Valentine’s Day can be expensive, but it doesn't have to be, especially if you roll up your sleeves and cook dinner for your Valentine.  We think this is such a great idea that we hunted down some tasty, easy to prepare recipes and paired 'em with wines we know you'll love.  If you've never had a great food and wine pairing, then please try at least one of these! 

Recipe 1: Grilled Steak with herbed butter

Red:  Cabernet Sauvignon, esp. California.  Check out Caymus, but make sure to decant it for around two hours.

White: California Chardonnay.  Try Cakebread Chardonnay Reserve.  You’ll be shocked how well a full-bodied oaky California Chardonnay works with butter sauces, even when there's red meat involved.

Recipe 2: Mini Pork Rack with Roasted Potatoes and Green Beans

Red: Pinot Noir or Red Burgundy.  For Burgundy, try Bertrand Ambroise Aries, it's elegant with a touch of earth. For California Pinot Noir, try Donum, a big, mouth-filling Pinot from Carneros.

White: California Chardonnay or Riesling.  Try Sonoma Cutrer Chardonnay or Leitz Rudesheim Roseneck Riesling Spätlese.  The Leitz is an absolute rockstar Riesling that will just break your heart.

Recipe 3: Chicken Scallopini

Red: New World Pinot Noir.  Try Donum or Caitec. 

White: White Burgundy or Sauvignon Blanc.  For the Burgundy, try Moreau Chassagne Montrachet Champs Gain .  For the Sauvignon Blanc, try Thomas La Crele Sancerre.  The Burgundy will work with the sauce's richness, while the Sauvignon Blanc will contrast it.

Recipe 4 Garlic Basil Shrimp with Tomatoes

Red: Not recommended.

White: Sauvignon Blanc or Sparkling Wine.  For the Sauvignon Blanc, try Thomas La Crele Sancerre.  The Sancerre will work some zesty magic with the tomatoes and the basil. For the Sparkling wine, try Henriot Brut Souverain.  The Champagne will work beautifully with the shrimp’s delicate flavor and will tie it in with the basil and tomatoes.

Recipe 5: Oven Poached Salmon a la Paige with Dill, Vidalia Onion and Cucumber Relish

Red: Pinot Noir.  Try Donum or Caitec.  Pinot Noir is a classic pairing with Salmon.

White: White Burgundy or Sauvignon Blanc.  For the Burg, try Manciat Petite Bruyeres Pouilly Fuisse.  For the Sauvignon Blanc, check out the Paul Thomas Sancerre Les Comtesses.  The Sancerre will be magnificent with the relish.

If you need help with other food and wine pairings, just email me at todd@kahnsfinewines.com.  I’m happy to help.  Just tell me what you’re cooking and whether you want white or red.  

Cheers!

Classic food and wine pairings don’t just appear out of thin air, they’re discovered. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not.  One day, a lucky human being decided to drink a buttery, full-bodied California Chardonnay with his lobster.  Can you imagine his delight as the Chardonnay’s butter, apple, lemon and tangerine flavors mingled with the lobster’s rich, succulent texture?  If you can’t, then please go buy a lobster and a bottle of Grgich Hills Chardonnay right now.  I’m not kidding.   You can send me a thank you note later, but you owe it to yourself.

The #1 Rule of Food and Wine Pairing is…

If it grows together, it goes together.

Catchy, isn’t it?  In fact, this rule says more about culture than it does about the complementary nature of food and drink produced within close geographic proximity.  Classic food and wine pairings aren’t just born, they’re cultivated.  People stumble upon delicious flavor combinations all the time, sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident.  A classic pairing is born when we share what we’ve discovered with others and then they validate our discovery by sharing it again.  In that spirit, I’d like to share two pairings that I’ve stumbled upon.  I believe that the first is a bona fide classic and the other is well… a little off-the-wall.  I hope you try both and if you agree; I hope you share them with others.

 My Classic Pairing…

Venison Loin: Domaine Drouhin Pinot Noir 2009

Venison can be purchased from a variety of online specialty retailers like Broken Arrow Ranch, Elk USA, or Underhill Farms. 

Here’s how to prepare the Venison loin:

Venison Loin 2 lbs.

Olive Oil 4 oz.

Greek plain yogurt, 4 oz.

Cumin, 1 tsp

Cayenne pepper, 1 tsp

Cardamom, 1 tsp

Salt, 2 tsp

Pepper 2 tsp

Garlic 2 tblsp

Two limes, juiced

Combine olive oil, yogurt, cumin, cayenne, cardamom, garlic, salt, pepper and lime juice together in a plastic bag.  Place venison in the bag and work it around with the olive oil, yogurt, spice mixture.  Marinate for three hours.   

Wrap the venison in foil and place in a 350 degree oven for forty minutes to an hour until the red in the meat is gone.  Open foil to reduce the juices and produce a crust.  Serve with roasted potatoes and carrots.

Try this with the Drouhin Pinot Noir 2009 and you’ll know instantly how a classic pairing should taste.  The tart, bright cherries and the Pinot Noir’s wonderful acidity perfectly complement the venison’s rich complexity.  You’ll love it.

My Off-the-wall, yet completely awesome pairing…

Cheez-its Snack Crackers: Grand Marnier

You might think I’m crazy, but oh my goodness…please try this!  The Cheez-its saltiness pairs perfectly with Grand Marnier’s orange-macerated sweetness.  I’m not saying it’s Sauternes and Roquefort, but it’s pretty darn good!

Do you have a food and wine/spirit pairing you’d like to share? 

Post a comment on this blog or on Kahn’s facebook page.  We’d love to hear from you!

Recipe: Courtesy of Mr. C. Smith

On June 25th, Kahn's Fine Wines Downtown partnered up with Mesh, Aesop's Tables and Agio to offer guests a one-of-a-kind Progressive Dinner called A Midsummer's Sauntering Supper.  It really was a great time.  The event began around 4:30 at Kahn's Downtown where guests were greeted with La Ardilla Moscato and Bartolomeo Prosecco. The La Ardilla displayed a fizzy effervescence coupled with tangerines and Granny Smith apples and the Bartolomeo exuded spumante-like bubbles and crisp acid; both functioned well as apperitifs and provided a nice foreward to the wine and culinary delights to come. 

With palates cleansed, we ventured forth to Mesh, in search of a unique spin on American Fusion with a chic decor, and boy did they hit the ball out of the park.  Sarah Eck, Mesh's events co-ordinator put us in Mesh's private dining room overlooking Mass. Ave.  We enjoyed Kim Crawford's wonderful Sauvignon Blanc and a delightful Malbec from Alta Vista along with Mesh's expertly prepared food:
 

By: Bill Cheek, Kahn's North Willow

Let us be upfront and admit that I am NOT yet a wine drinker (or at least, not yet one with a palate to be trusted).  So when Kahn's gave me a day off that just so happened to coincide with Le Grand Tour d'Alsace, I took the hint and headed over to conduct a bit of research.

I figured that to beat the crowd I'd stop in right at the start of the two-hour event; slip in, sample, take notes, slip out...but whoa: apparently when you offer twenty-five wines for the price of the gas it takes to get there (and, uh, maybe a cab, depending on your affinity for spitting) people SHOW UP.  Who knew?

So over the course of an hour I mingled with the 75+ customers on hand and gradually made my way through most of the available wines.  The Alsace region is predominated by several white wine varietals which range from dry to semi-sweet:  Riesling, Gewurtzraminer, and Pinot Gris were clearly the order of the night.

Now we come to the fun part.  Highlights of the night included the Rene Mure lineup of varietals, mid-00s vintages that displayed delicious age-acquired mellowness and subtlety.  [Our manager at North Willow], Todd, was quite enthused by the 2003 Pinot Gris St. Landelin, which he let everyone in earshot know was "drinking like a champ."  In fact, we sold every bottle in the store that night! (I noted only "Gentle tart, ripe apple" to prove that I am a rube)  The ReneMure Pinot Noir V 2005, the only red wine in the tasting, was by no means a token - it was well balanced between ripe berries and tannins, and smelled uncannily like the Upland Lambic Blackberry I recently opened.  Fun beer-wine connection, huh?

Other interesting selections (disclaimer: to me) included the PierreSparr Alsace One, a blend of the aforementioned Alsace varietals that featured a citrus/apple tartness overlaying a distinct perfume-likefloral character, and the 2009 Gustave Lorentz Gewurtzraminer, a lovely concentrated punch of flowers and melons and honey with a finish just dry enough to demand another sip.

I have discovered that I am a great fan of the Gewurtzraminer.  Wine reviews can get pretentious & disturbingly anthropomorphic, but when they say this varietal has a "flamboyant" nose, they ain't lying.  Instantly recognizable, the nose of a Gewurtz is a deep, brooding floral essence which tightly embraces a range of ripe fruits.  And then in the mouth it is...well, various things, but these things tend to highlight a remarkable cooperation between playful and serious, sweet and sassy.  You see what I am doing here.  Anyway, the point is that my favorite wine of the night was  theEhrhart Gewurtzraminer Rosenberg 2004, offering a richly honeyed, perfumed upfront sweetness that u-turned into a surprisingly dry spicy finish.

Of course, my co-worker Shilpa tells me the next day that Todd proclaimedthis particular bottle to have ameasure of undesirable oxidation present.  This is clearly evidence that my palate has yet to reach the scintillating "mediocre" status it holds in my mind.  Or lies.  I'll go with lies, becausethat wine was great fun, regardless.

So, I convinced Paul and Jim to let me sneak out of Keystone for a day and take 3 other highly enthused colleagues up to Chicago for an afternoon of absolutely marvelous fine wine tasting. We left early in the morning about 7am and arrived in Chi-Town about 10:30am.

We didn't have to be at the tasting until 11:00am...This is Kyle now. Unfortunately, Brennan has been pulled away by one of many strings of responsibilities that will most likely not allow him to finish this task, so you'll just have to deal with my perspective of this great day trip.

We arrived in Chi town early and had about an hour to kill so we stopped at Binny's. This is one of the most wonderful locations for fine wine, beer & spirits in the country. The primary reason for our stop was to acquire beers & single malt scotches that aren't distributed in our fair state of Indiana. We found some gems like Green Flash "West Coast IPA" along with Lost Abbey's "Serpent Stout". Kevin with his keen eye spotted the last bottle of Sassicaia barrel finished Edradour 10 year. The distillery only produced 464 total bottles of this glorious single malt. So, as a result we're expecting to have invitations made available to our staff next week to polish off the bottle courtesy of Kevin. Ok, enough with the shameless plugging of Binny's, on to the tasting.

We arrived and we're immediately greeted by our wonderful Bobby Kacher sales rep, Anne Markovich-Girard. She politely explained the layout of the tasting room, showed us the table with available stemware and gave us the green light to begin our three hour adventurous exploration of the beautifully distinct wines from the multitude of unique French appellations that comprise their portfolio.

Well, somehow Brennan has managed to escape the floor to once again engage in this blog. Please enjoy your further reading.

Best Regards,

Kyle

Ok, well, I'm glad I could return just in time to talk with all of you about this fabulous tasting. We began with one of my favorite Non-Vintage Champagnes in the world, LAMIABLE BRUT NV. This Champagne is one of the many "Grower Champagnes" that we carry and is incredibly and uniquely expressive. This wine has a penetratingly deep nose of honey drizzled granny smith apples, lemon-lime zest and graphite as you work your way through to a slight underpinning of subtle and elegant yeasty aroma. The texture is delicate and refreshingly dry with very refined effervescence. If you love sparkling wines as much as I do, and believe me, I can drink sparklers on any day that ends in "Y", so you know if I'm preaching about this wine, then you should seek this one out.

All of our "Grower Champagnes" can be identified by the letters RM, which translates to Recoltant Manipulant. These Champagne houses are small producers that only use the fruit they grow on their estates and are terroir driven with a wonderfully focused purpose of being true representatives of their vineyard sites.

We tasted so many lovely and charming wines throughout the day. Some of the highlights would be from fabulous producers such as Bertrand Ambroise. His family origins date back to the 18^th century in the village of Premeaux-Prissey in the heart of the Cote D'Or. His Echezeaux 2008 and his Clos Vougeot 2008 were two of the best wines we tasted all day. They were remarkably dense, amazingly dark and highly extracted for Pinot Noir, but marvelously refined and elegant at the same time. Their balance and harmony were unmatched. Unfortunately, we don't have them in stock, but rest assured I'll be harassing Jim to purchase them with our next shipment.

Diane De Puymorin is the sole proprietor of Chateau d'Or et de Gueules located in the rolling hills outside the ancient Roman city of Nimes. We tasted several wines from her winery and the show stopper was her Q'es A Quo, which was this wonderful old vine Carignan. We also tasted her PETITE CASSAGNE BLANC 2008. This is a refreshing white comprised of Grenache Blanc, Roussane & Vermentino (called Rolle in Southern France). It has enticing aromas of fresh pears, grapefruits and ripe lemon zest. The acidity is vibrant and compelling enough for you to drink two bottles on the patio and reach for a third in just a few hours. Make sure to pick some up for your outdoor picnics or cookouts.

We also had an opportunity to taste with Philippe & Corinne Ehrhart. Their small estate of 21 hectares is located in the small village of Wettolsheim in the Alsace region of France. The Ehrhart family has been making wine in this region since 1725. Their wines are certified organic by the French government. My personal favorite from their table was at the top of my short list for white wines for the day. Their EHRHART GEWURZTRAMINER "HERRENWEG" 2009 was rich and full bodied. The nose had multiple layers of ripe exotic fruits like kiwi, passion fruit and mango accompanied by spicy notes that you would expect from this varietal. The finish had so much acidity it forced me back for more after every sip.

We finally had our fill of vino and moved to the Cognac & Armagnac table where we tasted the most fantastic Armagnac I've had in quite some time. The Tariquet XO 1994 was rich and full bodied and had marvelous notes of honey, vanilla & spice box along with subtle caramel and toffee notes. There were no noticeable high end fusels on the nose and the finish was superbly long and smooth. If you're an Armagnac aficionado or just starting and want to taste something that you can keep around, this is the one for you. Our everyday price is $99.99 and there are about 12 bottles throughout the three stores.

The tasting was finally over about 3:30pm and we headed out to avec and Publican for more great company, world class cuisine and some of the best beer available in Chicago! It was a great day trip indeed; the only unfortunate aspect was that Kevin had to drive home while the rest of us slept peacefully the whole way back home.

Last Saturday night, I was able to get away from our North Willow store at a fairly reasonable hour.  Before I left, I made two purchases: the Ehrhart Gewurtztraminer Rosenberg 2004 and the Ehrhart Gewurtztraminer Herrenweg 2009.  While I considered going straight home and opening these bad boys for a little Gewurtztraminer mini-marathon, I decided that it would be more fun to share this wine with some friends.  I'm a giver...what can I say?

I decided to head over to our flagship store on Keystone Ave. to kidnap Brennan to join me and another friend for an evening of good wine, good food and good company.  For those of you who don't know, Brennan loves to share.  If competitive sharing were a real sport (instead of one Kyle and I made up on observing Brennan in action), then Brennan would be its undisputed champion. He turns sharing into an art and throughout the years he has shared many great wines with me, so I decided to return the favor. After wrangling Brennan away from entering beer Purchase Orders into the system--not an easy task because of his love for beer, Purchase Orders and technology--we dropped his car off and headed to a friend's house in downtown Indianapolis to see what these Alsace wines were all about.  For a good summary of Alsace wine click here

Cliff Notes on Alsace: Suffice it to say that Alsace wines are absolutely some of my favorites.  Alsace features mostly aromatic whites like Riesling, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and my personal favorite: Gewurtztraminer; little red wine is grown.  Alsace wines range from bone dry to unctuously sweet, rare dessert wines.  Alsace vineyards are fairly dry and sunny and the best sites are able to produce wines high in acid, body, minerality, richness and wonderful, even exotic aromatics.  Alsace is one of the only places on earth where you can find full-bodied whites that are up to 16% ABV and still "dry."  I say "dry" because these wines are pretty rich, even if there is technically no residual sugar present.  

Notes on what we tried:

Rosenberg 2004: 91 pts Tried at just a little bit below room temp.  Honeyed and lush with textbook lychee and sandalwood aromas and full palate of ripe, floral scented, exotic, spicy fruits.  Drinking absolutely beautifully.  If the vintage scares you, be not afraid, because this wine is absolutely perfect right now and probably has about 2-3 more years left.  An absolute must buy.  We all agreed the Rosenberg was the superior wine.

Herrenweg 2009: 89-90: Tried initially at a fairly cool temperature and let it warm up in the glass.  Less honeyed than the 2004 Rosenberg and maintained a grapey freshness on the nose along with scents of exotic white flowers.  The interesting thing was how YOUNG it tasted.  I would recommend cellaring the Herrenweg for another year and it will be as exciting as the Rosenberg.

Three suggestions about Gewurtztraminer that you need to remember:

1. Drink Gewurtztraminer just a little bit below room temperature
2. Drink Alsace and German Gewurtztraminer at about 2.5 plus yrs. of age.  Gewurtz seems to need this time to 'integrate its perfumey, spicy exotic flavors into a seamless, elegant whole
3. Drink Gewurtztraminer food!  It's delightful with Turkey and it's a dream with Asian fare and spicy food.

Here's what Ehrhart's labels look like:

American Wine: Bourbon::European Wine: Single Malt Scotch

Thank you for checking back in with Kahn's Fine Wines.  Just for fun, I thought I’d start off today’s discussion with an SAT style analogy. Admittedly, I would be curious to know how many SAT takers would be able to fill in the blank here if I excluded one of the terms.  Hard-core wine people can find numerous exceptions to the logic implied in the analogy above, but all analogies eventually break down at some point, so I think I’m ok with that. 

The gist: American wines and Bourbon require varietal knowledge, whereas European wines and Single Malt Scotches require regional knowledge.

So what do American wine and Bourbon have in common?

American wine and Bourbon labels place less importance on place of origin than varietal or style.

American wine and Bourbon are both products of a varietal culture.  American wine consumers are pleased to see labels graced with their favorite varietal and are often confused (rightly so) by European wine labels that only list the appellation and omit the grapes in the wine.  Can you imagine if a producer in Napa Valley just put the word Napa on the label and didn’t tell the consumer what grapes he used to produce the wine?  It would be unheard of.  Part of the reason is that numerous grapes are grown in places like Napa Valley.  Napa simply doesn’t imply a single grape or combination of grapes like Cote de Beaune in Burgundy, because grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grow in Napa.  Here’s an example of a typical American wine label.  Note the presence of the varietal name.

Bourbon is similar to American wine because it really is an “American whisky varietal.” The word Bourbon does not imply place of origin.  Consider that the grains to produce Bourbon are sourced from numerous U.S. states.  While many people believe that Bourbon has to be made in Bourbon County, Kentucky they might be shocked to know that no Bourbon is made in Bourbon County.  In fact, Bourbon can be made in any U.S. state.

American wine and Bourbon are functions of the American varietal culture where varietal is more important that place.

European wine and Single Malt Scotch are different.

Let’s say you stumble into the French aisle at Kahn’s and tell a blonde-haired wine dude that you’d like a Chardonnay that’s big, rich and buttery.  He might pick up a bottle that says the word Meursault and tell you that “if you like rich, full-bodied, buttery Chardonnay then you’ll love this.  It’s Chardonnay from France, and Meursault is a village in the Cote de Beaune, which is located in Burgundy.”

This is when the shock sets in. You’re probably thinking: “Who in the hell is this guy and how does he know that Meursault is Chardonnay, and more importantly, why doesn’t the label say the word Chardonnay if there’s Chardonnay in there?”  Here’s a typical European wine label.  Notice how big the region is and also notice the absence of any mention of varietal…

It doesn’t say Chardonnay because the producers want you to associate the wine in the bottle with a place, not a grape.  Walk through any wine shop and find the sections for Italy, France, or Spain.  You’ll see one theme repeat itself over and over: no grape names on labels.  There are exceptions, like Alsace, of course, but in general, European wineries want consumers to know that their wines come from a certain region.  The actual grape names are much less important than in the New World. 

Does this hurt their sales in the United States and many other New World countries?  Of course, but many wineries will never change—proof that tradition is still alive and well.

So American wineries labels have the grape names on them and European wines have the region…what about the whisky side of the analogy?

If you purchase a whisky that says the word bourbon on the label, you can be reasonably certain that it will taste similar to other whiskies you have purchased whose label also sported the word bourbon.  This is not true for Single Malt Scotch.

Single Malt Scotch, like European wine requires regional knowledge.

Take a look at these two labels.  One is from the Highlands while the other is from Islay.  Let me assure you, they taste completely different.