What’s Hot
Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay have become yesterday’s news and Malbec and Riesling have replaced them as the most popular wines. There are several reasons. For one thing, wine drinkers are becoming more knowledgeable about wine. Newspapers have food and wine sections, and websites – like Twisting Vines, offer wine reviews and suggestions for food pairings. When you go to buy a wine to go with dinner, you have some idea what to expect before you make that choice.

Also, in the past couple of years wine prices have fallen, allowing us to be a little  adventurous and try new wines that were previously just out of our price range.

Of course, not to be overlooked is the fact that wines just keep getting better as winemakers become more knowledgeable about growing the best fruit and improving their winemaking techniques.

White
Riesling has recently become the most popular white wine with sales worldwide continuing to increase. What’s not to like about this versatile wine? It can be dry or sweet and it’s food friendly or great all by itself.

The grand dame of white wines, Chardonnay,has lost it’s luster and sales, worldwide, have been dropping. It seems the top selling California white wine is now associated with baby boomers, so it has the image of a geezer image. Too bad, because California Chardonnays have only gotten better as they’ve gotten away from the heavy oak and now produce wines with complexity and style.

The west coast of the US has some serious contenders for great Rieslings coming from Oregon and Washington State. The fruit is excellent and the winemakers are tops in their field. Because US Riesling growers don’t have to contend with steep hillsides, harvesting the grapes is much easier which keeps the prices lower than many German or Alsace imports.

2008 Chateau St Michelle Dr. Loosen Eroica Riesling
Okay, I’ve reviewed this wine before but I have to tell you, each year’s vintage is better than the last. Last week I served this with chicken and noodles – a match made in heaven. I also like to have a glass while I’m cooking.

A beautiful straw color with aromas of pears and peaches, with hints of honey and citrus. Flavors of peaches, citrus and pears with hints of mineral and tea. Crisp and light-bodied. Slightly sweet but still on the dry side. Complex flavors evolve in the glass. Get an extra bottle to have on hand. $18 at K & L.

Red
Malbec from Argentina is becoming the darling of the red set. A less expensive alternative to Cabernet Sauvigon, in the past year everyone I know is talking about Malbec. Friends are serving it at home and it’s even appearing on the menu in family style restaurants. A good California Cabernet Sauvignon under $40 is not easy to find, but it’s pretty easy to find a very good Malbec under $20. Because production costs for wine in South America are considerably less than here in the US, we can enjoy a perfect wine paired with our favorite grilled rib eye steak.

Susana Balbo Mendoza Signature 2007
Medium ruby color. Aromas of dark berries, licorice and oak. Flavors of dark cherries, plum with hints of vanilla, cocoa and oak. Full-bodied, good tannins with a long, fruity finish. Open 45 minutes before serving.
$20 at Hi-Time Wine Cellar in Costa Mesa

2008 Kendall-Jackson Monterey County Riesling Vintner’s Reserve
California State Fair Double Gold winner – Best of California Riesling! 98 Points. One of the few winners that is still available to buy.

Tasting Notes:
Aromas of honeydew and peach with hints of citrus and apple. Flavors of apricot, pear and orange blossoms with hints of pineapple. Full bodied and balanced with an off-dry, crisp finish.

Great to sip or serve with chicken in a white wine sauce with noodles and mushrooms. Found it at BevMo for $10.

German Riesling
Now that the weather has finally warmed up, we’ve put the cabernets and zins on the back shelf and moved the lighter whites to the front. We tend to drink more of the lighter wines because their alcohol content is quite a bit lower than the reds. Rieslings average 10.5% alcohol while some California cabs are 18+%.

Clean Slate 2008 Riesling
A good German Riesling under $20? Yep. This wine is pretty much like it’s name. Clean with a slate-like minerality. Because the vineyards in the Mosel region are perched on steep hillsides, harvesting is labor intensive – the main reason prices are a little higher than, let’s say, a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

The soil of the Mosel is harsh, stony slate – which gives the grapes that great green apple flavor. The rich nutrients in the soil give it a clean taste.

Pale gold color. Aromas of green apple and pear with hints of petrol and spice. Flavors of peach, green apple with a hint of citrus and spice. Crisp and balanced, slightly sweet. Fruit finish with a mineral feel on the palette. Great with anything wrapped in proscuitto.

Gold Medal winner at 2007 San Francisco International Wine Competition. We found it at BevMo for $11

Trestle Creek Riesling
The AstraPouch From Glenora Wine Cellars, New York Finger Lakes region.

From the Glenora website:
The 1st U.S. wine available in this lightweight, environmentally-friendly, unbreakable package

The AstraPouch is a sleek, durable, and efficient pouch that is the new alternative to the heavier glass bottle and bulky bag-in-box standards.  Used to package wine and other non-carbonated beverages, the AstraPouch can chill the product quickly, won’t let air in while pouring and has a low carbon footprint. The AstraPouch features a convenient handle and allows wine to be free from the “no glass” rule.

Glenora’s Trestle Creek Riesling has fresh apricot and peach aromas. This luscious, semi dry wine is balanced with crisp, natural acidity, characteristic of New York’s Finger Lakes region. It is ideally suited with Chicken, Fish, Vegetarian, Asian, or as an Apéritif.

1.5L AstraPouch is equivalent to 2 bottles of wine.  There are approximately 10 glasses per pouch. $17.99

Riesling
Riesling is the most food compatible wine in the world. Because of it’s relatively low alcohol content, fruity acidity and a range of dryness levels, it goes well with a variety of foods. It’s also the fastest growing white wine in the U.S. in terms of sales. Washington State’s Chateau Ste. Michelle, is the largest Riesling producer in the country.

Up until now, unless you’ve tried the wine or heard about it, there was no way to know if the bottle of riesling you were buying would be too sweet or too dry. No more guessing! The International Riesling Foundation has come up with a “Riesling Taste Profile” to be used on the back label of the bottle. The simple chart will help the wine buyer find the style of riesling he/she is looking for:

This spring, Chateau Ste. Michelle will feature the “Riesling Taste Profile” scale on two of it’s new releases: the 
2008 Winemaker’s Cabinet Riesling and the 2008 Waussie Riesling.

Dry riesling pairs well with creamy or fatty cheeses like Brie or Munster or salty cheeses like Gruyere or Asiago. The acid in the wine cuts through the fattiness or the creamy cheeses and sets off the saltiness of the saltier cheeses. Chicken and riesling is a no-brainer.

Here’s a tasty recipe for Chicken with Riesling that is easy to prepare and tastes great the next day:

Chicken with Riesling
8 chicken thighs (bone in and skin on)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 Tbsp Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
4 shallots, chopped
3 Tbsp cognac
3 cups dry riesling wine
12 sprigs flat leaf parsley
2 small bay leaves
2 sprigs fresh thyme
A pinch of nutmeg
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
8 oz mushrooms, quartered
Juice of one lemon (about 3 Tbsp)
2 egg yolks
2/3 cup crème fraîche
Finely chopped parsley for garnish

Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper. Heat the oil and 2 Tbsp butter in a heavy wide Dutch oven or braising pot. When hot, place the chicken pieces in the pot. Brown the chicken on all sides, turning with tongs from time to time.

Lower the heat, and add the chopped shallots and cook for another 2 minutes or so.

Remove the Dutch oven from the heat. Pour in the cognac, return to the cooktop, and flame it. When the flame dies, stir in the wine, parsley, bay leaves, thyme, and nutmeg. Cover the pot and reduce the heat to low; simmer gently for 20 minutes or until the chicken is nearly cooked through.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining 2 Tbsp of butter in a wide fry pan, and sauté mushrooms for several minutes, stirring from time to time, until the mushrooms are tender. Add the lemon juice and set aside. 

When the chicken has cooked 20 minutes, add the mushrooms to the chicken, along with any accumulated mushroom juices.

Continue to cook the chicken for another 10 minutes and then remove the chicken pieces to a deep heated platter. Cover loosely with foil and hold in a warm place while you finish the sauce.

Finish the sauce: turn up the heat and reduce the braising liquid to about 1½ cups; it can take several minutes for the excess to boil off. Once reduced, remove the bay leaf, parsley, and thyme sprigs, and then reduce the heat to low.

In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks with the crème fraîche, and then add to the reduced sauce. Heat the sauce gently for a minute or so, whisking often to avoid curdling, and to encourage thickening. If any juices have accumulated under the chicken, add it to the sauce.

Remove from the heat, and correct for salt and pepper seasoning. 

Pour the thickened sauce over the chicken pieces, sprinkle with some finely chopped parsley, and serve with buttered noodles, spaetzle, or mashed potatoes.

Makes 4 — 6 servings

Pinot Noir
With cool, wet winters, warm dry summers and the marine influence from the west, the coastal Willamette Valley of Oregon is perfect for growing pinot noir grapes.

Dr. Loosen’s Oregon Wine Adventure
The Loosen Family wine estate in Germany is famous for it’s rieslings. Closer to home, Ernst Loosen – one of the rock stars of wine making, currently partners with Chateau St. Michelle in Washington state, to produce the famous Eroica riesling we all love. One of the best food-friendly wines that we always keep on hand.

Now Ernst Loosen wants to make great pinot noir, so he is partnering with Oregon based winemaker, Jay Somers, of J. Christopher Wines, in a new venture, Loosen Christopher Wines LLC.

Currently Somers and Loosen have crafted two pinot noirs:

2006 Appassionata
A finely selected, limited-production Pinot Noir from Oregon’s Willamette Valley. To assemble the wine, Ernst and Jay taste through all of the barrels in the J. Christopher cellars and select a distinctive combination of clones, terroirs and cooperages to produce an elegant pinot noir with powerful Oregon fruit and fine Old World structure.

Under the new Loosen Christopher Wines venture, Appassionata will continue to be a top of the line special bottling, eventually coming primarily from estate-grown grapes after the vines on the new vineyard are established. Very New World with a dark purple color. Rich, deep black cherry scents leading to substantial dark fruit intensity, extended tannins and a long, dry finish. Only 99 cases produced, so this is definitely a collector’s item. The vintage will be released for the first time this March and will retail for $75.

2006 Two Worlds
A value-priced Pinot Noir. Originally a blend of German and Oregon grapes, this label will be 100 percent Oregon going forward. Currently, the Two Worlds Pinot Noir is 90% fruit from the sunny Pfalz – contributing purity of fruit and structure – and 10% is a selection from the Oregon cellars of J. Christopher – lending deeper fruit, stronger tannins and a firmer backbone. Two Worlds has a deliciously pure, bright cherry fruit melding with the darker, sturdier structure that often characterizes Oregon Pinot Noir. Two Worlds retails for $16. (Because of all the hype about the wine, the cheapest I could find it was at K & L for $18.)

Check out the J. Christopher website.

The Ideal Wine for Food
“In many ways, Riesling is an ideal white wine. It is flavorful–a characteristic that, despite bland Pinot Grigio’s popularity, seems to be a key consideration for mainstream wine drinkers. It is generally not bone dry, just like all those popular, mass-market Chardonnays, and it is delicious with very flavorful foods. It’s fruity, easy to drink and typically has relatively low alcohol content.

We have always loved good Riesling, and we applaud the efforts of sommeliers to entice American wine drinkers by offering Riesling by the glass. Promoting Riesling has seemed to us an uphill battle, however. Riesling, even more than rose wines, suffers from an image of being “too sweet” and therefore the opposite of chic. And yet–statistics don’t lie–Riesling is on the move.” Ted Baseler, chief executive of Washington’s Chateau Ste. Michelle winery

According to Lynne Char Bennett of the San Francisco Chronicle, “west coast vintners have discovered that this aromatic white is suited to Northern California’s Monterey County and to Washington state’s Columbia Valley. Good domestic Riesling is available for less than $15 a bottle – a bargain when you consider its flexibility at the dinner table.”

2008 Chateau Ste. Michelle Columbia Valley Riesling ($10): When this off-dry Riesling was first produced in 1972, it was labeled Johannisberg Riesling. Consistent, easy drinking and value-priced, with plenty of fruit, including green melon, cantaloupe and citrus; seamless acidity, pink grapefruit on the finish.

2008 Fess Parker Santa Barbara County Riesling ($14): Fess Parker’s son, winemaker Eli, and head winemaker Blair Fox now oversee about 700 vineyard acres in Santa Barbara County. Tropical fruit, pineapple and lime; fresh, clean aromas and flavors; weightier body with a fruity, moderately sweet finish.

2008 Firestone Vineyard Central Coast Riesling ($11): In 2007, Bill Foley’s Foley Family Wines purchased Firestone, which was founded more than three decades ago in Santa Ynez Valley by Leonard Firestone and his son, Brooks. This bottling treads a bit on the ripe side; very aromatic and lush with lemon compote, stone fruit and ruby-red grapefruit.

2008 Jekel Vineyards Monterey Riesling ($12): Pear, pineapple and ripe tropical aromas merge on the medium-bodied palate that is not quite as lively as the nose, but will do well by mildly spiced foods. Includes a tiny bit of Muscat.

2008 Maddalena Monterey Riesling ($14): The San Antonio Winery is the last producing winery in Los Angeles. Established in 1917 by the Riboli family, the winery also produces wine from Paso Robles and Rutherford fruit. Lovely aromas and flavors of pear, apple and stone fruit; clean and fresh. This well-balanced off-dry wine is perfect with Asian food.