Love Food 'N' Wine

This page will be a labour of love. It will trace my enjoyment of wine over a forty year period.

In this blog I will concentrate on talking about Australian and New Zealand wines, which are those with which I have had most to do with. However if I come across a wine from elsewhere that you should know about then I will definitely let you know.

If you are a beginner there will be heaps of resources to help you choose wine and food to accompany it. I will look at wine etiquette especially with regard to that which pertains to visiting the cellar door.

If you are a seasoned connoisseur, I hope you will find inside knowledge that can only be obtained from frequenting the wineries and knowing both the wine-makers and the viticulturists.

Hopefully there will be something for everyone and that I will be able to provide a worthwhile service to all wine lovers through this blog.

HISTORY OF WINE 1

Wine has a history of about 8000 years. Debate still continues about whether wine or beer was the first brewed beverage. While the jury is still divided over the most consumed alcoholic drink in the world, wine is certainly the most written about.

The first wine was likely to have been produced by a woman, in what is now Kurdistan and Georgia. She probably left wild grapes in a clay pot then drank the resulting fermented liquid. The drink would not have much resembled our modern day wines, but it’s after effects created an immediate interest, and supply driven wine making began. As demand began to outstrip supply, wine began to become an article of trade, initially locally and then as civilisation became more organised, further afield. The spread of wine drinking was largely to the West. Countries such as Egypt,Greece and later the Roman Empire all became proficient makers of wine, which in those days was sweeter and lower in alcohol. It is said that the red "Recioto" and the white "Retsina" are modern day equivalents of wines drunk during the time of Jesus.

I will continue with this history of wine on an intermittent basis so that it develops into a valuable resource.

My Journey With Wine 1

My journey with wine began in the sixties as I made my way across France and Spain as a young "traveller". The water was often risky to drink and most of us, in those heady days, drank the local wines, which were often rough and always very inexpensive. My diet for many weeks, if not months was apples, cheese and wine. I finally arrived in New Zealand in 1968 and found a country with a embryonic but exciting wine industry. My experience was still limited to "Chateau cardboard", which is what we called cask wine, as well as a carbonated and very cheap sparkling wine. As my wine drinking developed I began to drink bottled white wine, Moselle to begin with. I will add to this personal history as we explore the world of wine and the stories are remembered.

My Wine And FOOd Log

Yesterday I shared with my partner, Jocelyn, a bottle of 1997 Reserve Chambourcin produced by Cassegrain Vineyards situated in the Hastings River area on the NSW Central Coast.

Chambourcin is a French/American Hybrid recently introduced to Australia because of it's resistance to mildew. It is normally produced as a light summer red that can be chilled and drunk with a luncheon BBQ. Cassegrain has chosen to produce a full bodied wine as an alternative style. The bottle label describes the wine in 1999 when it was first released as, deep red in colour, with an aroma intense in ripe plums, spices and the hint of oak. It has a full palate with a long finish. The wine was produced from bio-dynamically grown and hand picked fruit, but does contain sulphur as a preservative. Almost ten years after it's first release I wrote this: In the glass the wine is rich ruby with a Khaki margin. On the nose there are subtle hints of stewed fruit, in a complex mixture of oak and soft tannin. The palate was dry and lingering with hints of bittersweet chocolate, leather and star anise. In my opinion this was a wine well worth experiencing and one I will return to in another vintage. We drank this wine with a meal of Pork Tikka Masala. Here is an original recipe from an Indian Chef.

Pork Tikka Masala

Meat

Pork. 500grams of fillet or boneless pork, after cutting off excess fat.

Ingredients For Marinade:

ginger paste - 2 tsp

garlic paste - 2 tsp

tumeric powder - 1/4 tsp

chilli powder - 1 tsp

garam masala - 1 tsp

cumin powder - 1/2 tsp

dhaniya powder - 1 tsp

salt to taste

curd - 1/2 cup beaten well

To Marinate the pork

Take the beaten curd and mix all the above powders together and add salt. Cut the pork into medium size pieces and add it to the curd mixture, close the vessel with a lid, foil or cling wrap and leave it to marinate for about an hour.

Ingredients For The Sauce

Onion - 1 chopped

Tomato puree - out of one small tomato

Ginger paste - 1 tsp

Garlic paste - 1 tsp

Tumeric powder - 1/4 tsp

Coriander powder - 2 tsp

Salt to taste

Oil - 8 tsp

Garam Masala powder - 2 tsp

Coriander leaves

Ground almond - 2 tsp (optional)

Fresh Cream is optional to garnish

Preparation of the Pork

After the pork pieces are marinated, take them and bake them well in a pan on a low heat or flame setting. Or you can put the pork on the grill and cook it until well done but still juicy.

Preparation of the Sauce:

Heat oil in a pan, fry onions till they turn golden brown. Add ginger & garlic paste and let them fry till the oil separates. Add all the Masala powders to the mixture, and then add the tomato puree. Add salt to taste and then add a little warm water and the ground almond paste if you wish, and let the sauce to come to boil. Then add the cooked pork pieces and let the gravy come to boil again. Remove the dish from the stove and add the coriander leaves and the cream ( optional ) to garnish.

You can serve this hot with chappathi and roti

Tip:

Ground Almond just adds a little more flavour but it's not required.

Fresh cream is also optional.

Another visitor comments that you can make Pork Tikka Masala in exactly the same way as the Chicken dish, but to remember that Pork takes longer to cook, so spend that little extra time (10 mins).

Talking of Tikka Masala I thought you might like some links to pages on Indian Cooking and Indian recipes. So here are some of my favourites, if you have others especially any with authentic Indian recipes for Pork Tikka Masala, I would appreciate hearing about them.

http://www.ruchiskitchen.com/recipe.htm

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/recipes/ethnic/indian/indian.html

http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/3925/

http://www.indiaexpress.com/cooking/

http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/wchuang/cooking/Indian.html

http://www.indiandelicacies.com/meat.htm

http://www.syvum.com/recipes/ivrindex.html

http://www.gadnet.com/recipes.htm

http://www.recipelink.com/rcpindian.html