing up. Brunch at grandma’s was always fun. I always looked forwarded to spending time with my grandparents. This is one of my favorites that I love to share when I cater the monthly hike and brunch at Reyes Winery. Sometimes I add hatch chiles when they are in season or even sometimes red pepper pesto which I did for this past hike. Many people adored…
any years ago, I went to Concannon Winery in Livermore, CA. They are known for their Petite Sirah. My father knew Jim Concannon. I stayed up there for two weeks to learn more about wine. He taught me from Wine Tasting Etiquette to wine pairing. I enjoyed my trip so much; it is something I will never forget. I remember walking through a courtyard with him, asking him what do Petite Sirah grapes taste like compared to the actual wine. He reached up above up on an…
From pink to fuchsia…and all the shades in between like blush, crepe, rouge,salmon or coral. 
