EDIBLES
Fine Wines for Dining
By Suzanne Boyer For Etc...Magazine
I
t’s been a while since I have written about cabernet sauvignon. But this summer when everyone throws some steaks on the grill, one of the best bottles of wine to go with them are cabernet sauvignons. That’s why when my husband and I went to Bern’s Steakhouse in Tampa, Florida in June, we ended up ordering four different glasses of cabernet sauvignon to share and have a taste testing with our filets. Bern’s Steakhouse has the largest working wine cellar in the world; and after one dines they are offered a tour of the kitchen and wine cellar. They have 7,000 different wines to select from. The oldest bottle is a 1792 Madiera and the most expensive is a double magnum bottle of 1947 Chateau Latour for $30,000. The glasses of cabernet sauvignon wine that we ordered were: 2007 Provenance, 2008 Cade, 2008 Faust, and 2008 Jordan, all from Napa Valley. The Provenance was the best value and was great with food. The Cade was very fruit forward and could be enjoyed by itself as well as with food. The Faust was the best glass with our food. And the Jordan was the most expensive and was good, but the others were also good and offered the best value. It was a great experience and the restaurant was quite awesome. None of my readers have e-mailed me and told me that they have tried the St. Pepin. It is an Elmer Swenson “creation”, a cross of several varieties, including Seyval, and was released in 1983. Characteristics are: fruity, low acidity, comparable to many German
white wines (think Riesling), and hardy in the north. Rocky Waters, in Hanover, also has it in their 25 acre vineyard. So I decided to give it a try with my son, David, and his fiancé, Laura, both in the restaurant business. I told them about St. Pepin, which I wrote about in the last issue and we tasted the two bottles that I have. One was from Park Farms in Iowa and it was 14% alcohol and very sweet. It was like a dessert wine or ice wine. The other bottle was from Massbach Ridge Winery in Elizabeth and was only 10% alcohol. Laura said that this wine would not offend anyone. It is very light and could be a good opening at a dinner party with appetizers. After our tasting we all went back to a cabernet. Laura and I had a glass from Robertson Winery in South Africa, that was opened two days before. She loved it and loved the chocolate flavor that she tasted. It’s the terroir from that region and it is in their pinotage too that I have written about. David asked to open a Franciscan. He opened a 2005 and thought it might be corked. It had a stinky smell to it. But after just a few moments, it started opening up and tasted great. It seems that fine wines all have that smell when you first open them, but as soon as you let it breath awhile, that changes. It seems as though a lot of people think they cannot drink wine because it gives them a headache. Have you ever heard that before? Some think that they are allergic to the sulfites that are contained in the wine when it is made. I have tried to do some research on the topic and have found that they have not yet proven that there is any connection to sulfites and headaches. There is an observational study in the Journal
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of Allergy and Clinical Immunology entitled “No correlation between wine intolerance and histamine content of wine.” There was another study that tested the theory of low-sulfite and high-sulfite wines in patients with a reported history of asthmatic sulfite reactions. There was no objective drop in the subjects’ breathing test with either wine. As for getting headaches from drinking wine, I have a suggestion. Maybe you are drinking too much wine OR not enough water to keep yourself hydrated. Especially in the summer when the temperatures are high, we lose a lot of moisture from our bodies through our skin without even realizing it. Most people should drink more water every day. Someone told me once that you could taste wine all day as long as you drink enough water too. So, drink your water first, then drink your wine! Cheers!! n
Suzanne Boyer thinks that life’s too short to drink bad wine. She can be reached at: etcwines@yahoo.com JULY • AUGUST 2012 etc ... 15