My mother is down visiting for Mother’s Day, it is her annual trip down here to visit us and she is a huge fan of lamb. It had just so happened that a friend of ours had given us some lamb chops recently and I was trying to figure out what to do with them. I had made this black olive tapenade as a condiment for a grilled portabella mushroom burger I was making at the insistence of Ms Cocktail, I was struck by a sudden inspiration. This tapenade would be fantastic on lamb chops.

More...

For the month of May, the featured wine at Fabbioli Cellars is our Rosa Luna. The Rosa Luna is our rosé made from 100% Sangiovese grapes and this year it is very light and delicate. My thinking was that a nice recipe using a tangy goat cheese would be the perfect thing to pair with this wine. Well much to my surprise, that turned out to be a complete whiff. Not because I couldn’t come up with something tasty, but because the pairing completely overwhelmed the subtleties in the wine.

More...

After the first round was complete, we took the time to assess which seeds were winners and which ones were losers, but none of the wines were revealed yet. That could potentially taint the results as the survivors could be deduced by their absence from the ranks of the losers. In each succeeding round, the number of judges for each wine is greater than the last round so scores will be higher.

Round 2

# 16 Catoctin Creek v #13 Fabbioli – The host wine from Fabbioli Cellars was thoroughly beaten 15 – 5 in this round. Our judges thought that the vanilla and spice notes of the Catoctin Creek entry provided greater depth of flavor that the Fabbioli representative.

More...

The stage is set, the band starts playing
Suddenly your heart is pounding
Wishing secretly you were a star.
                              -Styx, The Grand Illusion

Each wine was assigned a random number then placed in a bag so that none of the judges could see what they were drinking, this was a blind tasting after all. The wines were then paired up based on their “seeding”,  with number 1 and number 16 squaring off, number 2 and number 15, paired up, etc. And just that quickly, the judging began.

More...

The Players

We thought it would be a good idea to limit the possible field of wines for this event right at the beginning. After all, Cabernet Franc may be the single most widely planted grape in the state of Virginia. After all, at last count over half of the wineries in Virginia, 122 of them, make a Cabernet Franc varietal. (Side note: Variety is a specific vine, varietal is a wine produced from a variety. It does not have to be 100% of that variety to be labeled as a varietal. I should make this a topic of another post though.) So we limited the field to the 2010 vintage of Cabernet Franc wines that won a medal in the 2012 Virginia Governor’s Cup wine competition.

More...

About a month ago, I was contacted by Beltway Bacchus, a blogger here in Northern Virginia, about a project he had worked on last year called the Virginia Wine Bracket Challenge. I had read about it last year when it occurred and I was quite interested in the concept but hadn’t really thought much about it until approached by Beltway Bacchus. You see, he was looking for a place to host the event and some ideas on how to make it better.

More...

This is the recipe that I hinted at last week when I said that I was coming up with something to pair with our release of Paco Rojo. The spice from the jalapeños adds just the right counterpoint to this off-dry red wine. If you don’t want it quite so spicy you can remove the seeds from the jalapeños but I don’t think that this is terribly hot. The recipe itself is not difficult to make but it does have a couple of steps to it so give your self at least and hour and a half to pull it all together. Also, this calls for a roasted chicken and chicken stock, two things that you can buy at the store but I’ve given recipes on how to make them here before. Finally, just so that you know, I had the staff at Fabbioli Cellars go through enchilada trials to make sure we got the one that paired the best with the Paco Rojo. This one was by far the fan favorite.

More...

By now, some of you may be aware that Fabbioli Cellars has released a new wine entitled Paco Rojo. There are multiple little stories behind this wine but I’ll share a bit of the back story with you today.

Many of you know that the vast majority of wine making doesn’t happen in the winery but out in the vineyards where the grapes are grown. In fact, there is a saying amongst the French that a wine is made in the vineyard and that it is up to the winemaker to not screw up what Mother Nature has given them. This is something that we are very well aware of at Fabbioli Cellars. We have a crew of guys that work the fields for us (and perform seven thousand other little tasks without which this winery wouldn’t function). Doug Fabbioli (the owner, head winemaker, chief bottle washer and otherwise general good guy) though that it would be nice to honor these guys by making a wine specifically for them.

More...

When I am low on ingredients to make a meal that will last me days, I love to get creative with what I have in the fridge. I had mini-tortillas, cooked shrimp, roasted red bell peppers, spinach and shallots. I hit the quick meal jackpot, since these ingredients made for one delicious healthy gourmet burrito!

Saute’ the shallots in a either a tablespoon of grapeseed or olive oil. Add the shrimp, peppers and then dust Old Bay seasoning as it sautes. I had some Goats Do Roam Rose’ in the fridge, so why not? Instead of water, I poured about 1-2 tablespoons in the saute’ pan and then added the spinach to cook down. Let the spinach cook down though be sure it is still a bright green color. 

Once done, scoop up some onto a tortilla, roll and enjoy! This type of burrito can be modified so many ways depending on what you have in your own fridge or what you are in the mood for. By the way, this Rose’ was better to cook with than sip, just sayin’... 

I don’t know if any of you watch cooking shows or competitions. I happen to be a pretty big fan of Top Chef, Chopped and Iron Chef America. I tend to learn a lot of little things from these shows. Sometimes they are very subtle like interesting ways to break down a cucumber or a new knife technique. Sometimes they are a little larger. You see, one of the dishes that constantly gets people in trouble is risotto. 30 minutes to prep and make a risotto is just not enough time. So sorry, please pack your knives and go.

More...