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You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Beer Blogging / Saturday Beer Blogging – Indulge Yourself

Saturday Beer Blogging – Indulge Yourself

by Tim F|  March 11, 20067:14 pm| 8 Comments

This post is in: Beer Blogging

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My apologies to those of you going through beer-blogging withdrawal; last-minute grantwriting panic and a long-planned weekend getaway with the wife kept me away fromt he computer until now.

In brief, once the grant wrapped up my wife and I drove to Nemacolin Woodlands, a ridiculously posh spa/hunting/golf resort located just over a hill from Uniontown to redeem a gift certificate from our wedding. On the way we stopped at Christian W. Klay winery more or less on principle (our bumper sticker could read ‘I brake for cellars’). We didn’t expect that much from a winery that doesn’t date its bottles, and you’ll have to drive farther to find anything resembling a tannin, but their take on Sauvignon Blanc (Blanc de Lafayette) had a peppy mineral bite. The Washington Tavern Red has a surprisingly strong element of blackberries that grow in their fields (added syrup? say it ain’t so…) and we picked up an untasted bottle of sparkling peach wine for the heck of it.

Our trip to Nemacolin revolved around dinner at a French-themed suit-and-tie joint called Lautrec. Advertising the largest wine cellar in Pennsylvania and probably the priciest, topping out at $6k for a 50-year-old Lafitte, Lautrec also has a world-class chef who falls on the tiny-but-pricy side of haute cuisine. A dinner of escargot casserole, roasted duck breast, Pennsylvania lamb on white-bean cassoulet with complimentary leek puree and celery sorbet and finally a generous cheese plate left me pleasantly sated but far from full, and I’d eaten lunch. I’m not a food reviewer but it’s fair to say that each course stands up as one of the greatest examples of whatever it was. Wine-wise we started with a glass of Twin Islands Sauvignon Blanc from Nautilus Estate in New Zealand, memorably rich with that unique mineral bite that makes enzed Sauvs so great, and a glass of the always-great Veuve Cliquot champagne for my wife. The real star came second.

If you travel with wine in mind and you can afford it (our gift certificate made the tab bearable) the impish sage who rules Lautrec’s enormous wine cellar will make the trip worthwhile. Case in point, he pointed us towards a deceptively-cheap 1998 Pinot Noir from Domaine Vincent Girardin, the only 1er cru (that’s the second-best designation after grand cru) vineyard in the Burgundy villiage of Santenay. Called ‘la Maladiere,’ Girardin’s concoction aged gracefully and assaults your nose more aggresively than you’d expect from the humble Pinot Noir. I won’t try to tease apart the bold flavors of this bottle, but this reviewer [four out of five stars] does a decent job with the 2002 vintage:

Pinot noir ruby. A clean ripe bouquet of red cherries leads into a straightforward palate tasting exactly the same. It is hard to imagine a more frank expression of healthy ripe pinot than this beautifully crunchy cherry fruit, not stalky or acid, not oaky, just plump and crisp on palate and eminently drinkable. And it will cellar 5 – 8 years, and perhaps build a little more bouquet.

Our bottle had cellared for eight years so the ‘crisp on the palate’ part had faded into a bold, deep complexity. A bit longer would have added depth but the reviewer’s largely right, after eight years there wasn’t much remaining acidity to work with. Heartily recommended. The budget-conscious should plan to buy two or three bottles of recent vintage for the same price as one 1998 and cellar them for a few years.

Great news for gastronomic travelers, the Uniontown area has not one but two classic French dining spots (that makes two more than Pittsburgh BTW, unless you count a great Swiss/French farmhouse eatery a ways north on I-79). On the return trip the wife and I discovered Chez Gerard in Hopwood, where for the price of a thumbnail-sized appetizer at Lautrec you can enjoy a hearty three-course lunch prepared by transplanted French veterans of the restaraunt business. Chef William Severac’s homemade duck pate and grilled salmon on saffron rice, following up on the grub at Lautrec, made for an almost surreal weekend as far as eating goes.

All said, it’s pretty impressive that we squeezed this much out of a weekend and it isn’t even Sunday yet. That seems like a good thing when you consider that squeezing anything more out of our weekend would make it painfully hard to squeeze into our jeans.

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Reader Interactions

8Comments

  1. 1.

    Stormy70

    March 11, 2006 at 8:13 pm

    Sounds like fun. I have immersed myself in my Nintendo 64 Super Mario game and the previous seasons of The Sopranos. I will be going back under in 5,4,3,2,1.

    Woke up this morning and I got myself a gun. I have watched this series since its debut on HBO. Loves it!

    Carry on, peeps!

  2. 2.

    the Prophet, peace be upon Her.

    March 11, 2006 at 9:13 pm

    Lovers of Islam Unite! – Pancakes for Mohammed, peace be upon Her

    Keep your calendars open for Sunday, March 18th, at 11 AM for the first annual Pancakes for Mohammed, peace be upon Her, Sunday Pancake Fundraiser at Dennys. This is a great way to raise money for our Islam saving cause while eating great pancakes. And remember, “Hold the sausage please!”

    For those of us who are trying to convince our Muslim brothers and sisters about the true gender of the Prophet, peace be upon Her, come out and speak up and bring a few shekels to donate. Also, be sure and bring your best drawing of the Prophet, peace be upon Her. I propose that each group vote on the best depiction of the Prophet, peace be upon Her and pay for the winning artist to eat for free.

    Now remember, drawing the Prophet with a bomb on Her head has already been done, so please, choose something else.

    http://mohammedpeacebeuponherisawoman.blogspot.com/

  3. 3.

    Al Maviva

    March 11, 2006 at 10:31 pm

    Good trip, congrats on wrapping up the terror-fying moneybegging writing thingy.

    Sounds like you got to try some good wine, even if some of it was from the wrong side of Lautrec.

    Me, I stuck to some La Chouffe this weekend, which Robert Parker would probably rate higher than a lot of wines. MMMM… beeeeeer.

  4. 4.

    tb

    March 12, 2006 at 11:55 am

    I just returned from 2 weeks in Rome and it confirmed for me that quality of beer, art and everything are about scale and context. A Nastro Azurro (a clean but insipid lager; Peroni’s Meister Brau), delivered frigid to your table in a litre stein by a 5’1″ 60-year-old Calabrese who looks ascance at you and gravely confirms “Grande?” when you order the large, like nobody has ordered that much beer since the party of Germans in ’44, followed by an array of fritti (including stuffed zucchini flowers) and pizza Napoli with anchovies like bright fishy slivers of salt cake and crisped to a cinder around the edge, while the 12 Roma tifosi jammed up next to you run their football chants and the little girl at the opposite table makes a triumphant gesture after defeating her father at an arm wrestle and slams her elbow down on the table to challenge her mother this time is as good as anything.

  5. 5.

    Par R

    March 12, 2006 at 12:44 pm

    Any word yet on when/where the services will be?

  6. 6.

    Lili

    March 12, 2006 at 7:26 pm

    Good for you, Giving up emotions even negative ones is a very hard prospect. Reading you post made me think about if there are any negative emotions that I need to shut out of my life.

  7. 7.

    Frank Gordon

    March 12, 2006 at 10:27 pm

    Lili you’re right, I’ve been trying to be more positive as opposed to negative myself lately as well. Besides, life is short right? Better to laugh and enjoy the moment instead of dwelling on BS.

    I discovered this today http://goofyblog.net/

    That blog is helping me with the laughing part. heh.

    Frank

  8. 8.

    Jim Allen

    March 13, 2006 at 7:47 am

    Well, either I’m having a flashback to my college days, or this is the most disjointed thread I’ve seen in months.

    I don’t really care which it is — it’s kind of fun either way.

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