Enjoying Lioco 2018 Sauvignon Blanc, Lolonis Vineyard paired with codfish cooked “en papillote” and white rice. Lioco has been on my radar since I tried their wines for the first time back in 2010 at a wine industry trade tasting in Atlanta, GA. Their wines are restrained, showing intense aromas and complexity of flavors. These wines reflect the soil and the environment where the grapes are grown.
Winery History
Lioco came to life in 2005. Wine industry colleagues Kevin O’Connor and Mark Licklider had concerns about the lack of terroir and elegance prevalent in the day’s wine offerings. They decided to put their palates and resources together and create wines inspired by the Old World and restrained California style of winemaking from the early .1980s.
Today the winery is owned and managed by husband and wife team Matt and Sara Licklider. They produced their wines in a custom crush facility in Sonoma and purchase fruit from extraordinary vineyards spanning 200 miles (Santa Cruz, Sonoma, and Mendocino counties).
You can try Lioco wines at their elegant tasting room in downtown Healdsburg.
Winemaking Philosophy
As stated on Lioco’s website, “The focus is on Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Carignan from sites with older vines, interesting soil, and heritage clones. Sometimes the hunt for Pinot Noir uncovers other treasures like a coastal Syrah vineyard or a rare, mid-century planting of Valdiguie.”
2018 Lioco Sauvignon Blanc, Lolonis VineyardCodfish “En Papillote” and white rice
Photo: Edgar Solis Photography
2018 Lioco, Lolonis Vineyard, Redwood Valley, Mendocino.
This 100% Sauvignon Blanc is pale yellow; it shows aromas of passion fruit and chalk with hints of sage and grapefruit. On the palate, this white wine feels refreshing with pleasant acidity. You can enjoy flavors of Meyer lemon curd, star fruit, and honeydew with notes of chia, pudding, tarragon, and pineapple sage. You can purchase the current vintage of this wine 2019 at Lioco for $40.
We enjoyed this wine with codfish cooked “en papillote” made at home. We combined two recipes, one from NY Times Cooking, Cod Papillote, and another from Two of a Kind Cooks, Mediterranean Cod En Papillote. The wine’s bright acidity made the food pop out, showcasing the tropical fruit flavors and citrusy notes of the wine.
If you like to cook, I am sure that you are spending more time having fun in the kitchen with more time at home because of the Covid-19 emergency. In our case, Julie and I are spending more time cooking together. We are enjoying making pasta and meatballs for dinner paired with Nebbiolo.
After watching Roy’s Italian Cuisine episode of The Chef Show on Netflix, we got inspired to make meatballs, of course, adding our own touch and considering what we had available. The recipe calls for ground pork and ground beef. We did it with ground pork, ground Wagyu beef, and ground lamb. We also switched the fennel pollen for bee pollen and added a cup of homemade pesto.
On The Chef Show episode, they prepared a quick tomato sauce recipe. We use Julie’s traditional Italian sauce recipe, inspired by at least 6 tomato base sauce recipes. Julie cooks her tomato sauce slow for five hours, a formula that keeps evolving every time she makes it. We didn’t have spaghetti pasta on hand. We substituted with angel hair pasta.
Photo: Edgar Solís Photography
Meatballs recipe (Estimated), Roy Choi from the Chef Show, including substitutions and additions.
1 1/2 lb. ground pork (30% fat content)
1 1/2 lb. ground beef
(We substituted with 1 lb. ground pork, 1 lb. ground lamb, and 1 lb. ground Wagyu beef)
6-8 roasted garlic cloves, chopped (Roi Choi slow cooked two heads of peeled garlic cloves on a shallow pan with about cup and 1/2 of olive oil) Start with this step and save the rest of the garlic and oil for future cooking
2 eggs
olive oil, about 1/2 cup
dried oregano, 1/2 tablespoon
1/2 white onion puréed with 1/2 cup of water
A sprinkle of fennel pollen (We substituted with bee pollen)
1 1/2 cup of panko crumbs
kosher salt to taste
red pepper flakes to taste
2 cups of freshly grated Parmesan cheese (more if you really like it)
Personal addition, 1 cup of homemade pesto (parsley, cilantro, basil, garlic, and olive oil))
Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a big bowl, work it out with your hands.
Roll out into lemon-size balls
Place the meatballs side by side on a baking sheet and cook at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes.
This Italian dish is not representative of Piedmont cuisine but made me think about a Nebbiolo that I bought in 2016 from SommSelect (online wine purveyor).
Photo: Edgar Solís Photography
2006 Tenute Sella, Lessona, “Ommagio A Quintino Sella,” Piedmont, Italy.
This wine shows a medium garnet center with a rusty terracotta outer rim. This elegant wine offers aromas of ripe dark cherries, dried red currants, tobacco, cedar, and intense notes of wet river slate. The palate is complex with dark fruit flavors dominated by savory notes of “acerola,” cranberry, black tea, with hints of vanilla and toasted hazelnuts. This well balanced Nebbiolo is blended with a small amount of Vespolina grapes, fermented with native yeast without any filtering or fining. The “Ommagio A Quintino Sella” is the Sella family’s top premium wine, on average, produced twice in a decade only on exceptional vintages.
The fruit flavors, medium to full body, and velvety tannins on the wine complimented nicely with the robust flavor, salty notes, and creamy texture on the meatballs. The sharpness and savory notes in the red sauce went along well with the acidity of the wine.
Winemaking
The Sella family has been crafting wines since 1671. They have 57 acres planted to vines within four appellations. Since the early 2000’s the focus of the vineyard management team at Tenute Sella has been on organic and sustainable practices promoting a healthy ecosystem. They do not use any chemicals on the vineyard, fertilizing with natural manure and organic compost. The focus is on terroir, highlighting the unique dirt composition from sandy loam of marine origin to decomposed crystals rich in iron, potassium, and magnesium.
Piedmont’s 2006 vintage was challenging with harsh heat in early July, followed by cold weather and abundant downpours near the end of the growing season. As stated by Decanter Magazine, “For growers who worked judiciously in the vineyards, the vintage in Piedmont is expected to show a classic, good structure, nice restraint on the fruit but a certain element of power as well.”
The meticulous care of the vineyards combined with over four hundred years of family winemaking on an excellent vintage makes for an outstanding wine that you can enjoy by itself or with food. A wine that will keep developing extraordinary in the bottle for at least a decade to come.
This bottle of Fetzer Eagle Peak Merlot certainly arrived as a sample some time ago, it aged well. This wine shows a dark ruby red color. A pleasant balance of fresh raspberry and cherry aromas with notes cocoa powder, anise liquor, and coffee bean. On the palate, you get tasty layers of ripe cherries, plum, cranberries, vanilla bean with a hint of soy sauce, and toasty oak. This Merlot is well balanced, with ripe fruit, pleasant acidity, and smooth tannins. It is an impressive value wine at $10 retail price.
Technical Notes
APPELLATION: CALIFORNIA
ACIDITY: 0.6 GRAMS/100ML
PH: 3.49
RESIDUAL SUGAR: 0.39 GRAMS/100ML
ALCOHOL: 13.5%
Bison Teres Major Fillet with Cabernet Sauvignon Reduction Sauce Photo by Edgar Solís Photography
We enjoyed this joyful Merlot with a new cut of bison, teres major fillet. It is The first time we cook this cut of buffalo meat, we bought it from Wild Idea Buffalo, an excellent purveyor of bison meat in South Dakota. We seasoned the teres major fillets with Hitching Post BBQ seasoning and cooked in sous vide for one hour at 135 degrees F. We pan seared the bison fillets for a couple of minutes each side. To finish up the meat we poured a Cabernet Sauvignon reduction sauce made with sauteed shallots and garlic, seasoned with Kosher salt, and freshly ground black pepper.
As a side dish, we served roasted red potatoes, cooked with finely chopped Cipollini onions and smashed garlic and extra virgin olive oil. The intense flavors on the bison fillet and the vegetables complemented the medium tannins and fruit flavors and accentuated the savory notes on the wine.
Fetzer Winery History
Fetzer has its roots in Mendocino County, California. Their winemaking history goes back to 1968. Barney Fetzer was a pioneer in sustainable farming and a patron of Mendocino grape growers. Brown-Forman, a major spirits corporation based in Kentucky, bought the Fetzer company in 1992. For almost two decades, Brown-Forman continued with the sustainable practices of its founders and supported the Mendocino County grape growers.
In 2011 Brown-Forman sold Fetzer to Concha y Toro SA a 128-year-old Chilean wine company. Concha y Toro owns 24,000 acres of vineyards and exports wines to more than 130 countries. Under Concha y Toro ownership, Fetzer got certified as a Certified B Corp in 2015. They continue to improve in different areas of sustainability and implementing several programs supporting their workforce quality of life.
In my glass last night! 2014 Gramona Xarello Ovum. This crisp and refreshing white wine is 100% from Xarello grapes, gown organically and biodynamically. The wine is fermented in Egg-shaped concrete tanks and ánfora (clay vessel). Gramona Winery is located in the heart of Cava Wine Country, in the quaint town of Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, Catalonia, Spain. We visited Gramona for the first time in September of 2007 and went back in October of 2018. Gramona has an outstanding winemaking facility; they do not sacrifice quality for quantity. Their hospitality is exceptional and you can feel their passion for winemaking.
Gramona’s history of winemaking goes back to 1850. At that time, Josep Battle was taking care of the vineyards and making wine for a family that own vineyards in La Plana, Anoia River Valley. While the phylloxera epidemic decimated the vineyards of France and much of Europe, Josep’s son Pau supplied wine to the sparkling wine producers in France. Using the Xarello grape as the foundation, Pau refined his winemaking technique to produce quality wine.
By 1881, Pau established his own winery Celler Batlle, and finally purchased the vineyards that his father used to work. By the beginning of the next century, Pau’s daughter Pilar married Bartolomé Gramona. This united two old wine family who started producing quality wines under the Gramona brand name. By 1945, brothers Bartomeu and Josep Gramona took the helm of the family business and made the winery proud for their highly regarded quality wines.
2014 Gramona Xarello Ovum.
This Xarello is light yellow with green undertones. This wine shows aromas of ripe Anjou pear, yellow apples, nectarine, and lemon curd, with notes of Meyer lemon peel and lemongrass. On the palate, this wine feels fresh with pleasant acidity. This well balanced Xarello delights you with flavors of Granny Smith apple, ripe pear, peach, and passion fruit, with hints of grapefruit and pineapple sage.
We enjoyed the Gramona Xarello with a home-cooked wedding soup. Homemade soup with chicken stock, onions, kale, carrots, celery, garlic, mushrooms, ground pork and bison meatballs; seasoned with salt and black pepper. For thickness, we added smashed baby potatoes. The acidity and freshness of the wine accentuated the layers of flavors on the soup; the soup made the fruit flavors on the wine more intense.
We enjoyed a successful wine and food pairing experience. Salud!
