Napa Valley Wine Academy published a fun article about sabrage, written by Jonathan Cristaldi. Take a minute to read it. And remember, you can sabre sparklers other than Champagne; they like to get this special treatment, too.
For my Canadian readers:
Here is the infographic from the article:
À Votre Santé!
Copyright © 2015 Kathleen Rake. All rights reserved.
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We spent an impromptu New Year's Eve aboard Evita with friends John and Karen Laing and had fun ringing in 2014 under the Blaine Harbor marina lights.
On our way to the boat, we stopped at the local grocery store and picked up cheeses and salami for our appies. At about 8:00 PM, we made our way to Jack Niemann's Black Forest Steak House, where they had promised to fit us in for dinner at 8:30.
The menu at Black Forest sent me right back to the 1970s, but in a good way. The only things missing were the Caesar salad made tableside, Harvey Wallbangers, and flaming Spanish coffees. All kidding aside, the steaks were absolutely beautiful--juicy, flavourful, and cooked to exact specifications.
We stopped Karen from ordering the 16-ounce Hawaiian rib-eye steak because it is, well, 16 ounces, better known as one pound or .454 kilos in Canadian. She opted instead for the filet Oscar, which she shared with me. I returned the favour by sharing my lobster tail with her. I had a glass of a California Chardonnay and she a Malbec; unfortunately, I didn't record the names of the wines or take any notes so can only report that they each served their respective meals very well. Rick and John stuck with Scotch--Laphroaig, je pense--to sip along with their meals: John had a steak and Rick had the Bratwurst dinner.
After dinner, we made our way back to Evita and prepared to bring in the New Year. We had hats, poppers, and I sabred a bottle of Cava. (Many thanks to Leeann Froese for her instructive video.)
The next morning we walked in the seaside sunshine up to Tony's Just a Bite restaurant, where only U.S. cash is accepted, but that's in exchange for a great view of the harbour and substantial breakfast.
Overall, we had a quiet but smile-filled New Year's Eve making warm memories.
Rick put together a brief video of our quick adventure. Take a look:
All the best of 2014 to you and yours!
À Votre Santé!
Copyright © 2014 Kathleen Rake. All rights reserved.
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Below you'll find my Oct., 2012 wine column, published in My City, a monthly magazine in the Abbotsford News. This month I share my impression of Bella sparkling wines.
A little bubbly can fancy up the drabbest event, honour the most special occasion or simply make you smile. And with the Christmas party season approaching (don’t blink!), now is a good time to stock up on sparklers.
During my recent trip to the Fall Okanagan Wine Festival, I was a guest for two nights at the lakeside Walnut Beach Resort, where I had the good fortune to sip on many B.C. wines. Read more.
Salut!
Copyright © 2012 Kathleen Rake. All rights reserved.
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Here is my most recent wine column, published November 17 in My City, a monthly lifestyle magazine in the Abbotsford News.
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Party season is upon us folks. Savoury, salty, spicy, sour and sweet: all sorts of foods will be served. So, with all these different flavours, what wine should you pour?
When all else fails, pick a sparkler. And, while Champagne is a sparkling wine...read more.
Cheers to you!
Copyright © 2011 Kathleen Rake. All rights reserved.
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EAT! Fraser Valley is back at Tradex in Abbotsford, Sept. 16 – 18, and I'm happy to tell you I'll be presenting the wine-tasting seminar, Palate-palooza: from bubbles to bumble bees, there is a wine for everyone, seven times throughout the weekend at the Grapes & Hops Presentation Stage. Here is the schedule.
Besides the wine, you'll have opportunity to try beers, spirits, and all sorts of food. As well, you can catch celebrity chefs Chuck Hughes and Rob Feenie from the Food Network Canada as they share their culinary creativity.
You can even watch TV-cooking-show icon Graham Kerr, whom many of us remember as the Galloping Gourmet, performing on stage.
Would you like free tickets?
Well, just answer the following question as a reply to this blog post (emails do not count) and the first three people to answer correctly will receive a pair of tickets.
Which of the following seven grapes are allowed to go into the making of Champagne—the real stuff?
Cheers to you!
Copyright © 2011 Kathleen Rake. All rights reserved.
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Muselet (mew-zeh-LAY) comes from the French verb, museler, meaning to muzzle and is the name for that little wire cage used to secure the corks in bottles of Champagne and other sparkling wines.
Without the muselet, tops would be a-poppin'.
Cheers to you!
Copyright © 2011 Kathleen Rake. All rights reserved.
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At the last round of writing and social media workshops I delivered to Community Futures South Fraser in Abbotsford, I was inspired to do two things by the clients who attended.
Here is one of them: A new wine word every Wednesday.
I'm not sure if we'll continue with the title, "Wednesday's wine word," or if we'll use some other configuration of the three Ws—Wednesday, wine, word. Time, as they say, will tell. Or, maybe, you will tell because you have a better idea for the regular wine-word-explanation feature on Wednesdays. Please share if you do.
Champagne
While Champagne is a sparkling wine, not all wine that sparkles is actually Champagne. Make sense? I didn't think so.
In order for a sparkling wine to be called Champagne, it must come from the area in France also called Champagne. And, it must be made in the traditional method from any combination of these three grapes: Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, and Chardonnay. If the wine is made from Chardonnay exclusively, then it is called a Blanc de Blancs; if it is made from Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, or a combination of the two, it is called a Blanc de Noirs. And, yes, you can have a rosé Champagne.
There are different levels of sweetness, from bone-dry to very sweet:
Champagne is a delicious, albeit costly, wine that is perfect for celebrations. However, since we like to celebrate often at our house, we usually count on a much more wallet-friendly sparkling wine made in the traditional method: Cava from Spain.
I drink it when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and I drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it, unless I'm thirsty.
~Madame Lily Bollinger on Champagne
Cheers to you!
Copyright © 2011 Kathleen Rake. All rights reserved.
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Enjoy a decadent, entertaining and informative day and learn the traditional French style of crafting champagne with Township 7 winemaker Bradley Cooper and proprietor Mike Raffan, or how to make delectable truffles with Chocolaterie Bernard Callebaut, and what pairs best with oysters on the half shell with 1 Fish 2 Fish. Partial proceeds from the festivities will be donated to the BC Chapter of Starlight Children’s Foundation.
The delicate and mad art of crafting wine in the Méthode Traditionnelle
Discover how traditional handcrafted champagne is made in France and join Township 7’s proprietor and winemaker in the fun, sometimes messy, and challenging process of dégorgement, adding the dosage, and corking the sparkling wine.
Complimentary winemaker seminars at 1:00 and 3:00 pm
Taste the Stars Evening at Township 7
Indulge your senses with an early Valentine’s celebration of fine wine paired with raw oysters and seafood canapés.
Enjoy live music by the popular local band, We Play for Wine, while you taste your way through two rooms featuring seafood delicacies by 1 Fish 2 Fish. Enjoy winemaker Bradley Cooper’s discussion of wine-and-food pairings and complete your visit in our romantic chocolate room with Jacqueline Pearson of White Rock’s Chocolaterie Bernard Callebaut, rolling dark chocolate truffles.
7:00-10:00 pm (grazing, non-seated)
$30 per person
Contact 604-532-1766 or [email protected] for tickets
Click here or on the image below to read the full press release and get all the yummy details.
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During our B.C. Day long-weekend stay up at Whistler, we hit the restaurants of Four Seasons for dinner twice.
The first, on Thursday night, was for a casual all-you-can-eat BBQ dinner at Fifty Two 80 Bistro and Bar. You can read about that experience here.
The second, on Sunday night, was at Sidecut.
We started with cocktails at Fifty Two 80. I had the best Margarita I've had in a very long time. This sipper was not the bright green, Kool-Aid-y slush you get in so many places; instead, it had real lime juice and was poured over rocks! Rick had a dark rum and Coke. I didn't pay attention to which rum or even ask him if his drink was good—I was way too busy going on and on about my own.
Starters
When we moved into the dining room, we were greeted and attended by Joanne DiGeso, a dedicated student of wine and server extraordinaire. With four years at Four Seasons, she knows how to look after a table and, more importantly, the people around it. Joanne brought us each a glass of bubbly to start, the Brut NV ($24/12.5 ABV) from B.C.'s Blue Mountain.
This is a good time to tell you that David Foran, wine director at Four Seasons Resort Whistler, has opened up his wine list to sell by the glass. He'll open any bottle of wine for you, as long as at least two glasses of the wine are ordered. It's a fabulous way to try some of the more hard-to-find or expensive wines.
We continued sipping the sparkler with the first course: I had marinated lobster and spot prawns, served with heirloom tomato and avocado drizzled with a truffle vinaigrette.
Rick had a salad of iceberg wedges, heirloom tomato, boar bacon, and cucumber, with a creamy ranch dressing. Of course, the sparkling wine served us both well.
Mains
For our main courses, I chose the New Zealand rack of lamb (that's something I never cook at home) and Rick chose the 10-oz New York sirloin steak. Then, we had to pick our rubs. Of the six, we both decided on the Edison's Medicine.
From the dinner menu, we decided to share a side dish of potatoes (fingerling and bacon Lyonnaise), roasted mushrooms, and roof-top-grown carrots.
With our meal, came six sauces for enhancing the flavours of our meats. Small sauce boats, set into a long wooden tray, offered up:
Argentinean Chimichurri
Light, fresh and citrusy with garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar and fresh lemon juice. Especially good with beef and pork.Yuzu Butter
Freshly squeezed yuzu and zest, with butter tempered with cream and chives. Good with all meats.Mushroom Bordelaise
Veal stock reduction enriched with port, red wine and mushrooms. Especially good with beef or game.
Crème Fraiche Bearnaise
Traditional bearnaise vinegar and tarragon reduction, with a touch of Tabasco and lime. Good with all meats.House Steak Sauce
Tomato-based sauce with tamarind and brown sugar, finished with horseradish and Worcestershire sauce. Especially good with beef or game.Wasabi Mustard
House-made spicy mustard, with brown and yellow seeds blended with Dijon mustard and brandy, finished with wasabi and cream. Good with all meats.
To complement our entrées, we ordered a bottle of 2007 Laughing Stock Portfolio ($40), a Bordeaux-style blend from B.C.'s Okanagan. On the nose, this wine showed aromas of dark chocolate, coffee, tobacco, blackberries, and rich, ripe black cherries. On the palate, it was smooth and silky, yet structured, with a certain elegance accompanying flavours of espresso, dark chocolate, cherries, blackberries, vanilla, and spice. It was a perfect counterpart to both the lamb and steak.
Dessert
We had a tough time deciding on a dessert so Chef selected for us. He created a combination of bourbon ice cream and house-made apple fritters with three sauces for dipping. Pure decadence. And so nice for a change.
Après
Of course, Joanne asked us if we wanted anything after our dessert. But we had consumed so much we had to tell her, "No, thank you."
David Foran came and sat with us and we shared the end of our Portfolio with him. That was a nice way to cap a fabulous evening.
Salut!
Copyright © 2010 Kathleen Rake. All rights reserved.
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I recently received two bottles of wine as samples: NV Sparkling Gewürztraminer ($24.99/12.7 ABV) and NV Sparkling Rosé ($22.99/13% ABV) from Sumac Ridge Estate Winery, located just north of Summerland in B.C.'s Okanagan Valley.
Each is an off-dry wine, with the Rosé, technically, having a higher residual sugar content and higher sweetness code. My palate, however, didn't agree.
I chilled the Sparkling Rosé—a blend of 51% Pinot Noir, 30% Gamay Noir, and 19% Ehrenfelser—right away and started sipping on it a couple of hours later.
I liked it! It was fresh and sassy, with lots of citrus and berry flavours and a frothy mousse that shouted fun! Each sip left my palate clean and ready for more smoked salmon, cheeses, and crunchy fresh veggies with dip. While there certainly was a lot of fruitiness, I didn't get a sense of sweet with this wine. I would buy it and drink it again.
A few days later, I chilled the Sparkling Gewürztraminer and took it to a birthday celebration where I knew we'd be having spicy Indian- and Asian-influenced bites to eat. Also at this party were people who happened to really like off-dry still wine and sparklers.
When first poured, the wine shared aromas of citrus and tropical fruits, along with floral and honey notes and an exotic spiciness. The palate, however, didn't produce what my nose told me to expect. At all.
I got some floral, spice, and citrus on the palate, but the elements didn't come together. I found its sweetness cloying, not in harmony with its acidity and fruit, with an aftertaste (not to be confused with finish) I didn't like. And my friend, the one who routinely likes off-dry and sweet wines only, didn't want a second glass because she didn't think it was sweet enough.
Would I drink the Sumac Ridge Sparkling Gewürztraminer again? I think so. If someone poured it for me. Who knows what was up with my palate and the Universe that day.
Would I buy it to drink? Probably not.
Salut!
Copyright © 2010 Kathleen Rake. All rights reserved.
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