Tag: wine

Posted in Dining, General

An Exciting Date

Posted on by Nuntius

It was the 8th of September.

When did CoVID-19 really get going so that our normal disappeared?

Well, it seemed like eternity had passed when My Beloved and I decided to go out on a date to a restaurant – AT LAST!

Where we live, there is not much choice: Lefty’s, The Finer Diner, Wing ‘n It, Trellis or, a relative newcomer to the scene, The Rustic Crust pizzeria. Yes, just five. Our old friend, Smitty’s, unfortunately folded three years ago, and now Wing ‘n It. Well, we know what three of the four present for eating – and drinking – but we had no idea how this newcomer, The Rustic Crust, which had been open only since last Fall, had survived the CoVID crisis, nor what their menu was. I could have looked it up, it seems, but we thought we would go and find out for ourselves.

On arriving, we saw there were plenty of tables, as in picnic tables, available and we were told we could select any one. Our server took us to our selected table and placed paper menus on it. Only to see them being blown off. No problem once they were collected and placed under napkin and cutlery.

On reviewing the menu choices, we were very pleased: there were five Starters and a small or large Caesar Salad, fifteen different pizzas (after all, it is a pizzeria), and three desserts. While looking over the menu and trying to decide which of the pizzas we would share, our server brought us our chosen wines, a Tidal Bay 9oz for My Beloved and a Padrino Rosso 9oz for Yours Truly.

Parenthetically, for you wine snobs to whom I talked in my last post, Tidal Bay is a registered Nova Scotia appellation, just the same as Beaujolais or Gevrey-Chambertin or Sauternes. “A wine with Nova Scotian character, Tidal Bay brilliantly reflects the terroir, coastal breezes, and cooler climate of its birthplace.

“Officially launched in June 2012, Tidal Bay is the first wine appellation for Nova Scotia and one-of-a-kind for North America. A racy, aromatic white wine, it displays the Nova Scotian characteristics of our cool climate region and pairs flawlessly with the local seafood we’re known for. The name Tidal Bay was inspired by the influence of the sea and being home to the biggest Tidal changes in the world.” (https://winesofnovascotia.ca/tidal-bay/)

As My Beloved and I sipped, we could not decide on a starter: Garlic Fingers or Wood Fired Pepperoni? We settled on the latter and chose a pizza entitled Salsiccia comprising San Marzano Tomato sauce , fior di latte mozzarella, fennel seed , sausage, roasted red peppers, pesto and aged Parmesan on a thin whole wheat base. Our server asked if we wanted the starter first or together with the main course: I responded ‘first’, but subsequently discovered that it was such a large starter that it would have accompanied the pizza beautifully. Next time.

Part of the large eating area with proper separation

The pepperoni was cut into numerous slices and sauteed in the fire oven. Very tasty, I might add. As for the pizza, it was simply delicious. We love thin crusts and The Rustic Crust pizzas are all very thin. We did not know what San Marzano tomato sauce was and I still don’t, but it seemed to us that it was like any other herbed tomato sauce.

We were hungry, so started on the pizza before taking pic.

While we ate, and while some parents were presumably chatting, some children were pleasantly enjoying themselves using chalk to make a hop-scotch route or just chalking a picture of something on what once had been a paved driveway. It was great to have them there close to us and see them enjoying themselves so much. Much better than having them run around inside a restaurant, as some are wont to do under uninterested parents.

Kids enjoying playtime – others playing hop-scotch to left unseen here.

Of course, there has to be a dessert and even more certain when the choice includes genuine Gelato. So, My Beloved preferred strawberry, I preferred chocolate and asked our server if that could be provided. “Well,” she said, “our ice cream always come with three scoops, so I’m afraid I will have to add our neopolitan scoop.” Oh, what a shame, we said! We’ll have to eat all three scoops.

Tri-flavoured Gelato.

So, our first visit to The Rustic Crust was a rousing success. We will certainly be going back. Before the cold weather comes and threatens to shut things down. Actually, we are meeting a couple of our best friends there tomorrow, Friday.

POSTSCRIPT
In my last post, I recounted (viz below) a story from my past, in which a certain then-colleague and I submitted ourselves to a plethora of wine. His response below:

“For those reading your delightful and informative post, the recounting (and that word was chosen deliberately) of consuming 5 bottles between 2 persons at dinner is accurate.  As to the wine referred to therein, that particular vintage comes from France when the Pope was living there because it was too dangerous to stay in Rome.  It literally means “The Pope’s new castle”.  It is located in Avignon (the bridge made famous in a children’s song) in the Rhone appellation.  The “Avignon Popes” were actually there for about 70 years, but I digress.
“The beloved author of the post/column/rant also introduced me to Barolo wines.  One of Italy’s finest wines.  Although well meaning, I cannot ever forgive him.  I am just a poor country boy and as I have frequently commented, “once you go to Paris it is really hard to go back to the farm”.  Having been seduced to try this wine forever changes you and one now are saddled with a refined palette or at least an addition to your oenophilic experiences.  It is not the education that I regret but the cost of the wine today.  In our liquor stores they range from $36.80 – $92.50 a bottle.  Like Mel, I am no wine snob but this pricing is just not sustainable if you want to enjoy wine in satisfactory quantities over the long haul.  
“In my not so humble opinion the author justifiably is critical of wine snobs, the verbiage around them and other related sins.  He refers to reds and whites, etc.  There is only thing you need to know and that is the best wines are the ones we drink with friends.  Yours very truly, Robert the Red.”

It was, as usual, a pleasure writing to you again, so, until next post, keep healthy, stay safe, keep your mask on, except when dining, and bon appetit.

Adieu until next From time to time….
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Posted in Dining, General, humor, humour

Wine critiquing

Posted on by Nuntius

This lovely wine’s nose of lavender with a shade of parsnips simply asks to be be sipped to enable you to balance the elegant forestry redwood nose with the delicate weediness of dandelions and stinkweed palate, all brought to your table from, since one year ago, our family-owned winery.

I am positive you have all read something along those lines when seated in a restaurant (when you could go there without a mask, which might have helped in covering the ‘nose’) and preparing to taste the wine the sommelier brought to the table.

Of course, it may not have been quite so caustic or drastic as that which I have composed as an example, but what I have read many times makes me almost want, to use a good old English word, to puke. Descriptions like, “lofty white floral aromas and fragrant minerality on the nose; while on the palate the wine is plush and full-bodied, superbly fruit-forward with generous mixed red berry fruit, mineral and earth tones, integrated sweet oak spice, augmented by sagebrush undertones with gritty tannins, zippy acid and a persistent finish,” (courtesy Vivino.com).

back wine label how to read

Of course, if you cannot read French, then the information on this back label, of which more later, will not help you establish of what the nose comprises.

There are a few of my friends who can tell the difference between a red and a white, except by colour. And having said that, I’ve lost my wino friends, save those many who don’t care which it is as long as it is a red or a white. Oh, well. I think they know whom I mean. One of them has had many an experience in the past with me, when we were much younger and could drink at least five bottles of Chateauneuf du Pape over a dinner and then be able to find our way back to the hotel. Of course, neither of us could – or would have wanted – to afford even one bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape, but, in days of yore, we were on an expense account.

A ‘nose’, of course, means what the wine smells like, while a ‘palate’ could simply be stated as what the wine tastes like. In fact, to obtain the nose of a Chardonnay, a wine of which I do not like the palate, you have to stick your own nose so far into the glass to get the nose, you may cut the bridge of your nose open, or, at least, bruise it. And that’s the reason I don’t like the wine, the palate of it is, in my opinion, zero, tasteless.

Are you a wine snob? Oh, yes, such people do exist. But not I.
I think at one time in my life some years ago I must have had Wine CoVID-19, for my sense of ‘nose’ and ‘palate’ regarding wines seems to have disappeared. I can smell bacon frying and love the taste of salmon, but as for the nose of any wine and then the mandatory sip to get the palate, I may as well not waste the sommelier’s presentation and time. Oh, I can tell a good Malbec from an awful Malbec, but to tell a Malbec from a Pinot Noir, I would have to concentrate hard and come up with, likely, no decision.

But to get back to the wine snob, he, for I have never come across a she wine snob, always presents the bottle for inspection, I would say shows it, to his guests and announces what it is; he always then makes a show of uncorking the bottle and placing the cork on the table for examination before he decants his wine, or to put it in less snobbish tones, he always pours the wine out of the bottle through muslin or some other filter, but never a coffee filter for a wine snob, into a flagon or carafe. From there, he will ask who would like to taste it. Now, this is where the wine snob shows his snobbish expertise. He will watch you like a hawk to see how you pick up the glass, by the stem or by the bowl; how well do you observe the colour; how you take it to your nose to get the nose; how long you take to nose it; how long do you take to taste the palate; and, finally, how do you replace the glass on the table and mumble, ‘Yeah, that’s fine.’ Of course, you can tell whether he is a wine snob, too, for while you are doing your job, he should be silent, watching you, not making lame jokes with the rest of the table.

Now, if you come to chez moi (that’s a snobbish way of saying, my place), we will usually use my home made wine. No snob here. Unless it’s to use a bottle of wine brought by a guest. But my home made wine is of exquisite quality with a fine nose and noble palate. And, besides, you do not have to go through the rigorous business of being presented with the bottle or nosing or tasting it. No. Because, bottling is a waste of time and as soon as my wine is ready to bottle, I put it back into one of the plastic bags in which the concentrate comes, stick a rubber tap on it and shove it back into a box in which it or some other concentrate came. I call that boxing my wine. No snobbish procedure there. By the way, I get three 7-litre boxes (over 20 litres) out of the one box of concentrate. Works out about $3.50 a litre.

There is one other sign of snobbery, that being the labels. Here is one example:

and here is another:

Let us compare the labels.
Note that the former says it is from Brengman Brothers Estate.
My label says it is from Chateau Melville, and,
elsewhere on the label, at the home of Mel and Beryl.
The former specifically states it is a ‘white wine’, nothing special in other words.
My label states it is a Malbec.
The former says produced in 2016.
My label say this month, August, 2020. But it adds it is a Reserve. Oh, my, that’s almost being snobbish.
I have no idea what is on the back label of the former, but my wine does not have a back label, but simply states that it was made for two particular people, although it is quite likely that others will drink out of the same box. But my label also states that it was made with our own hands and no feet were used in the process.

So, you can see that there is a great deal to say about wine critiquing and, with these words of a wise man I leave you until my next post:

clever wine sayings