The land of foie...or "how would you like your liver today??"

I was invited last summer to Cahors Malbec Days, a celebration of all things from the land of Black Wine.  This is an international conference where we sat through endless seminars to educate sommeliers the world over about Cahors's place in history and the world scene of Malbec. 

But enough about that.  Right now, I'm going to talk about Foie Gras.

 Here is the first thing that I had upon my arrival in France (save the terrible whiff the minute I stepped off the plane of thousands of Frenchmen puffing cigarettes... seriously, is there anyone in this country that doesn't smoke)--some amazing nonsense of mushrooms with foie and egg on top.  Yummo!

You want more foie gras, you say?  Well, here you go. A friend from California (it was illegal there at the time) went to town!  Foie! Foie! Foie! (p.s. this link is how it can be ethical)

 It turns out that Cahors is known for two things:  1.  It is where Malbec originated  2.  Same for the best liver you have ever had in your life. (above is exhibit A, from a wine dinner after our first big tasting)

 Exhibit B: My friend Jerry is not quite tired of foie.  I love that this winery accented our plate of delicious liver with a side of sausage and more sausage.

 This is my kind of picnic.  To be honest, it's at D'en Segur in Tarn, about a half hour outside of Cahors.  But we're still talking about a bunch of goose liver on the plates, so who's counting, right??

 We also had some fabulous gazpacho in Tarn--doesn't tomato juice rejuvenate your constitution after your fat cells triple in one week??  I believe it does--and if that doesn't take care of it, I GUARANTEE that Rose will!!

 Still hungry? Here is straight-up foie on toast, plus seared foie with grilled apples on pumpkin bread... and melon.  with PROSCIUTTO.  of course.

 Not enough gratuitous meat in this blog, you are thinking?  Here's one of our courses in an after-tasting wine dinner.  That would be prosciutto-wrapped foie gras, of course.  And Malbec sauce to boot (we were a little overwhelmed with both liver and Cahors Black wine by now, but we tried to eat/drink it all.

 I've decided that this blog should be renamed "why Emily Garrison is not a size four."  And I will never have to explain why.  This luncheon had salad next to our foie gras pate!!! I was beside myself.

 Gratuitous meat shot.  The "sushi" was wrapped in ham. Go France!

 Maybe my favorite application of a whole lobe of foie gras ever.  Sliders!!!  At this point you might think, "are you kidding me??" Yeah, that's what I said too.

And finally, what would a salad be if it didn't have Serrano ham and Foie on top of it?  No more worries about those lunch salads having too much fat in the dressing, ladies!  Welcome to the land of the big, fat, juicy liver!  I myself was gorging on french fries.  Don't judge.  They certainly don't in Cahors.

Next week I'll actually discuss the wine we were there to study in France!!

Cheers,

- Emily Garrison, Shiraz Fine Wine & Gourmet

McLaren Vale Australia--Wits End

One of my favorite wineries in McLaren is Chalk Hill--called Wits End here in the USA.  Jock Harvey's parents founded it and he and his brother Tom are now in charge; Jock made a name for himself as a fantastic vineyard manager and takes care of most of the prize vines in the valley.  They don't have a tasting room, and the cellar door is by appointment only (it pays to know the family!)

Wits End has had enormous success here at Shiraz.   Our best sellers are Procrastinator and Sidetrack, shown here with the Australian labels.  Hard to forget the name Procrastinator, though!  Wits End changed importers and I'm pleased to say they are now with Little Peacock.  I'm working with that company to bring the wines into the state of Georgia.

 Here are some of the other wines in the lineup--I'm in love with the Vermentino almost out of range on the left.  Yummy stuff with some serious pedigree.  Some of the oldest vines in the area belong to this small family winery.

 

a night out in McLaren... all the food here is so fresh!

 And here is the McLaren Farmer's Market.  It's one of the busiest places in town, and the options are wonderful, varied, and used by all the restaurants in the area.  I did major souvenir shopping here...

Jock's family was visited by a magpie and they have basically adopted it.  It is a talkative little guy,  

and hangs around waiting to be fed and petted!  I got 3 different videos, it chatted so much!

 I visited Angove's, sitting on the edge of some of the
Chalk Hill property.  Like d'Arenberg, they are big
proponents of the Grenache grape.  They have an
Enomatic machine (like we have at Shiraz)--they were
the first to get one in McLaren.  They are slated to add
another this year.  The view is tremendous!!

 Jock and I visited Samuel's Gorge  (winemaker Justin is right behind Jock--he is the one with the awesome hair).  This was a new winery for me, but everything they make is fantastic. Grenache, Tempranillo, Mourvedre, GSM... you name it, it was delicioius.  I look forward to seeing a lot more
from them in the future (and their greeter is precious).

Beautiful view at Samuel's Gorge... and beautiful Rose of GSM

 Two of my favorite treats from the visit:  delicious local lamb cooked by my dear friend Jock for a grand finale and a meat pie with a flat white--a sad meal because it was my last in Australia.

McLaren Vale Day 1: d'Arenberg & Maxwell

 Welcome to McLaren Vale!!  It's yet another beautiful region within South Australia, and it is unique in that it is a Mediterranean climate.  A distinct difference from the massive, burly wines of the Barossa, and even more elegant than the cooler Clare Valley.  

It was an early vintage--most of the grapes have been harvested already, but the very late-ripening grapes are still on the vine.  And I mean late ripening.  Here is some Petit Verdot at Maxwell Wines.

Maxwell got its start with Mead way, way back.  They were actually responsible for introducing Mead to Australia, and remain the largest producer in the Southern Hemisphere.  They are equally renowned for their Shiraz, Merlot, and Cabernet.

Another very late-ripener:  Sagrantino.  With its Mediterranean climate, Italian varietals do very well.  SagrantinoSagrantino is a burly, tannic wine, so I was surprised at how delicious they are right off the vine.

This is Olivers Road--it comes off the main drag in town and connects Maxwell and d'Arenberg.

Maxwell also hosts an olive grove on the property.  In the future, look for a line of delicious oils!  (remember, it's a Mediterranean climate - which means that not only wine grapes grow well here)

I was lucky enough to enjoy a fabulous luncheon at the Verandah, one of my favorite restaurants.  Always a memorable stop, today Chester Osborn is speaking for a group of wine industry folks from the UK (and yours truly) sponsored by Wine Australia.

This was an extraordinary tasting:  instead of focusing on his own wines, Chester expounded upon the virtues of the valley he calls home.  We discussed the history or Grenache there: in the 1850s, it was mostly Grenache and Mourvedre.  Between 1900 & 1930 there was a Grenache boom because fortified wines were so popular in Oz; As dry reds had a resurgence, Grenache remained strong in the area.  There are almost 60 growers here, and though it is only 5% of McLaren's production, there is still a strong emphasis (it's 70% of what d'Arenberg makes!)  It has super low yields and is mostly dry grown and old vine.  It does well on the hilltops with shallow soil (Shiraz needs more water).

Speaking of history, d'Arenberg was established in 1912--a hundred-year-old winery seemed like an appropriate place to talk about the region as a whole.  d'Arenberg is beautiful.  I could actually hear the magpies chirping on the property.

Here was our study of McLaren Vale Grenache in different forms:
-Shingleback Red Knot GSM 2012
-Wirra Wirra Original Blend 2011
-Rosemount GSM 2011
-Chapel Hill Bush Vine Grenache 2011
-Rosemount Nursery Project Grenache 2010
-Willunga 100 Grenache 2010
-Willunga 100 The Tithing Grenache 2010
-d'Arenberg Derelict Grenache 2009
-d'Arenbert Ironstone Pressings GSM 2009

Chester was a great host of the valley.  My favorite quote of the day:  "Reputations take a long time to build; quality will always win out."
Thanks for the great history lesson and warm welcome, d'Arenberg!!

The food at the Verandah is amazing, and they do a fab job with pairings.  We had a Grenache-centric menu that started with rabbit roulade with panchetta and anchovy, radish/fennel salad, and a buttermilk mustard emulsion.

Pork belly, fig chutney, and local radicchio and fennel was next on the table.

What's better than a sweet dessert? Gruyere, local pears, walnut crisps, and truffle honey, of course!

Blending Athena at Kilikanoon

Here's my account of the most important day during my work at Kilikanoon during the 2013 vintage!

We are making a GSM from the Clare Valley from 2012 juice; The Medley was Clare Valley fruit in the past, and the 2012 is going to be Barossa.  Which meant that I got to pick some pretty awesome wine to incorporate into a wine to showcase Clare and Kilikanoon!

This wine will hereafter be called Killerman's Run GSM, but I got to name the inaugural bottling:

This lineup is the Grenache available for the wine.  Kilikanoon barrels each vineyard picking separately (my preferred mode of transportation) so that decisions can be made much more judiciously down the road.  I've barrel tasted these during the vintage before, but this had more stress attached, since it's about to go into a bottle!!  Kevin and i first tasted through and picked out the top barrel (for The Duke) and the single vineyard tier (The Prodigal) -- once we'd taken the top two barrels, the world was my oyster.  There is some killer juice in this lineup!!  I had a hard time making a final decision, so I was forced to taste blind... and then it was easy! Yummy Grenache = done.

Here are our barrel samples of Shiraz available for the blend.  Head winemaker Katie had them all pulled for us--while the Grenache is aged for a year in stainless steel to preserve its freshness, the Syrah rests in French oak barrels for a year to allow a tiny amount of oxygen in, rounding and mellowing the wine.  We will put the wine back in oak for 6 months after blending to fully coax out the flavors and meld the 3 different wines together.  There will also be a single parcel of Mourvedre.

Hard at work, testing out all the individual parcels.  It's quite different, this tasting barrels as opposed to finished wines.  They are far more rough and rowdy than the finished product, but it's fun once you get used to how brash and intense they are.  It's like flexing a muscle to pop in and try some; imagining what they will taste like in 2, 5, 10, or 20 years is exciting and a task I appreciate honing.
I love our splatter of huge Shiraz sprinkled from our carefully measured 100 cl cylinders!

With the man himself.  This is after we had finally made the decisions of what was going to go into the bottle.  We had had to stop for a cold beer at some point because our palates were so tired--this was a 3 1/2 hour tasting session where the goal was to pinpoint minute differences in huge, gritty barrel samples of bold wine!  It was fatiguing.  And our lips were pretty black (no closeups please!)

I call this one "giddy exhaustion with my friend, mentor, and hero after a successful blending day"

Time for killer great pizza down the road--which tasted better than anything ever after this day...

Am I in Spain?  No. A pizza joint in the Clare Valley with awesome Kilikanoon employees.

And here's a wine I'd never seen before: Prophecy by Kilikanoon.  Because: Kilikanoon, of course.
Check out the '12 Athena where available! We made 500 cases, and 200 came into the USA.  It actually won the Decanter award for top Rhone blend under 15 pounds, proving once and for all that Kevin was looking out for me, making sure I didn't ruin it! And that the wine's in the vineyard.