New Releases from Macindoe Family Cellars
Felix and Pedro at McMinnville SIP
We’ve been having a blast at Macindoe Family Cellars out there on the festival circuit. Hopefully we’ve seen some of you and you already know about our new wine releases. And they are tasting so good! If not or you need a refresher, here are NINE new releases from Scott, the wine wizard at MFC.
Remember that wine club members get 15 to 20% off their purchases. Sign up for the club here: Macindoe Family Cellars Wine Club.
You can also find us at some upcoming events in and around Oregon in the coming months. We hope to see you there. See our events page.
New Release Whites and Sparkling
2010 McSparkler Melon de Bourgogne, Yamhill-Carlton, Methode Champenoise —$28 2016 Newport Seafood and
Sparkling!
Wine Gold Medal, only 5 cases remain.
What wine is more fun than a balanced bubbly sparkling wine? It just exudes party time. Our first ever Sparkler has aromas of citrus and pears, while displaying a core of mineralogy and effervescence on the palate. Beautiful, lingering finish. Serve Chilled.
2012 Melon de Bourgogne—$18
2013 Melon de Bourgogne—$18
2014 Thistle Wine, White Table Wine—$15
2014 Pinot Gris—$18, only 25 cases
2015 Pinot Gris—$18
New Release Reds
2013 Zinfandel—$30, only 10 cases
2014 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir—$28, only 20 cases of this exceptional wine
New Release Sweet
2013 Sweet Coral Pinot Noir Dessert Wine—$22 a festival favorite
Fun at the McMinnville SIP classic
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Pedro and Felix rocking some #MacindoeFamilyCellars #McSparkler #mcminnvilleSIP pic.twitter.com/OGrYSDKb2R
— Macindoe Wines (@MacindoeW) March 13, 2016
Pan-Seared, Flash-Baked Marinated Lamb Steaks
Alright Fun Hogs!
I’ve got another food/wine pairing for you. I’m a big lamb fan, especially in the Spring, and found this year that Pan-Seared, Flash-Baked Marinated Lamb Steaks pair perfectly with Macindoe Family Cellars’ 2008 Eola-Amity Pinot Noir. The acidity in the wine cut through the weightier, dense flavors of the lamb, and the mushroom, wet forest floor, black tea flavors of the wine complemented the gamier flavor of the steak. The dark fruit flavors also lend the tiniest hint of sweetness to the overall flavor profile (which is great if you oversalt your food like I do). AND – the icing on the proverbial cake, the 08 Eola-Amity was aged in 33% new French oak, which enhances the smokey flavors of the pan-seared lamb. I served salt-encrusted baked potatoes and roasted zucchini/squash/carrots with sea salt and rosemary, but I wasn’t married to either of those sides. So, I won’t bother extolling their virtues. Here’s the recipe if you want to try it out at home!
So, basically, you go out and buy some lamb steaks – One per person! They’re actually called lamb leg steaks, but for some reason that just sounds too “leggy” to me, so I’ll call them steaks. Put them in a ziploc baggie with some olive oil (two glubs per steak), some rosemary (chop this up finely if you are cooking for the boss or an ex or something – rosemary can be chewy), some garlic (1/4 clove per steak-ish), a squeeze of lemon, and five or six grinds of black pepper. Let em sit. Doopy doo. What are you doing? Maybe grab a glass of wine while you’re waiting. MFC Roussanne is always a nice pre-dinner choice. Or, it’s Spring.. you could grab a nice rosé. Mingle if anybody’s around. Any chores to do? I guess you could do them. Or you could marinate it in the morning and come back home to nice marinated steaks at night. OKAY! Let’s assume they’re ready. We have been patient.
Fire up that oven to 500 degrees. Get a pan that will fit your steaks and will fit in your oven (and is allowed to be in the oven). I’ll assume you have two and you like them medium rare. Heat up that pan as high as it will go. Keep it dry as a bone, dry as the sahara, dry as mighty dry. Once the pan is mighty hot and your oven is preheated, toss your two steaks in it. SIZZLE SIZZLE SMOKE!! (okay, i admit, it’s a tad smokey) TIME: 30 seconds from the moment it hits the pan. GO! 3, 2….1… FLIP! Now, time another 30 seconds.3, 2, 1…. now, move the pan swiftly, yet safely, to the 500 degree oven. Put it in! Time two minutes, pull out, flip. Two minutes…. OUT! Move it on to a plate, let sit for 1 minute. ENJOY…. with your vino! Very delish. Very fast. Very easy. And very good with Pinot, I must say.
Read MoreTurkey Tacos with Strawberry Salsa
Healthy, delicious and pairs well with wine! Those are my three favorite qualities of home cooked food. Sometimes I hit that sweet spot straight on, with healthy, low fat, fresh, local food that enhance (and are enhanced by!) the perfect wine. I must be honest: sometimes I miss. Big Time. For example, strawberry rhubarb pie and viognier sweet wine (MISS). But, sometimes I hit it straight on! And, that was the case last Wednesday with my Turkey Tacos with Strawberry Salsa paired with our 2009 Melon de Bourgogne. The light, fragrant, lemon-lime flavors of the Melon pair perfectly with the lime flavors in the strawberry salsa, and were rounded out nicely by the browned lean turkey. Also the salsa, which has a bit of a spicy kick, was offset on the palate by the crisp, refreshing mouthfeel of the ’09. Here’s the recipe if you want to try it out at home!
Chop up about three cups of strawberries. Throw in bowl. Take sip of wine. Grab a handful of cilantro, yank it off the stalk, and chop it up into little bits. Throw in bowl with strawberries. Take another sip of wine. Juice one lime into bowl. Now it’s jalapeno time. I usually use about 1/3 of a whole jalapeno (with the seeds taken out), but you can put in as much as you like. Cut up about a 1/2 cup of red onion into little bits. And you guessed it, into the bowl! (Take sip of wine). Then salt and pepper to taste. I like to make it at least an hour ahead of time so the flavors can mingle, but ya know you can make it and serve it right away if you don’t have the luxury of waiting.
Now get out some little bowls to make a create your own taco bar. I like bowls with chopped up: red cabbage, cilantro, avocado, and sour cream. Sometimes, if I’m feeling zesty, I’ll put one out with low fat light flavored cheese, but that, in a way, defeats the purpose of the healthy aspect of my triumvirate of meal requirements (nutritious, tasty, pairs with wine). If you don’t feel like making little bowls, you can also take a totalitarian approach and make everybody’s taco for them. Fewer dishes!
Now, let’s talk turkey. I always say, the leaner the better. Although, I admit that I went for the 93% instead of the 99% because it was $3 cheaper. $3! I guess it must cost a lot of money to put all of those birds on turkey treadmills on turkey bikes. Brown that turkey up with a tad of olive oil.
Heat up some tortillas, corn, flour, fancy, not fancy, taco shells, or even just tortilla chips if you want to make a taco salad. I personally eat mine without a tortilla aspect, preferring to load up on red cabbage as the crunchy, satisfying part of the meal. Take sip of wine, tell a joke to whoever’s closest to you.
Now you can file your family and friends through in a turkey taco assembly line. Hopefully you took the Melon out of the fridge fifteen minutes ago to get it to the just right temperature to bring out all the flavors.
And… ENJOY!!!!!
Read MoreThe End of an Era
On Saturday, the first day of Gold Beach, Oregon’s Wine, Art & Music Festival, Scott sold Macindoe Family Cellars’ very last bottle of publicly available 2008 Melon de Bourgogne wine. Boy, were we excited!! Pop champagne!! Clink, clink, clink, fizz, fizz! Overflowing… ♪mayyy olllld acquaintance ♫ beeeee forgot…. La la la la la laaaaaah♪♫! ….But, I gotta be honest with you… the sale was also a tad bittersweet for us. The ‘08 Melon was MFC’s first vintage, and Scott’s favorite wine to pair with Dungeness crab. Putting that last bottle with its crisp white linen label and lavender thistle logo into a bag felt just like sending a beloved child off to the first day of kindergarten – we were proud of our little Melon, proud to see it mature – Why, of course, it was only natural for it to leave us eventually. Sniffle. But we were oh so sad to see it leaving the nest. Have a good time, little Melon! Hmm…Although, really, now that I’m thinking about it, there are some pretty notable differences between these two scenarios. I suppose, in general, one doesn’t consume children and I suppose they come back after the first day of kindergarten, and I guess they are also sentient beings, which could be considered a big diff to some observers. Buuuut, regardless… it was sad to see that bottle of ‘08 leave the door!
Of course, we will continue to keep several cases of our 2008 Melon in our Wine Library available to Wine Club members, but for public sale, this marks the end of an era for Macindoe Family Cellars. Luckily MFC’s 2009 Melon is in bottles now, so we won’t be skipping a beat at the dinner table! Congratulations, Scott, on this milestone!