St. Francis Winery Starts Merlot Day, May 19

I think that by now, most wine lovers are familiar with the rise and fall of the merlot grape. After the movie Sideways, merlot took a huge hit when people started switching to pinot noir. While the much-maligned varietal might deserve a bit of the criticism it received, namely that the wine lacked structure and soul, the fact remains that merlot is capable of producing world class wines. This "Merlot Day" is a cool way to rediscover the grape, or get acquainted with one of the most popular varietals in the world. I'd recommend the St. Francis merlot as a good place to start, also try Stag's Leap, Whitehall Lane, or Flora Springs. If you're looking for more value-oriented merlot, Columbia Crest makes a superb example under their "Grand Estate" classification, as do Bogle and Blackstone.

Luckily, merlot can pair well with a wide variety of foods and one of my somewhat-secret pleasures is pairing merlot with a shrimp and pesto pizza. If you're into cheese pairings, try a bottle of Napa Valley merlot with Camembert and Gruyere cheeses. Alternately if you are sometimes into simple things like I am, do a bacon grilled cheese sandwich with some sharp cheddar and smokey gouda, toss in finely diced sun-dried tomatoes, on fresh sourdough, and down a glass of merlot with that. It's a quick but very delicious meal.

What's your favorite merlot? Did you (like me) shun merlot after seeing Sideways? Have any great merlot and food pairings for us?

From the press release: 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(image via http://www.stfranciswinery.com)

St. Francis Winery Celebrates First Annual

#Merlot Day Virtual Tasting

(April 27, 2011) – St. Francis Winery & Vineyards, a Sonoma County producer of hand-crafted fruit forward varietal wines, launches their first nationwide virtual tasting featuring Merlot on Thursday, May 19, 2011.  As the first Sonoma County winery to plant and produce Merlot, their virtual tasting will salute the varietal they pioneered since their first vintage in 1983.

Wine lovers across the country can participate in St. Francis Merlot Day by signing up, free of charge, at www.stfrancismerlotday.eventbrite.com and opening a bottle of their favorite Merlot. The 24 hour tasting starts at 12:01am with participants sharing tasting notes and images of their favorite Merlot on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #Merlot.  Even better, participate by visiting the winery and attending the KJZY radio station Happy Hour from 5:30 to 8:00pm and meet Winemaker Tom Mackey.  An exciting new app from CrushWire technology will be available on iPads allowing participants to share their experiences online directly from the tasting room.

St. Francis’ winemaker Tom Mackey, heralded by the press as the ‘Master of Merlot’, is excited to participate and share his love for the presently underappreciated Merlot varietal, “Twitter and Facebook are easy ways for fans to share opinions about wine. The best way to communicate the taste and quality is old fashioned word of mouth – even when it’s delivered virtually on a smart phone.”

About St. Francis Winery & Vineyards:

For over 35 years, St. Francis Winery in Sonoma has hand-crafted fruit forward, luscious and full-bodied wines from superior mountain and valley vineyards in Sonoma County’s best appellations.   While most renowned for its red varietals, including its Zinfandel (all old vines 60 - 110 years old), Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, St. Francis also produces a noteworthy Chardonnay.  St. Francis Sonoma County wines are bursting with flavor and are recognized globally for outstanding quality and great value. Visit us at www.stfranciswinery.com            

###

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Beau Carufel

P.S. I Love You, Especially if you're a 2007 Parducci!

P.S. stands for Petite Sirah, the red-headed stepchild of California red varietals. I happen to be a big fan of Petite Sirah, for me the grape can combine the structure of a great Cabernet with the intense fruit of a delicious Zinfandel. Some wineries in this state blend Petite Sirah with Cab or Zin while others like Parducci and Stag's Leap produce single varietal bottlings. I was sent the 2007 Parducci Petite Sirah to sample, along with their 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon which I reviewed here. If you're interested in learning more about Petite Sirah, click here to visit the P.S. I love you advocacy group.

I wanted to open this bottle tonight and had to plan a meal around it, but I took some time to taste and think about the Parducci before I began to cook. Right away I love the color, like purple velvet drapes pouring into my glass. There was a weighty feeling, the wine seemed to command my attention and let me know in no uncertain terms that it had some presence in my glass.

After talking about an hour to do laundry, assemble dinner's ingredients, email, and tweet, I was ready to taste the Petite Sirah. Juicy blueberries, cocoa powder, violets and earth all played with my olfactory sense. Nothing was too intense, but each note lingered long enough to make itself known. I sensed that if I was more knowledgeable, I'd have allowed even more time to open, Parducci's Petite Sirah could even use a decant!

That first taste reminded me why I love Petite Sirah, power and finesse. Graceful even, because none of the tobacco, cedar or berry notes weighed down my palate. They didn't stay too long, exiting after what felt like the right amount of time. Quantifying the "right" amount of time isn't something I can do, rather it's a sensation I get after having tasted a lot of wine over the years. My friends, the tannins, built the wine, keeping it in shape so to speak. The finish was clean and simple, which worked perfectly.

Some of the nitty-gritty details about this tasty wine include the fact that it spent 22 months in oak with 40% of that being in neutral American oak barrels and 60% in redwood tanks. Parducci bottled this Petite Sirah a little over a year ago. At 13.5% alcohol by volume, my loyal readers will note that this pleases me to no end.

At the suggested retail price of $10.99, Parducci nailed the QPR. A quick internet search found some merchants selling the Petite Sirah for as low as $7.99. That's a roundhouse kick to the QPR, sending it into rarefied air and making the B rating and strong BUY recommendation that much easier to bestow. Go buy this wine.


Food Time:

Tonight's pairing was steak sandwiches and let me tell you, by some miracle I didn't screw up dinner and the pairing worked perfectly. Quick and dirty recipe: in a cast iron pan on medium heat, add a tablespoon of olive oil and the following: diced sun dried tomatoes, diced bell peppers and diced onions. Add salt and pepper as well as a pinch of cayenne pepper and cook for about eight minutes or until the pepper skins are browned. remove to a bowl.

Next, slice steak into thin slices, pour two tablespoons of soy sauce and a teaspoon of barbecue sauce over the steak, then about a half teaspoon of crushed garlic and some salt and pepper. Stir all of this together then throw it into the cast iron pan. Watch out because it'll cook quickly.

When the meat is browned, throw it into the bowl with the veggies and cover all of that back up. Preheat your oven to 400F and get those dinner rolls out, the long torpedo shaped ones. Slice them open and stuff in the mix of meat and veggies, then stuff some shredded cheese in there too, I used smoked jalapeno jack.

Wrap the sandwich in aluminum foil and cook it for ten minutes. By this time you will be starving so have some more wine. After the cheese has begun to melt, partially unwrap the sandwich so the open face is exposed to the air and put it in for another five or six minutes, to gently toast some of the bread.

Remove from the oven and drizzle a little more barbecue sauce on the sandwich. then cut in half and eat. Enjoy the way the tannins from the wine and the protein from the meat complement each other and how the ripe fruit of the Petite Sirah plays well with the richness of the seasoned steak.

Enjoy.

This wine was sent as a media sample for review purposes.


Beau Carufel