A great time.

The town I live in is not exactly a metropolis. Don't get me wrong, this has been a great place to raise my children, and I believe my wife and I made the right choice as to where to build our home. The downside is that the town has just three main cultural activities: churches, bars and pizza restaurants. Besides a small take-out Chinese restaurant and a members-only sportsmen club, there are in fact four pizza joints serving this quaint borough. Luckily there is one that stands above the rest, named "Sal's Pizza Style." The owner, oddly enough named Sal, makes some great meals, including a red clam sauce that I think I could drink like a cocktail. His meatballs are almost as good as my wife's (and that is saying something!). We ate there last night (my wife, father, younger son and I) and had a great time. An additional benefit is that it is BYO, and I brought a 2007 chianti classico from Rocca delle Macie. A medium-priced wine; nothing fancy, but with a balanced taste that went well with our meals. Good food and wine, with some good conversation and a few laughs; like I said, a great time.

College chemistry finally pays off.

I hated; no, make that despised, my college freshman chemistry class. Topics like molarity, Avogadro's number and electron clouds; what do they mean? How is learning this really going to help me? This past weekend, almost 32 years after taking the class, it finally was of some use. I purchased 6 gallons of Chilean cabernet sauvignon juice, and prior to doing so, decided I needed to be more precise when it comes to analyzing and monitoring the winemaking process. So I purchased a number of "sciencey" items from a wine and beermaking website that in total looks like a big boy chemistry set. I must admit that the tiny amount of knowledge I retained from freshman chemistry made taking this next step in winemaking fairly easy. I analyzed the juice for sugar content, total acidity and pH. All of these parameters were in the required ranges, so no adjustments to the juice were necessary. I pitched the yeast and alcoholic fermentation has begun, as evidenced by a gentle bubbling coming from the air lock. As I continue developing this wine, I will also be using paper chromatography to monitor malolactic fermentation, and measuring sulfites in the wine using an oxidation-reduction test kit. Hopefully all of this effort will result in a better-tasting wine. I'll let you know...

An Italian Feast

Last weekend the wife and I, along with two old friends from high school, attended a five course fixed menu Italian dinner at a local Italian import store. They put these dinners on twice a month, and we had heard alot of good things about them. The meal was a BYO, and since I have very little of my own wine left, I decided to throw caution to the wind and bring along a wine I had never tasted before. I chose an Orvieto Classico from Ruffino Vineyards. The grape for this wine is grown in the Chianti region of Italy, and is apparently a popular white wine in Italy. I found it to be a good wine, with a refreshing and not too complex taste. It paired well with our first two courses: pureed scallop and shrimp cake served with a lobster and fregola grain butter sauce (so good!), and the creamy cabbage and sweet Italian sausage risotto (even better!). My high school friend, who really knows his wine, brought a Freeman pinot noir. I didn't catch the variety, as their are three different pinots from Freeman, but it was an excellent choice. The wine had a very fruity flavor that hit you first, followed by smoky, woody flavors; the two were balanced perfectly. This wine went well with the meat course; a choice of parmesan-encrusted rack of lamb, or peppercorn-encrusted beef tenderloin. It was a wonderful night of food and wine, and we plan to do it again real soon.