Blog | AOC Fine Wines

Rolled veal on barley “polenta” with Casata Monfort Terodelgo

Posted by Yoann - 06/19/10 at 05:06:05 am

Recommanded wine with this recipe: Casata Monfort Terodelgo Rotaliano (Trento, Italy) – $19.99

Grouper and leek cake with Casata Monfort Pinot Nero

Posted by Yoann - 06/18/10 at 05:06:12 am

Recommanded wine with this recipe: Casata Monfort Pinot Nero (Trento, Italy) – $26.99

Baked saffron flavoured potato cannelloni with Casata Monfort Trentino Lagrein

Posted by Yoann - 06/17/10 at 05:06:31 am

Recommanded wine with this recipe: Casata Monfort Trentino Lagrein (Trento, Italy) – $22.99

Chickpea flour medallions with Casata Monfort Muller Thurgau

Posted by Yoann - 06/16/10 at 05:06:46 am

Recommanded wine with this recipe: Casata Monfort Müller Thurgau (Trento, Italy) – $18.99

Potato and celeriac soup with lamb (to pair with a Pinot Grigio)

Posted by Yoann - 06/15/10 at 04:06:13 pm

Recommanded wine with this recipe: Cantine Monfort – Pinot Grigio (Trento, Italy) – $14.99

Mini Phyllo Shells with Mushroom Mousse

Posted by Yoann - 06/10/10 at 12:06:43 pm

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
8 ounces white mushrooms, cleaned and roughly chopped
1⁄2 small onion, diced
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon butter
4 sprigs parsley, chopped
15 frozen mini phyllo shells, thawed
chervil leaves for garnish

In a large skillet over medium heat, warm the olive oil. Add the mushrooms and onions and sauté until browned. Season with salt and pepper and transfer to a food processor. Add the butter and parsley and purée until smooth. Set aside to cool. Transfer the mushroom mixture to a pastry bag fitted with a fluted tip and pipe a rosette of the mushroom mousse into each of the phyllo shells. Garnish with the chervil leaves to serve.

Wine Suggestion: Vetrere Cre

Original recipe url: http://www.italiancookingforum.net/recipes_index/gourmetstore/mushrooms_phyllo.html

Sausage and Vegetable Cannelloni by Paolo Villoresi

Posted by Yoann - 03/25/10 at 07:03:20 pm

2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups whole milk, heated
salt and freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
2^1⁄4 pounds sweet Italian sausage, casings removed, crumbled
1 red bell pepper, seeds and inner white ribbing removed, diced
1 yellow bell pepper, seeds and inner white ribbing removed, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 small zucchini, diced
1⁄4 cup dry white wine
2 cups canned crushed tomatoes
1⁄2 cup chicken stock, heated
3 sprigs thyme, chopped
3 sprigs parsley, chopped
1 pound lasagna
1⁄2 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano, freshly grated

Prepare the besciamella sauce: In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the flour and stir until a paste forms. Cook for 2 minutes, then add the milk in a slow, steady stream, whisking constantly. Cook, stirring often, until the sauce thickens, about 5 to 6 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and set aside. In a large skillet over medium heat, warm the olive oil. Add the onions and garlic and sauté until the onions are translucent. Add the sausage and sauté until golden brown. Add the bell peppers, carrots and zucchini and sauté until the vegetables soften. Season with salt and pepper. Add the wine and cook until the liquid evaporates completely. Add the tomatoes and chicken stock and cook over low heat until the sauce thickens, about 30 to 35 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, stir in the herbs and set aside. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add salt and the lasagna and cook until just under al dente. Drain the pasta, and plunge into an ice bath to cool. Drain again and pat dry. Cut the lasagna in Sausage and Vegetable Cannelloni 1⁄2 crosswise. Preheat the oven to 375°. Spoon some sausage sauce on the end of each pasta noodle and gently roll up to form cannelloni. Lightly brush a baking dish with olive oil and arrange the cannelloni in it seam side down. Top with some besciamella and the remaining sausage sauce, sprinkle with Parmigiano and bake for 15 minutes, or until the top is brown.

Wine Suggestion, Generous Full-Bodied: Col Sant Angelo–Angelo Rosso

Original recipe url: http://www.italiancookingforum.net/recipes_index/recipes_by_course/pasta/pepper_cannelloni.html

Grand Vintage 2010; Sydney Delivers – by Brad Hickey

Posted by Brad - 03/10/10 at 03:03:11 pm

We are settling into what looks to be a grand vintage in McLaren Vale. The Gods have cooperated and kept the extreme heat at bay. Thorpe Wines has picked all the fruit off its “Pelion Block” and it looks healthy, fresh, and delicious. However, many growers here are hurting, and looking for somebody, anybody, to buy their fruit. Contracts aren’t worth the paper they are written on, and $300 per ton is not an uncommon figure, where the district average was once over $1000. Rumor has it that next year will be even more brutal with many a grower leaving more fruit on their vines, since there’s no point in picking something you can’t sell. Recently there was a suicide up the hill by a grower that was feeling the pinch. One never knows the ins and outs of these tragic actions, but we hope that it isn’t to be a recurring theme. Farmer suicides due to the drought inland have become a major worry, and I have never seen anything like it. I do live in a beautiful, albeit harsh, country.

We trod on, and sometimes try to celebrate the harvest. A harvest lunch at Alpha Box and Dice winery with wine educator Gill Gordon-Smith tasting Italian varietals helps distract us. This lunch/tasting was the first of three on offer this season; check with her bottle shop in the Vale, Fall From Grace, for more info. It’s a great chance to try some fantastic European wines matched against their Australian counterparts. Her superb and relatively new wine shop on the Main Street in McLaren Vale focuses on European wines from thoughtful, small producers and is offering tastings and all sorts of educational activities. It has become a great reference point for local winemakers and winelovers alike. And for me it is like being back in NYC again, since many of the wines Gill sells are impossible to find in Oz and were stalwarts on the winelists in places where I once worked.

There is a nice rhythm to the vintage this year, according to our viticulturist, Peter Bolte, unlike last years all at once blitz due to the heatwave pounding on the fruit. Thorpe’s winemaker, Tim Geddes, is crushing fruit now like nobody’s business, as is par for the course, but fortunately it’s coming in waves. Unlike the last few years when it was all over the place, or all at once, this year has a steady calm to it. Thorpe Sign The subregions around the Vale are harvesting in a timely fashion. As I get to know this terrain, it’s interesting to watch how different districts perform.
One thing for sure is that the harvesters and semis loaded with grapes are working thru the night now. Transport specialists, like Sully here, are kicking long hours to get the juice moved from point A to point B. Of course, he always has time for a quick ale after work when pressed.

A quick junket to Sydney took me to 3 of the cities best spots: Quai, Est, and The Bentley. I’m still wondering how I made it home in one piece. Great rooms, superb sommeliers, and really nice food. The Bentley is chef Brent Savage and Nick Hildebrandt’s place and it just opened after a 6 week renovation. It is also home to ‘wunderkind’ Glen Goodwin, who keeps a low profile here. Glen ran the wine program at WD50 and worked on the all-star wine crew at Cru Restaurant in NYC for years before returning to Sydney to surf, readjust to a sense of normalcy, and marry his American sweetheart. The Bentley is the kind of place you want to go to all the time. In fact, it is where the sommeliers from Quai and Est go on their nights off. Enough said. Sit at the bar, pick thru the genius international list, and be served.

Food culture in Sydney is advancing at a fast clip. For the first time I met real talent in the restaurants I ate in. Ironically, most sommeliers here dream of going to NYC and doing the hard yards in the “center of the universe”. If only I could warn them; it doesn’t get much better than balmy Sydney, guys. Reality is merely an illusion, although a very persistent one. Granted, NYC is the greatest city in the world, so I can see where they are coming from.

“It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts… For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.” Patrick Henry, US Lawyer and Patriot (1736-1799)

Recipe for Chateau Tour des Gendres white wines

Posted by Yoann - 03/09/10 at 05:03:05 pm

The following recipe will be great with these wines:

• Chateau Tour des Gendres White
• Special 30 years FASNY – Chateau Tour des Gendres White

Striped Bass Filets with spinach and oyster mushrooms

4 filets with the skin intact

1 lb of spinach, washed and de-veined

1/3 pound oyster mushrooms, washed and cut in half, or quarters if large

1 lb white mushrooms

6 Tbs butter

3 Tsp olive oil

½ cup Fish stock or vegetable broth

1 Tsp chives washed and minced

Salt, pepper

Simmer the Oyster mushrooms in 2 Tbs. water, 1 Tbs. butter and a pinch of salt for 10 minutes

Save the liquid and the mushrooms separately

Blanch the spinach 2 minutes in boiling water then rinse with cold water and drain

Sauté the white mushrooms in 1 Tbs. butter until dry, then add half of the liquid from the oyster mushrooms and 1 Tbs butter

In a separate pan, sauté the fish filets skin down in olive oil. Salt and pepper lightly while cooking (3-4 minutes)

Mix broth with the remainder of the liquid from the oyster mushrooms and bring to a boil

Remove from heat and add 2 Tbs. butter

Warm the spinach in 1 Tbs butter, then add both kinds of mushrooms

Serve each filet on a bed of vegetables, covered lightly with the sauce and a sprinkling of chives

Recipes for Chateau Tour des Gendres Red wines

Posted by Yoann - 03/09/10 at 05:03:09 pm

The following recipe will be great with the following wines:

• Chateau Tour des Gendres Red
• Special 30 years FASNY – Chateau Tour des Gendres Red

Roast chicken on a bed of Swiss chard with sautéed new potatoes and black olives

1 small roasting chicken, 3-5 lbs.

½ cup Nicoise (small black) olives (or more as desired)

1 lb. new potatoes

2 bunches of Swiss chard

½ cup chicken stock

2 branches of parsley

Salt, pepper

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

Season the chicken inside and out then brown in butter or olive oil with the liver and other innards in an oven-proof casserole, then transfer to the oven and roast for 1 ½ hours

Boil the potatoes in abundant, salted water for 15 minutes, drain

When cool enough peel the potatoes, sauté in olive oil then add olives, keep warm

Blanch the Swiss chard in boiling salted water, then rinse with cold water, and drain.

When the chicken is done, remove from the pan then gather the juices in the pan by adding the chicken stock. Bring mixture to a boil then pour through a fine sieve, set aside.

To serve, reheat the Swiss chard in 1-2 Tbs butter and distribute to plates.

Cut the chicken into serving size portions and place on the chard with the potato/olive mixture on the side.

Add sauce and chopped parsley

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