Through the Wine Glass - The My Wines Direct Blog

Cinco de Mayo Pinot Grigio Sangria Recipe

You can't celebrate Cinco de Mayo without sangria!  Add some Carne Asada and that's a serious party. Elizabeth Lee from My Wines Direct shares her experience preparing this Sangria recipe for Cinco de Mayo, which is coming up next week:

The Minty White Sangria with Pinot Grigio couldn't be simpler.  It doesn't take that many ingredients...


After making the mint and cinnamon-scented syrup, I cut up all the fruit and placed in a glass pitcher (Or a pyrex measuring cup -- that works too! ) With some chips on stand-by, the festivities are nearly ready to begin. By the time the carne was ready, the syrup had cooled enough to add to the fruit.  Toss in the wine, stir it up.  Fill up your glass with ice, then pour the sangria and top with club soda.  Oh yeah, it's Cinco de Mayo!


Click here for the recipe for Minty White Sangria

Thank you Elizabeth for sharing your experience with us. Try it for yourselves and share your experiences too!

 

New Recipe to Pair With Willowdale Vineyard's Pinot Grigio

 

Asparagus Salad with Grilled Chicken and Almonds

This recipe was provided by Stacey Caron, who writes the top-ranked blog Stacey Snacks. This light, healthy and easy to prepare salad pairs very nicely with our Willowdale Vineyards California Pinot Grigio 2009. With its peach and grapefruit aromas and light-body, this dry and crisp wine is as refreshing as this salad. This salad is a terrific main dish for lunch or dinner.

 Try this recipe at home and let us know what you think!

Click here to view the recipe.

Thanksgiving Wine & Food Pairings

 

‘Tis the season to eat delicious food and enjoy luscious wines, particularly at Thanksgiving time … but how do you find wines that pair well with everything from roast turkey to pumpkin pie? There is no need to panic! Here are a few guidelines to follow that ensure your food and wine pairings are easy and fun:

Roast Turkey

Poultry, and in particularly the richer meat of turkey, can handle a wide variety of wines. There is also no need to resort to the old adage that red wine goes with beef and white wine works for poultry. If you do prefer white wine, try a crisp Pinot Grigio.  The minerality and apple-citrus notes common to Pinot Grigio will match the rich Thanksgiving meal foods.  If you tend to gravitate to red wines, head for a lighter red, like Pinot Noir.  As well, Old World-Style red wines, which tend to be more dry and elegant than some of their New-World, bold counterparts, often pair well with roast turkey.  Even a nice Riesling or a Chenin Blanc is an interesting option with the turkey dinner if you prefer an edge of sweetness with your wine.  If you end up serving an elegant roast meat at your Thanksgiving meal, select a bolder red wine, like a Meritage, to match the stronger flavors of the meat.

Side Dishes 

Any of these  earlier wine pairing suggestions will also work well with the myriad of rich side dishes that often accompany the turkey. To complement the spices and flavors often found in Thanksgiving sides, try a delightful Syrah-Malbec. This lighter red, with its own notes of spices and earthiness, will stand up well to any dish, from sweet potato mash to creamed pearl onions.

Desserts

My oh my, what goes well with pumpkin pie? Given the plethora of spices and flavors used in Thanksgiving desserts, everything from cinnamon to pecans, it can seem overwhelming to find any wine that matches well with the end of the Thanksgiving meal. An elegant and unique idea is to end on a celebratory note with a sparkling wine – the perfect complement to a rich meal.

Other Ideas

Finally, if you are attending a Thanksgiving celebration, it’s also always an appropriate occasion to bring a wine gift for the host with a selection of wines to enjoy throughout the meal. Wine is also a great holiday gift. 

We have some additional great suggestions for food and wine pairings for Thanksgiving meals. Enjoy your turkey day!

Other recipe ideas >>

The Storming of France, American Style

We took France by storm, not only conquering Paris, but the whole of eastern France. Armed with our appetites and an insatiable thirst for excellent wine, my family's recent trip to France left us full, happy and with many mouthwatering memories.

My family celebrated – Americans in France – delighting in endless artfully prepared dishes, paired with overflowing glasses of French wine, in what could only be described as mmmmm. From the South of France, to the cafés of Paris, we wined and dined our way through the beautiful countryside.

Fresh seafood salad paired with Rosé in Nice. Burgundy with Bœuf bourguignon in Beaune. Moelleux au chocolat paired with Champagne in Colmar. Frogs Legs with Pinot Blanc in Paris. Quiche Lorraine. Crème brûlée. Crepes. Pain au chocolat. Baugettes with brie. Bordeaux. Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Riesling. We couldn’t get enough!

Our final night, we lay on the grass in front of the sparkling Eiffel Tower, sipped our last few glasses of Champagne and made a toast to a truly delicious holiday in France.

The celebration of France continues, in honor of Bastille Day – July 14 – France's Independence Day. Marking the storming of Bastille over 225 years ago, the French celebrate with "all the brilliance that local resources allow" including parades, fireworks and huge feasts with fine wine. We're joining the celebration of fine wine by combining delicious French specialties with some of our favorite California classics in the Bastille Celebration pack. Enjoy this Celebration pack of 6 red wines, along with $20 in savings, to bring a taste of France into your home.

Our Best at BBQ

Warm weather for me has long meant trips to the beach, having drinks by the pool and barbecuing. Unfortunately, city living isn’t very conducive to relaxing in the backyard…since I am currently without one. Needless to say, my craving for grilled foods posed somewhat of a challenge – but when the challenge involves food, I’m always up for it!

Last week I found a delicious recipe on our site for rib eye steaks with gorgonzola butter, and with the warm weather this past weekend, I could almost smell the sizzling meat. I invited my boyfriend and sous chef Tony to help me in yet another culinary challenge.

We took a quick trip to the store, picked up two tender, delicious ribeyes, a pound of sweet potatoes and some fresh tomatoes. That was the easy part. Trying to cook in my little shoe box of an apartment, always leads to many adventures in cooking.

Challenge #1: How can we grill steak without a grill? Lucky for me, I made my roommates Valentine’s Day wish come true and bought her a pannini maker. I thought if it can grill bread and cheese, why not steak? Challenge #1 solved and I’m feeling pretty proud of myself.

Challenge #2: The world’s worst oven. Tony cut the sweet potatoes into beautiful wedges to make some baked fries. Then we coated them in olive oil and cayenne pepper. I should have known my oven wouldn’t cooperate. The fries were not in the oven more than 15 minutes when smoke started pouring out. Because I have the world’s worst oven, we ignore the smoke because “it always does that”.

Challenge #3: 15 minutes later…Smoke alarm (again!) and burnt sweet potato fries. We pull our half baked fries out of the oven, to discover we’re having “blackened” fries as our side dish and the fire alarm screeches. I think its disappointed in us.

Fortunately, the rest of the dinner preparations went beautifully. We heated up the pannini maker, let our steaks sizzle for a few minutes, sliced the juicy tomatoes and prepared the gorgonzola butter topping. And before we knew it, we were done. What an easy recipe!We settled on the couch, with a bottle of Las Tizas Cabernet, poured two glasses of rich red wine, toasted to another delicious dinner and enjoyed our gourmet meal. The gorgonzola butter melted on top of the juicy ribeyes and the Cabernet was the perfect complement. A symphony of “mmmmm”s were the only sounds to be heard. Cheers to another adventure in small apartment cooking. Where there’s no challenge that wine and a little inventiveness can’t fix! 

For memorial day weekend, I have volunteered to make dinner for our friends and family. I’ve sent the BBQ Bests red wine pack on its way, to be delivered just in time for the festivities. And with a “big kid” grill available, I’m preparing a meal to impress -  ribeyes with gorgonzola butter and some fresh grilled vegetables. Summer grilling season here I come!

Spring Sangria Recipe

It's Spring and next week is Cinco De Mayo, so I naturally started to think Sangria! Not that Sangria originated from Mexico - it's actually a drink that is most commonly associated with Spain. But since I love wine, I think Sangria when I think of Cinco De Mayo! How about you? 

This week I went on a quest for a Sangria recipe I could pair with some of our wines, but I really wanted an  original recipe that I could share with our customers.  I began thinking about my friend Allison Lanzilotta Arevalo who is an awesome cook and who writes a really great blog called Local Lemons.  I recently visited her in Berkley and we went on this amazing Napa wine tour and had many great nights of food and wine. She loves wine about as much as I do!

So I reached out to her and asked her if she would be our guest recipe writer this week and create a custom Sangria recipe for us. She gracefully agreed and she just sent me the recipe yesterday! It looks delicious and I am so excited to try the recipe tonight. I am going to make two batches, because I want to find out how it tastes with a Cabernet  vs. a Petit Verdot. I'll let you know!

You can find the Sangria recipe on our site and Local Lemons. I would recommend checking out some of her other recipes too. She is truly an original cook and each recipe comes with her commentary and some amazing photos. She's also opening a new restaurant in Oakland this summer called Lil' Mac. We wish her luck!

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, we've created a special Cinco de Mayo fiesta wine pack! It includes the suggested types of wines to use for the sangria recipe and a savings of $33! Plus, $0 Shipping.

**** Update: I tried both of my batches today. Yum!! This is a great summer drink. The Petit Verdot makes a slightly smoother, fruity and sweeter sangria. The Cabernet adds an interesting bite to the sangria. I ended up mixing both batches for the perfect mix of flavors! I will be making this sangria a lot this summer. In fact, it might be the signature drink for my upcoming afternoon barbecue.

Mother's Day Masterpiece: French Wine and Cooking

 
A few weeks back I sat down to watch “Julie and Julia”– a movie that entwines the stories of chef Julia Child and Julie Powell, a young New Yorker who takes on the feat of preparing all of the culinary arts in Julia Child’s first book, in one year. Already passionate about cooking, I was inspired – to make the famed “Bouef Bourginon” that is the coup de grâce of character Julie.

Last weekend, I decided it was now or never. I quickly found the recipe, which was scanned and posted to the web by other brave cuisiniers who have come before me. Julia – I accept your challenge and promise to use enough butter to make you proud! I asked my favorite sous chef, my boyfriend Tony, to accompany me on this culinary journey – he’s the absolute best at chopping onions (ego stroke) with the promise of wine and a meal to remember.

First things first, we opened a bottle of Lustre Syrah and poured two large glasses. Then we set about chopping, braising, simmering and savoring the beautiful aromas filling my tiny apartment. A sip of wine while cutting the vegetables, a few more sips while sautéing the meat and before I knew it the first bottle of wine was gone and we had completed the last instruction.

Our dinner was bubbling in the oven, the kitchen was a mess, our feet were up on the coffee table and we smiled at each other over a glass of Bouchard Pinot, feeling proud that we escaped this culinary feat with only one slight hiccup: while I was busy critiquing the carrot cutting skills of my sous chef, the boiling bacon spilled all over the stove. The fire alarm screamed and my downstairs neighbor rushed into the hallway. “Sorry” I yelled, while covering my ears “it’s ok, its just me… cooking…again!” All just a distant memory, while our masterpiece simmered away. Now all we had to do was wait. 

And wait we did. One hour. Two hours. Three hours. It was now 11:30pm; our stomachs were grumbling, our eyes were getting droopy and I wondered if we took on too much? Finally the timer sounded and we lept off the couch. We couldn’t wait to taste our creation. I spooned large ladle-fulls into bowls, while Tony opened a bottle of my favorite French Red Wine, the Pere et Fils Syrah-Grenache. 

The wait was worth it! The buttery meat and rich, herb-infused sauce were complemented by the berry aromas and spice of the Syrah-Grenache. We ate and enjoyed our hard work, just before midnight. And I thought, as I savored my last bite, Julia - you are truly an artist!

With Mother’s Day coming up, I think I've found the perfect gourmet gift of red wines. I’m going to be sure to treat my mom – with a dish to impress paired with a delicious French Wine.

The Holidays Mean It's Time for Ham!

One of my boyfriend's favorite dishes to eat is ham and biscuits.  So for his birthday, it was the perfect opportunity to try out the Mustard Brown Sugar Glazed Ham paired with the Marlegan Cabernet Sauvignon!  Especially on a cold and rainy night!

The butcher helped me select a spiral-cut ham, informing me that the "butt" portion made for better meat.  Also, if I was doing my own glaze, he suggested I opt for the honey-cured versus the hickory-smoked, which already had strong flavor.

How could this recipe be any easier?  I mixed up the glaze and set it aside, then popped the ham in the oven for a nice low and slow roast.  It filled the apartment with its lovely aroma, prompting my boyfriend to ask at regular intervals when dinner would be ready.

The ham I purchased didn't even need to be trimmed, so a half an hour before I was ready to serve it, I slathered it with the spicy sweet glaze and put in back in the oven.  I put out the appetizers -- goat cheese and figs and honey, charcuterie, mulled apple cider.  And, of course, I opened up the Marlegan to breathe!  By then, the ham was ready to be taken out.

While it rested, I re-warmed the mushroom lasagna and baked off the biscuits.  Timing couldn't have been better!  I could bring out all the main dishes at the same time.

The ham and Marlegan turned out to be the star of the buffet.  Besides being a delicious entree, a ham makes an impressive centerpiece.  Our guests oo-ed and ah-ed.  And my boyfriend was very pleased and full by the end of the evening!

Bacon Extravaganza

I guess the official name is the Bacon Explosion, but Explosion and Bacon really don't belong in the same sentence, as far as I'm concerned.  This much talked about food gimmick started sweeping the net earlier this year, aided by some really smart promotion guys and lots of press.

We discussed it at work, as we discuss all things food related.  Some thought it sounded like a good idea, "Bacon, more bacon with a large side of sausage, what's not to like?"  Others said it sounded like a "heart-attack on a stick," even though it's not served on a stick.  Although that does give me some ideas...

The fully-cooked log of bacon and sausage supposedly contains about 5,000 calories and 500 grams of fat, but don't let that alarm you.  Purists suggest cutting thin slices and serving them on a warm biscuit or bun, two or three slices per biscuit.

You start out by making a lattice of bacon, I used seven slices across and slices down.  When you have the bacon mat completed, you cover it with a layer of Italian sausage.   I used bell pepper and carmelized onion Italian sausage, along with some dill and other spices.

Then I fried bacon, cut it up and sprinkled it all over the sausage, along with bbq seasoning and home-made bbq sauce.  It was fairly detailed for a food project but I was having a good time giving it a try.

After I rolled up the sausage portion, tightly squeezing out air pockets, I then rolled the entire thing in the bacon mat.   After smoking it in the smoker for three hours and then brushing home-made bbq sauce all over the outside, it smelled pretty good.

The final results looked just like the ones I saw on all the web sites, but after working on it for four or five hours, I was just too tired to try it.

Once we got our appetites back, we had a toasty, fresh from the oven biscuit, with two thin slices of bacon explosion, still warm from the smoker.  Zinfandel was the wine of choice, which pairs perfectly with pork dishes of almost any kind.

Was it worth the time?  It was good, but I probably won't be making it again any time soon.  I'd just as soon go to Red Rock Cafe and have one of their pulled pork sandwiches, dripping with bbq sauce.

Let someone else do all the work!

It's that time of year again...

Halloween has passed and holiday decorations are going up every where.  Well, actually in a lot of places, the decorations were up before Halloween but that's neither here nor there.  Now is the time to get ready for the holidays, which are fast approaching.

I've been asked a number of times lately what wines would I recommend for a Thanksgiving dinner.  The wines tend to change over time, with new, popular fads in varietals as well as changing trends in cuisine.  Traditionally, with the requisite turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and various side dishes, I have a few go-to varietals I seasonally focus on.  And let's not forget the Thanksgiving table which includes a baked/smoked/honeyed/bone-in/bone-out/canned/etc ham as well as the perennial favorite pumpkin pie.

I'd normally suggest a Pinot Noir, which will provide a nice accent to both the roast turkey AND the baked ham.  A Sauvignon Blanc pairs well with this varied meal, with the light, clean finish cutting through the richness of the medley of dishes.  Or my personal favorite, as most who know me well would attest, a sparkling wine with its effervescent nature is perfect for this festive holiday.  It goes with just about anything you'd serve and you can either start with it or finish with it.  Heck, I might be tempted to have it throughout the entire feast!

This year, the one new ringer I'm recommending, and I've mentioned it a few times before, is Subio Dry Rose, from Mendocino, Ca .  Because this wine is not sweet but has wonderful fruit, it goes equally well with most of the dishes you'd normally find on a Thanksgiving table.

Whatever wines you choose, your holiday table will be sure to please friends and family, so enjoy this most special of family times!