Penney’s Palate

This sparking wine is a Cava (basically a Spanish Champagne). It is also a Rose, meaning that it is pink instead of clear. I like sparkling Roses because they usually have that extra little component of flavor that most other champagnes or sparkling wines lack. We drank this bottle with our Polenta and Chicken Salad dinner. I think that it went well with the meal and with the football that we are watching.

I always have a hard time describing any taste or smell components in sparkling wines, maybe because I am too overwhelmed and excited about the bubbly factor. Or maybe it is because the sparkling wines that we drink do not have much of a specific taste or smell component. It has a small sweetness to it, but not an overly sweet wine. But I like this wine. I read the back of the bottle, hoping that it would highlight the tastes that I am supposed to be tasting. But it doesn’t. It says: “This wine is fermented in the bottle for a luxurious 1-2 years”.

This wine is also non-vintage, meaning that it does not have a year associated with its grape-age. This is normal for the sparkling wines that we drink, because we cannot afford to drink the vintage sparkling wines. Vintage sparkling wines don’t really start to appear until the $20-$30 per bottle mark. I think that those sparkling wines might have more taste and smell components to them.

I score this wine an 88. A very solid bubbly wine to drink before dinner, during dinner, and after dinner.

I feel like Tommy and I are getting really good at making dinner. Most of the time, I would rather eat here than go out to eat, knowing that what we make here will far surpass the restaurant quality that we are willing to afford. The only time that I prefer to go out to dinner is when I’m too tired to cook. Even when the preparations seem simple, the tastes explode in my mouth and I want to keep eating past the point of being full. I usually stop before I get to the uncomfortable full-ness, but I always want to eat more… Tonight we had Melanie’s polenta (with a cheese substitution) and a simple chicken salad. The only regret to the dinner was that I didn’t have anything made for dessert.

I won’t elaborate on the recipes, only to say that I substituted a combination of 2/3 mozzarella and 1/3 unknown semi-soft cheese in our fridge for the 1 cup of fontina for the polenta. Oh yeah, and I also used normal spinach instead of baby spinach, and I added the spinach to the polenta after about 10 minutes of cooking the polenta, instead of sauteing the spinach separately. The salad consisted of mixed greens, an heirloom tomato, and a marinated chicken breast. So delicious. I’m not sure that anyone would ever serve a bowl of polenta beside a plate of chicken salad, but we did and loved it.

I feel like Tommy and I are getting really good at making dinner. Most of the time, I would rather eat here than go out to eat, knowing that what we make here will far surpass the restaurant quality that we are willing to afford. The only time that I prefer to go out to dinner is when I’m too tired to cook. Even when the preparations seem simple, the tastes explode in my mouth and I want to keep eating past the point of being full. I usually stop before I get to the uncomfortable full-ness, but I always want to eat more… Tonight we had Melanie’s polenta (with a cheese substitution) and a simple chicken salad. The only regret to the dinner was that I didn’t have anything made for dessert.

I won’t elaborate on the recipes, only to say that I substituted a combination of 2/3 mozzarella and 1/3 unknown semi-soft cheese in our fridge for the 1 cup of fontina for the polenta. Oh yeah, and I also used normal spinach instead of baby spinach, and I added the spinach to the polenta after about 10 minutes of cooking the polenta, instead of sauteing the spinach separately. The salad consisted of mixed greens, an heirloom tomato, and a marinated chicken breast. So delicious. I’m not sure that anyone would ever serve a bowl of polenta beside a plate of chicken salad, but we did and loved it.

We drank this wine with some homemade pizza. It was perfect for the evening. I liked this wine because it was a very gentle wine. It was good to drink before dinner when we were munching on cheese, waiting for one of our guests to arrive before putting the pizzas in the oven. There was a nice bouquet that consisted of subtle hints of cherry. It tasted like cherries and cola. Kind of like cherry coke, only in a wine. It didn’t have a finish, but that is okay because I’ve never had a Chianti that has had a finish. All Chiantis seem very subtle and gentle.

I would recommend this as a good wine if you don’t drink a lot of wine, but are interested in a good wine. If you’re making pasta or pizza, I would also recommend it. One of our guests brought it over, and I would bet that he bought it from Harris Teeter. So you can probably find it in a grocery store near you too.

I give this wine 87 points. It was a very solid Chianti, but nothing about it pushed it over the edge of greatness.

Tommy and I got a 30-minute meal cookbook for Christmas, so I have been browsing through the pages looking for some new ideas for dinner. The recipe that caught my eye was for a beef tenderloin as well as some penne with a quick tomato sauce to serve alongside the beef. The cookbook instructions were well laid and took advantage of every second of the process. I followed the directions and had the meal from grocery bags to plates on the table in 40 minutes. I didn’t think that was too bad. However, the kitchen was a mess when the meal was done. I like to clean stuff as I go along, but there was no time for that. The Gorgonzola mixture was a little too much and had to be scraped off of the beef when we ate it. I thought that there was a perfect amount of Gorgonzola taste once all of it was scraped off, because some of it made its way down into the beef. It was a nice alternative way to serve a piece of meat. I liked the pasta because it was a simple pasta with a simple sauce, but with a few greens added to it. The original recipe called for arugula but we had baby spinach so that is what we used. I liked it just fine with the spinach, but I can see how peppery arugula would give the pasta a bit more flavor and also be delicious.

Gorgonzola Beef Tenderloin with Pasta
Serves 2 (with a little bit of left over)

Ingredients
1/2 lb penne pasta
1 pint grape tomatoes
3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
Olive Oil
Salt + Pepper
1/4 cup crumbled Gorgonzola
Parsley (small handful), chopped
6 Sage Leaves, finely chopped
1 green onion, chopped
2 beef tenderloins, about 1-inch thick
1 cup baby spinach
10 basil leaves, pulled apart into pieces
1/2 cup grated parm. regianno cheese
3/4 cup reserved pasta water

Preparation
1. Set oven to 425 degrees.
2. Boil water and cook pasta 2 minutes shy of being al dente (pasta will cook more later)
3. Meanwhile, put tomatoes and garlic in oven for 20 minutes.
4. Salt and pepper both sides of beef.
5. Combine Gorgonzola, parsley, sage and green onion in a small bowl and set aside.
6. When tomatoes/garlic are about 4 minutes from being done, heat an oven-proof skillet on high heat. Sear the beef for 90 seconds on each side. Keep beef in pan and put Gorgonzola mixture on top.
7. Take tomatoes out of oven, turn oven off, and transfer pan of beef to the oven for 4 minutes.
8. Put the roasted garlic in a bowl large enough for the pasta and mash to make a paste. Add the reserved pasta water and the tomatoes and mash until a sauce forms. Add the pasta, spinach, basil, and cheese and let sit for a few minutes.
9. Serve!

Tommy and I drank this Cab with a lovely 30-minute meal by Rachel Ray. The meal was pretty good and the wine was okay. I was expecting this Cab to be a little bigger and mature in the fruitiness, but it was not. The mid-palate was full of fruitiness, but of a more unpleasant sour fruitiness. And a little syrupy too I thought. I don’t remember it having much of a finish to it. I like finishes, I think they are my most favorite component of wine. My next favorite component would be the nose (smell). The only thing I could smell was heat (which means alcohol). I was slightly disappointed when first tasting it because I wanted something big and bold to go with the Gorgonzola beef tenderloin that I had just made. I enjoyed the wine much better on its own after dinner, although I only got a few sips of enjoyment out of it before I zonked out on the couch. At 9 pm. On a Friday night. I am such a loser.

I will give this wine 82 points. Tommy and I still have 1/2 bottle of it to finish. I think that I would enjoy drinking a glass sometime this week when I get home from work and want something to drink while making dinner (or watching Tommy make dinner). It seems like more of that kind of wine rather than a during-dinner or an after-dinner enjoyment.