Food, Wine, Good (and Evil) Spirits

When I saw this in Gourmet magazine several months ago, I knew I had to make it.  I knew it would be fabulous and the rest is history.

What I didn't know is I would decide to make these Individual Grape and Vin Santo Cakes on a day when temperatures outside would climb to 90 degrees.  It was a little hot from the oven, but oh well.  It was worth it.

Now you are saying, what is Vin Santo?

Well, it's one of my favorite Italian dessert wines originating from Tuscany.  Vin Santo does have a dry version but I prefer the sweet.  Made from Trebbiano and Malvasia grapes, I love sipping Vin Santo while dunking almond biscotti into the wine.  This is the classic way to serve it.  You have to try it.

Vin Santo can be pricey as the grapes are hand-picked, hung from rafters in a building and dried. Once dried they are pressed and the juice fermented in caratelli (small-cigar shaped barrels).  After fermentation is complete the caratelli are sealed and placed under the winery roof for aging....for a long time. The result, is an amazing nutty-nectar that warms you as it goes down. 

A coffee farmer shared with me that the most injury prone job picking coffee involves climbing.  When one hand is holding the tree and the other a machete--what are you left with to swat the bugs?  

Last March I traveled to a coffee plantation in Nicaragua to help run a volunteer medical and dental clinic for the workers, their families, and the villagers.  The team set up shop in an open-air church and saw 1,200 patients in a week.  Babies with distended bellies from parasites, respiratory infections, decayed teeth, dehydration.  Patients lined up.  Machete wounds were common.  One involved a bee.

I was overwhelmed by the emotion of it--watching some brave person getting teeth pulled, barely betraying their pain.  I would walk out to the rainforest and indulge in a good cry.  I expected the week to be hard--what surprised me was the joy.  Despite the intense emotions, I also laughed harder that week than I could remember doing for a long time.  (Sometimes because the very earnest nurses were so bad at Spanish.  Also there was a broken toilet seat incident.)  It's no secret.  Volunteering feeds the soul.  

There is no better way to celebrate a special event than with a glass of sparkling wine. All across the world people turn to sparkling wine in moments of great celebration, be it holidays, birthdays, or any momentous occasion. The French have Champagne, which is named after the region in which it is made. The Spanish have cava, which is named after the natural caves in which the wine ferments. Anywhere else we call wine that bubbles sparkling wine. Italy's version is Prosecco or what I like to call the wine of sheer joy.

Prosecco is a white wine made from grapes of the same name. It is one of the most armoatic wines that you will ever try. And its taste and finish are crisp, clean, and refreshing. This year I'm drinking Prosecco for New Year's Eve and I have many reasons why. It is affordable, extremely flavorful, very elegant, and it's easily a crowd-pleasing drink. Prosecco is a wine that not everyone is familiar with, but it is a wine that is easy to adore.

Prosecco is produced in the Veneto region of Italy, of which Venice is the capital. It originally was produced as a still wine, but somewhere along the way fermentation was introduced into the process, and a sparkling wine was created. Today we would not recognize the original Prosecco as a sparkling wine, because the bubbles were very soft and delicate. Many Prosecco wines produced today have vigorous bubbles. The lightly sparkling version is called frizzante and the fully sparkling version is called spumante. Either is very nice. It's personal preference that dictates which you choose.

You never forget your first love...and mine was Merlot. Up to that sip of Chilean juice all my encounters with red wine brought mouthfuls of tannic unhappiness. I had no idea red wine could taste so smooth and juicy and, yes, fruity. I remember seeking it out and buying versions from Mill Creek, Lambert Bridge and Chateau Souverain on my first trip to Sonoma. And then, overexposure hit, causing many wineries to plant Merlot where they shouldn't – just to make a quick buck – and the lack of quality made many wine lovers, like me, desert the variety and move on to other grapes. It doesn't take many mediocre versions to turn people off, especially when you're paying good money for the pleasure.

This decline happened long before Sideways. The movie just brought the problem to a national audience. Miles' cry "I'm not drinking any f**king Merlot!", while funny, was all too true for many of us everyday drinkers. This once luscious grape was ruined by rampant commercialization, which was sad for drinkers, but had to be horrifying to the wineries who considered this a flagship variety. Lucky for us the ones in it for the long haul, held on and concentrated their efforts into making wines that would turn around Merlot's maligned reputation. Or so I've heard.

I got the opportunity to see whether they succeeded at Learn About Wines "Revenge of The Merlot" tasting. While clearly devised by the wineries participating to get people talking about and tasting merlot again, it was interesting to actually hear first hand the effects, if any, they had experienced since Sideways supposedly put the nail in Merlot's coffin.