Beer can chicken on the barbeque last night - if you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it. Tasty, juicy, tender fall-off-the-bone chicken flavoured on the outside with onion, garlic, parsley, basil, rosemary, salt and pepper and perched on a tall-boy of Rickard's Dark... YUM! And the potatoes and carrots that cooked in the beer drippings were amazing!
Instead of more of the Rickard's Dark, I paired it with a 2008 Peller Estates Chardonnay. A perfect complement for the seasonings inside and outside the chicken.
Now we're cooking down the skin, bones and bits of chicken in more Rickard's Dark and a bit of the Chardonnay for a wonderful home-made chicken stock...
Friday, July 16, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
Pelee Island Winery does it again!
Okay, I'll admit, I'm biased, but the newest creation from Pelee Island Winery, the "Alvar" series of four wines, is breathtaking.
The first that I've tried out of this series of four wines is the 2008 Chardonnay Gewurztraminer blend -- VQA Ontario, so don't get your knickers in a knot.
Okay, I hear you: "What on earth is an Alvar?" See the wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvar.
By the way, in case you're wondering just how "new" these wines are, they're not even on the Pelee Island Winery website yet. Ah, the joys of living five minutes from the winery!
This wine is not only the only Chardonnay/Gewurztraminer blend I've been able to track down, but it's well worth the drive to Kingsville to get your hands on some. The usual flavours and aromas you would expect from both the Chardonnay (crisp acidity, balanced with fresh citrus) and the Gewurztraminer (lychee, tangerine, grapefruit with a lingering hint of spice) are, in my humble opinion, perfectly married in this blend. It is impossible to say that one overpowers the other and, paired with a barbeque dinner of chicken/bacon and mixed vegetable kebabs on the patio on an evening that was thankfully blessed with a cool breeze and a very welcome break in the extreme heat and humidity of the past week, I dare say that I was as close to a state of total and utter bliss as I have been in a long time.
The next time you're looking for something refreshing for a summer evening on the patio, either with or without food, with a group of friends or just that special someone, reach for a bottle of this - if you can get your hands on it, that is!
The first that I've tried out of this series of four wines is the 2008 Chardonnay Gewurztraminer blend -- VQA Ontario, so don't get your knickers in a knot.
Okay, I hear you: "What on earth is an Alvar?" See the wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvar.
By the way, in case you're wondering just how "new" these wines are, they're not even on the Pelee Island Winery website yet. Ah, the joys of living five minutes from the winery!
This wine is not only the only Chardonnay/Gewurztraminer blend I've been able to track down, but it's well worth the drive to Kingsville to get your hands on some. The usual flavours and aromas you would expect from both the Chardonnay (crisp acidity, balanced with fresh citrus) and the Gewurztraminer (lychee, tangerine, grapefruit with a lingering hint of spice) are, in my humble opinion, perfectly married in this blend. It is impossible to say that one overpowers the other and, paired with a barbeque dinner of chicken/bacon and mixed vegetable kebabs on the patio on an evening that was thankfully blessed with a cool breeze and a very welcome break in the extreme heat and humidity of the past week, I dare say that I was as close to a state of total and utter bliss as I have been in a long time.
The next time you're looking for something refreshing for a summer evening on the patio, either with or without food, with a group of friends or just that special someone, reach for a bottle of this - if you can get your hands on it, that is!
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