Guidos

Information may not be reliable

As always, goCruso appreciates and welcomes your feedback. We encourage you to send us your thoughts about our website. Many of you, our loyal fanbase, recommended new functionality for our website and we have listened. Thanks to you, over the next few weeks and months, we will be adding many of your recommendations to our site.

This will take goCruso to a higher level and allow us to create the preeminent community for the food, drink and hospitality industries.

The forthcoming changes will give us all a more vibrant community. There will also be more information for all of us to access.

What a fascinating wine discovery! The 2008 Dona Ermelinda White (http://www.ermelindafreitas.pt/en/) is a blend of several native and often unfamiliar Portuguese grapes (Fernao Pires, Arinto, Antao Vaz) and 30% very familiar Chardonnay, the grape responsible for white Burgundies and countless world famous white wines from around the globe. The color is golden while the nose is immediately pungent and rich with strong foreshadowing of oak and fruit flavors to come. The mouth-feel is surprisingly heavy for a white wine from the old world of Portugal where white wines mainly expected to be light and taught. At first sip, tropical fruit flavors burst forth, followed by a succession of oak and spice with hints of honey and peach. Overall, this wine reminds me much more of a California Chardonnay than a traditional Portuguese white. And while Chardonnay is only 30% of the cuvee, I imagine many unsuspecting palates in a blind tasting might mistake this wine for a Napa Chardonnay! This is a well balanced, well made wine that surprises with its richness and oak flavors. This white is recommended for those who enjoy rich California whites but like to try new wines from lesser known grapes. You wont be disappointed.

Some colleagues of mine suggest that New Zealand (Marlborough at least) are interchangeable. The suggestion goes that the flavor profile is so similar in these increasingly easily available NZ SBs, that one becomes another and the brand and winemaker do not matter therefore, unless one wants to part with nearly $30 for the upper end Cloudy Bay Sauvingon Blanc, the wine that helped put Marlborough on the SB wine map, the less expensive the better in this category.
Currently for sale in the State of Pennsylvania are two discounted Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs one from Omaka and one from Framingham. Each is from 2009 vintage and each are widely available. But after tasting them, I suggest that while there are some similarities, the wines are clearly NOT interchangeable but rather have their own characteristics.

Omaka Springs Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2009 ($8.99 in PA)
Citrus nose, immediately tart and snappy with upfront grapefruit and lemon/lime flavors over top of an undercurrent of tropical fruits and grassiness. The blend of 90% Sauvignon Blanc is joined by 10% Semillon which adds a brightness to the wine. The finish is taught and light, with a slight minerality that broadens as the wine warms. A great value at release, made even better at a lower price.

Framingham Marlborough NZ Sauvignon Blanc 2009 ($11.99 in PA)
Nose is soft and lightly tropical. Mouthfeel is surprisingly supple and richer than expected. Flavors are bursting with tropical fruits followed by grapefruit and grapefruit pith. Finish has length and depth with typical minerality. Overall a nicely balanced wine and great value.

A recent dinner put on by Off the Grid (www.off-the-grid.ws) combined the fish-based culinary talents of owners Henry and Angela of Penn Avenue Fish Company (www.pennavefishcompany.com ). The idea of a five course fish-only dinner paired with five white wines was interesting, since variety is the spice of life, and restricting the choices to only whites and only fish might cause a boring dinner fortunately this was not the case! Penn Avenue Fish Companys main business is selling fish to restaurant and public customers, along with a casual lunch/sandwich/sushi menu, so they typically close by 4pm. Lucky for us, Henry and Angela agreed to open up on a Sunday evening and converted their casual lunch space into an upscale dinner setting with table cloths and dimmed lights.

The group of 30+ attendees enjoyed five distinctly diverse courses, ranging from sushi to cooked Cobia, and the white wine pairings worked nicely to compliment the well executed food. While I enjoyed all the pairings, my favorite was the main course (Ancho dusted Cobia) with the Portuguese Esporao Reserve 2008. The delicate spiciness and smokiness of the fish, with the wine reduction sauce was well complimented by the full bodied Esporao, which is an unusual wine for the American Palate but might be compared to a Rhone blend white. I am a huge fan of this wine and recommend it to any fan of big, rich white wines. One element that I especially appreciate about this gem is that the winemaker (David Baverstock of Esporao an Australian winemaker who has enjoyed many successful years in Portugal) did not over-embellish any particular element of the wine the fruit is intense, but balanced by oak, which is strong like the fruit, but not so much as to get in the way all nicely balanced, despite the bigness of the wine.
The menu and wines:

White Anchovies / Shaved Parmesan / Cherry Tomato Vinaigrette
Jongieux Vin de Savoire 2009 (Eugene CARREL & Fils, Jongieux, Savoire, France)