A Taste of
Saturdonnay
Our upcoming holiday season demands that we prepare our palates through rigorous tasting exercises for the journey ahead. Thanks to our friends at Wally's Wines and 20/20 Wines we easily armed ourselves to the teeth with a gauntlet of fine Chardonnay. 


2006 Mount Eden Chardonnay (Santa Cruz mountains)
We first tasted the Mount Eden a few months ago at a little restaurant in West Hollywood. It was a 2004, the label was torn and haggardly, though the wine was aged to perfection and simply unbelievable. The love affair begins. The 2006 Mount Eden Vineyards, if aged a couple more years, would be on par with the 2004, however, it was still a phenomenal wine. Wet straw on the nose, with green apple, stone fruit and toffee on the palate. It's a full bodied wine, very complex and incredible finish. Wine Spectator gives this one a whopping 96pts; G+G gives it 91pts (with room to grow into the higher score as it ages).
Bonus points, this winery is located in Saratoga in the midst of the Santa Cruz mountains, our old stomping ground.


2008 DuMol "Chloe" Chardonnay (Russian River Valley)
DuMol is another vintner that we first experienced a while ago, this time in the harried bowels of Las Vegas. It was the only redeeming part of an otherwise forsaken trip. This DuMol is even better, with an intense chalkiness on the nose and finish that has more stamina than Ron Jeremy, though it's more lightbodied than Ron. On the palate you can taste a touch of citrus rind and limestone, limestone, limestone. I don't know who Chloe is, but if this wine is any representation I'd bet she has great mouthfeel and a long finish. Robert Parker gives this one 95pts, we give it 92pts. An incredible wine that will only mature. 

2009 Walter Hansel "Cahill Lane Vineyard"

This wine is phenomenal. There's a strange briny minerality on the nose, smoky, oystery, curiously mysterious. On the palate there are orchard fruits, a slight nuttiness and like any good character — outstanding complexity. This is a deeply focused and refined wine. It's medium bodied, and with a half bottle left in the fridge, not going to last long. Out of the three wines this wine was the most surprising and drank the best. Robert Parker and Stephen Tanzer give it 92pts and we give it 93pts. And at a little more than half the price of the other two wines, this wine is a steal at $38.

The Dinner (Ravioli 2.0) 

Ravioli 1.0 was no disappointment, however, we definitely felt we could make some improvements. This time we followed the same basic recipe, though we used larger eggs and added an extra egg to boot. The result was dough that stuck together and held its form better, but it was a little harder to work with. I unwittingly dropped half an egg shell into the food processor while it was processing the dough. Doh!

For fillings this time we made one filling from an Acorn Squash that we bought last weekend at the Pumpkin Patch, adding a potato for its starch to help things stick together without adding an egg. Jen seasoned the mash with some Turkish nutmeg, Vietnamese cinnamon, salt, pepper, and her secret ingredient; ghost pepper. Most people think heat when they think of Ghost Pepper, but we rarely use it to make something "spicy"; rather, we use it to add a super nuanced and complex smokiness to our dishes.

I found some amazing Shiitake mushrooms at the store and used the food processor to chop these up with some shallots, a bit of fresh parsley, fresh thyme and a few springs of oregano, minced prosciutto, minced truffled salami, ground fresh hazelnuts, garlic, finally mixing in some goat milk white cheddar cheese to round things out and help everything stick together. 

We boiled the raviolis in salted water a little longer this time and tossed them with garlic and sage in browned butter. It was a killer meal and definite improvement over last time. Though we later learned that Jen has an allergy to shiitake mushrooms. Oh, Shiitake!