A raspberry of a rosé

When drinking rosé, what's the fruit that initially comes to mind? For me it's always been strawberry. I would almost venture to say that strawberry is the sin quo non of rosé. But what of raspberry? That's what the label on the Charles & Charles 2010 Columbia Valley Rosé says, and when I tasted it, I had to agree. This rosé has a delightful crisp raspberry flavor that is really interesting. This makes it a tad sweeter than other rosés, but not too sweet. It finishes dry like a delicious rosé should.

This wine is a blend of Syrah, Morvèdre, Cinsault, and Grenache, very much a Rhône style, not unlike the whites from that region. It holds up with bolder and spicier dishes too. I had it with my "famous" Balinese pork dish, which is both sweet and spicy. See the recipe below.

This has been a great year for rosé and I have found many wonderful wines for $12 and less. And this one comes right up to that $12 price point. I have seen it for more, but seriously, if you shop around, you'll find it for $12.

Wine Spectator scores this an 88. I give it an 8.5 using my scale at the left.

Balinese pork recipe

I find the best pork to use is boneless rib meat. But the meat from boneless pork chops works also (not as tender though IMO).

Partially freeze the meat so it's firm and easy to slice, but not so hard you can't slice it.

Slice the pork thinly and lay out on a plate, sprinkle with salt and pepper; use a lot of black pepper.

Depending on how much pork you use, you can make layers, salt and peppering each layer. Let the pork sit for a while with the salt and pepper.

Prepare/ready the following:

One small or half a medium onion, thinly sliced (use either white or red)

2-3 whole cloves of garlic, or use about a teaspoon of minced garlic

2 teaspoons of ground ginger

150 ml of hot water (hot from the tap is fine)

5 tablespoons of sweet soy sauce (the thick kind, Indonesian style)

1/2 teaspoon of sambal olek (more if you like it really spicy)

Stir the sweet soy sauce into the hot water so it's all mixed.

Heat oil in a wok (I used bacon grease for added flavor, but sesame oil is good too, or just regular corn oil).

Stir in all the pork at once, stir around.

Add the garlic, stir until pork is cooked.

Add sliced onion and ground ginger, stir quickly (the ginger will start to coat the wok).

Add sambal olek, stir so that the chili is distributed evenly.

Add the water and sweet soy mixture, stir and scrape the wok so the ginger that stuck to the wok gets mixed in too.

Bring mixture to a boil, then turn down heat to simmer and cover.

While the pork is simmering, start your rice.

Check the pork occasionally and stir.

When the rice is done (or after about 20 minutes), remove the cover from the pork and let it bubble for a while so the liquid evaporates slightly and thickens.

Serve with the rice.

This also goes well with a Riesling or Gewürztraminer.

A delightful Riesling style wine from West Virginia

On my birthday this past July, my sister Pat and her husband Chip gave me some wine, which included this interesting item from the Forks of Cheat Winery in West Virginia. The label only indicates that the Schwarzer Bär – or black bear – is a semi-dry white table wine. Nothing on the label hints at what grape varietals are used for this. The winery’s website doesn’t offer much more, other than to say that the wine is “finished in a German style.”

Judging by the bottle’s shape, I guessed this wine would drink like a Riesling, but despite the label identifying it as “semi-dry,” I couldn’t be sure of its sweetness. So my plan was to serve it with some spicy food in the event that it was sweeter than the label indicated.

That day for drinking was this past Saturday. My friend Curt came over and I prepared a Balinese pork stir fry served over steamed rice with a Caesar salad and some cold beets. The recipe for the pork is provided below. The dish is rather spicy, but has a sweet core as well from the Indonesian-style sweet soy sauce used in its preparation.

When I uncorked the bottle, I half expected a very pungent, sweet nose wafting out of the bottle but instead, I was delighted by its delicate and fruity nose. When poured, the wine was extraordinarily pale, just the barest hint of straw. The taste was slightly sweet, but fresh with a smooth, even mineral finish. It was all peaches and pear, even some lychee, but as I said, the finish lacked that cloying sweetness some American “German style” wines possess. This was really quite good and an excellent match with the spicy Balinese pork.

This is a very inexpensive wine as well, retailing for just $10.50 on the website. I rate this with an 8.5 on my scale, which can be found to the left. I would certainly buy this again on my own. Below is the recipe for my Balinese pork stir fry.

1 pound of pork stew meat or boneless pork rib meat, thinly sliced.
1 medium to large white onion
2 teaspoons of ginger powder
½ teaspoon of sambal olek (spicy chili sauce); use just ¼ teaspoon if you can’t handle really hot food, more if you can
150 ml of warm water
5 tablespoons of sweet soy sauce
2 cloves of garlic
Salt and pepper

Partially freeze the meat so it is easy to slice to the thickness of a dime. On a plate, sprinkle salt. Place a layer of the sliced meat on the plate, then sprinkle with salt and cover liberally with ground black pepper. Add another layer of meat and repeat the seasoning until you have prepared all the meat. Let it sit.

Cut the onion in half and remove the outer layer and the ends. Cut in half again across the rings, then slice about ¼ inch thick so you have half-rings. Heat a wok with high flame, add a dollop of bacon grease (olive oil if you feel like being healthy). Peel the garlic cloves and smash them with the flat side of a large knife, then chop. Just as the bacon fat starts to smoke, add the garlic, stir quickly. Add all of the meat at once. Stir, cooking until meat is just about cooked all the way.

Add the onion, stir into the meat until the onion just starts getting soft. Add the ginger powder, stirring to coat everything evenly. Add the sambal olek and stir again. Mix the sweet soy sauce into the water, then pour all at once into the wok. Stir until everything is evenly spread, then cover. Turn the heat down and let it simmer covered for about 20 minutes. Uncover for another 5 to 10 minutes so some of the liquid evaporates.

Serve with steamed rice and whatever side dishes you like.