4/10/09 Meeting!

Welcome to the Boston Girls 'n Grapes Wine Club blog! I'm your blog host, Katie, and I'm here to guide you through our wine selection and recipes for April's meeting.

WINE BREAKDOWN:

Jaimie bought us a primer wine, a tasty white which we enjoyed while we waited for people to arrive.

We started with the Petit Chenin Blanc, which was lovely and light, then headed to the Indaba Sauvignon Blanc and Excelsior Chardonnay, two other nice choices.

Next up was a smokey LB Pinot Noir and a delightful Walker Bay Pinotage.

To end our night, we enjoyed some low alcohol California orange muscat wine with a slight bit of carbonation. Very sweet and a good end to a lot of wine, having only 4% ABV.

FOOD BREAKDOWN:

I traveled to the South End Food Emporium (yelp link) to buy injera. Injera, if you haven't partaken of Ethiopian food, is the flat, crepe-like, spongy sourdough used to both plate and eat your food. It is made of a grain called teff, which is one of the smallest cereal grains on the planet. I also picked up some berbere
, which is the spice commonly associated with the Ethiopian cuisine. A bag of injera is $5, and 1/2 pound of berbere goes for something like $7.99. It's worth a trip out there to get it, but fair warning, the bread doesn't last long in your pantry. I've had good luck freezing it, however.

Anyway, these are the dishes I made:

-Ethiopian split peas. (made according to recipe, except I didn't pre-soak the peas; instead, I threw everything into a crock pot to cook while I was at work. If you do this, add at least an extra cup of water.

-Ethiopian Green Beans and Potatoes. Added two carrots, chopped, didn't seed the jalepeno (I never do), used can of regular diced tomatoes instead of stewed, and used maybe 1/2 the recommended green beans.

-Yemiser Wat. Used red lentils and only 1/2 of the can of tomatoes. Also, instead of the spices, I just used a couple tablespoons of berbere, no tomato paste, and water instead of veggie broth.

There was other food, but I'll let the chefs post their own recipes. Patti brought bread and cheese, Laura made a honey/cinnamon tofutti spread and brought cheese, and also made cherry raviolis with soy vanilla "ice cream" (loving the non-dairy shout out) and shaved chocolate. Also in attendance were a couple cupcakes, vegan mint-chocolate and margarita varieties.

It was a wonderful way to spend a Friday night!

Don't Cry For Me Argentina

This month we tasted different varietals from all over Argentina. Argentina is the largest wine producer in South America and is the 5th largest wine producer in the world. Also, due to its high altitude and low humidity, there are less bugs, fungi and mold - which means that in generial, there are less pesticides in Argentinian wines. Sweet!

WINES:

We started the night with a Crios Rose of Malbec, a fragrant blush wine with notes of cherry and wild strawberry. This wine paired very nicely with stinky cheese and chevre. Next up was an aromatic white wine, the Amichas Torrantes. This is a very typical Argentinian white wine that also paired nicely with chevre. Our final white wine was a Catena Chardonnay from Mendoza.

We started the reds with a Pinot Noir from the Rio Negro region. This was followed by the most popular Argentinian wine, Malbec! Our Malbec was rich, dark, juicy and had a good plum nose. We ended the night with a spicy Clos de los Siete red blend that had similar characteristics to a French Bordeaux or Claret.

FOOD:

Katie made some delicious vegetable samosas with 3 different chutneys, whose spice really paired well with these wines. Lindsay made some vegetable enchiladas, and we had the obligatory tasty cheeses and fruit. I'm drawing a blank on the other dishes... oops! A NY cheesecake rounded out a delicious Argentinian night.

January = Beginnings

Our first meeting of Girls & Grapes - Boston was a great success! We had about 11 girls to start the night, lots of wine, food, and fun!

THEME: Pinot Party

WINES:

We started the night by comparing a 2007 Borgo Pinot Grigio from Italy, with the 2007 Villa Marchesi Pinot Grigio (also Italian), both were was crisp, light, and dry with notes of honeysuckle, lemon, and slight mineral flavors - great rainy spring wines. To round out the whites, we tasted a French 2006 Joseph Kaetzel Pinot Gris, which was a solid, medium-bodied white wine with banana, cedar, and floral aromas. They're hard to find, but I think this was a good winter white.

For the reds, we started with a 2007 Cartlidge & Brown Pinot Noir from California, a ripe and fruity wine. We then tasted a 2007 Mirassou Pinot Noir, which had aromas of strawberries and cherries, followed with a little spice.

FOOD:

We had a massive spread with lots of fruit (dried bananas, strawberries, pears, etc), mini-quiches, bread and dipping oil, and some cheeses.

For dessert, we enjoyed some fresh baked brownies and some "Brad Sucks" spice cake (Katie's creation).

It was a great way to start the year and to start the newest "chapter" of Girls & Grapes!