Travessia

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Perfect Pairings

June 13, 2010 in Uncategorized by traveleatlove | 12 comments

Hi guys! I am up in lovely Truro, MA enjoying a beachy weekend with the girls. Since my laptop nearly snapped in half and is in the hospital, I thought I would share with you a guest post I recently did on The Food Passport. It’s a great summer salad and wine pairing I think you will enjoy. And speaking of guest posts, I am seeking guest posters (and opportunities to guest post myself!) so if you have anything send me an email: traveleatlove (@)gmail.com. Have a lovely Sunday and I will be back tomorrow with beach, wine, and lobster filled posts! 🙂

Many people don’t know that New England has its own small but thriving wine industry that produces high quality wines from home grown grapes. Two summers ago I first visited Westport Rivers Winery on a trip to Horseneck Beach and became very interested in supporting local winemakers. Last year, we attended the Coastal Wine Trail kickoff event which brings together several coastal Massachusetts and Rhode Island wineries for a day of food and wine. It was at this event that we first discovered Travessia Urban Winery, and we have been hooked ever since.

Travessia’s owner and winemaker, Marco Montez, recently sent me a bottle of his 2008 Pinot Grigio to sample, and I thought that my first Food Passport post would the perfect place to share it.

I wanted to create a recipe that was easily accessible without lots of fancy or expensive ingredients, so I used only items that I had in the house.

Recipe (Serves 2)

12 medium sized shrimp

3 cups sweet corn

2 cups sweet grape tomatoes

1 medium jalapeno, seeds removed

¼ cup finely diced red onion

Chopped cilantro to taste

3 TSP Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Ground black pepper to taste

This is the ideal recipe for a warm summer night when you don’t want to heat up the kitchen. I simply thawed a package of sweet corn at room temperature and once everything was diced and chopped, tossed the veggies together in a bowl. I did leave the EVOO off until the very end as I don’t like the salad to get bogged down and soggy from the oil.

I grilled the shrimp plain on our George Forman grill which only took about 3 minutes. You can sauté the shrimp in a pan, toss them on an outdoor grill, or if you feel like eating them cold, boil or steam and then chill them.

The flavors of the salad ingredients paired well with the Pinot Grigio’s slight acidity because the major ingredients in the dish leaned more toward sweet and balanced flavors. Had the tomatoes been an acidic variety, there may have been some competition between the food and wine, but this pairing turned out perfectly.

This year’s Coastal Wine Trail kickoff was May 23 at Truro Vineyards in Truro, MA, and it was a wonderful event as it had been the year before. The Coastal Wine Trail is made up of 9 coastal New England vineyards, including Travessia, and they are all worth a visiting for a tasting, tour or special events.

Do you have a favorite annual special event in your area that you just love?

Tags: food and wine pairing, healthy meals, Pinot Grigio, recipe, salad, shrimp, summer meals, Travessia, wine

Sunday Funday

May 31, 2010 in Uncategorized by traveleatlove | 8 comments

Nothing like a couple of local winery visits and a great dinner out at a new restaurant to turn a bad weekend around! Sunday morning started out as another groggy one with another not-so-great night’s sleep.

The original plan for the day was to celebrate my friend Raija’s Master’s graduation with a trip to Cuttyhunk Island off of the coast of New Bedford. Due to some illness and exhaustion among all of us, we skipped leaving Boston at 7:30 am for a 9:00 ferry. But fun still needed to be had. The hubs and I decided to visit a couple of the wineries from the Coastal Wine Trail festival last week, and we picked up the girls along the way.

Our first stop was Running Brook Vineyards in North Dartmouth, MA, a little over an hour drive from Boston. It continually amazes me how rural Massachusetts is just outside of the city. Parts of Dartmouth were very pretty! The Running Brook Winery is located in the middle of a sprawling field, and I couldn’t resist photographing some farm machinery. Oh how I want to be a farmer!

The tasting room and winery are in a big warehouse, and when we spoke with the owner, Pedro Teixeira last week, he shared with us the future plans for the building. It sounds like it will be spectacular!

Because we were visiting the winery, we had the opportunity to taste more wines than at the Coastal Wine Trail Kickoff where wineries were limited to 3 wines each.

I had a few favorites:

2005 Chardonnay Reserve: A full bodied Chardonnay with vanilla on the nose and palate, a buttery note, and the rich taste of oak aging. This wine has won two bronze medals in competition.

I think I am becoming more used to the buttery flavor of oak aged Chardonnay. Like the Enanzo Chardonnay I tasted earlier this week, Running Brook 2005 Reserve Chardonnay offered subtle evidence of oak aging, and I liked it.

2007 Auslesen: Auslesen is a German wine term for late harvest wines (Auslese). Its literal translation is “selected harvests”. It is used in the wine trade to describe specially selected, perfectly ripened bunches of grapes that are hand-picked and then pressed separately from other grapes. These grapes are specially selected for their content of Botrytis cinerea or noble rot, which gives the grape a unique sweet, earthy flavor with hints of citrus and honey.

The Auslesen is a wine that you would only want a small glass of, due to its sweetness, but I thought it was quite yummy and different than other sweet wines that I have tasted.

Our plan was to also visit Coastal Vineyards. I liked their Seaside White so much last week that I was really hoping to be able to taste through all of their wines. Unfortunately, we were unable to find the winery, the same problem, we found out later, that several other winery visitors had.

Instead we went to a place we have visited a couple times, Travessia Urban Winery. (past visits here and here). I was excited to bring my friends to Travessia knowing they would like the wine as much as the husband and I do.

We tasted through some favorites, including the 2007 and 2008 Vidal Blanc and the 2008 Rosé.

Then we had the opportunity to do a barrel tasting of Marco’s newest wine, the Jester, a blend of 48% Zinfandel, 27% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Syrah, and 10% Petite Syrah. This wine is awesome! It will not be bottled until the end of the summer, and I can’t wait to see what a few more months of barrel aging does to it. I think that is the most fun part of barrel tasting. 🙂 And now we have a case of the Jester to look forward to in the fall.

It was great to see Marco again. Now matter how many times we have tasted his wines, he always has some more interesting information to share about his wines or about wine in general. Apparently due to the weather we have had, the grapes this year are a month ahead of where they were last year which could be a good sign and could produce some great red wine grapes in New England.

After a drive home and a short rest (I could get used to this long weekend thing!), the husband and I headed to the new Bistro du Midi for dinner. Bistro du Midi is very close to my office,and I have been wanting to check it out for awhile now.The menu is full of dishes that we wanted to try.

I had a glass of Sparkling Saumur Rosé, Louis de Grenelle from the Loire Valley. It was delicious and along with a bit of sweetness and delicate bubbles, it had a slight earthiness to it.

We shared Oysters Marinated with Apple, Fennel & Pepper Mignonette. They were so fresh and light and really went perfectly with the wine.

For my dinner, I had Steamed Mussels Marinière au Pastis with Chili Dusted Frites. The mussels were perfectly tender, not a chewy one among the bunch, and I mopped up all of the broth which was flavored with a generous pour of Pastis and tomatoes. Mmmmmm.

I can’t say no to really good fries!

We were having such a wonderful time enjoying the breezy evening on the Bistro du Midi patio that we of course had dessert, this decadent, gooey chocolate pistachio tart. Pretty amazing.

Bistro du Midi had incredibly friendly service and a very welcoming hostess, something that is always refreshing in downtown Boston. Their downstairs dining room is entirely open to the outdoors in the good weather, so even if you don’t score a patio seat as we did, there is still tons of light and fresh air. I can not wait to return to eat all of the items on the menu we didn’t try.

Off to enjoy Memorial Day with a nice long walk, some sun, and maybe a bit of yard work. I hope you are having a great weekend! Be back tomorrow with my 1 year blog birthday post and a giveaway to celebrate!

Also, check out the contest Late July is having:

To enter send an email to offers@latejuly.com, post on Facebook or comment at www.latejuly.com to tell us where you’d like to take your family this summer or please share a special trip experience from the past. Our trip this year was my favorite, but we’re hoping to get a few good ideas from you for next year. All submissions will get coupons, but our favorite will also WIN a Late July Beach Bag filled with at least $50 worth of Late July Organic Snacks, a $25 iTunes gift card and we’ll also carbon offset your trip!

Tags: Barrel Tasting, Bistro du Midi, Boston, chardonnay, Food, MA wine, Mussels and Frites, Running Brook, Travessia, Vidal Blanc, wine, wineries

Marathon Weekend

April 18, 2010 in Uncategorized by traveleatlove | 20 comments

Wine Riot made me feel old in a good way, i.e. realizing I prefer wine tastings with polite people where the mission isn’t to pound as much wine as possible in the allotted amount of time. The environment felt a little frantic, and there were lots of elbows thrown and feet stepped on as the attendees tried to shove their way to camp out at the tables so not to miss a single drop.

I normally try to avoid being overly critical of things on my blog and try to focus on the positive. In fact, just the other day someone commented on my ability to write about things that I don’t care for kindly. But I also feel the need to be honest, if only for the sake of my own credibility. The concept behind Wine Riot is pretty neat, a less formal, more fun and not stuffy wine tasting that attracts a lot of young people. But how young? This might be my curmudgeonly 30 year old self speaking, but I felt like half of the people at the event were not even legal. It kind of felt like a frat party with wine instead of Natty Ice, and I am pretty sure that most of the boys were named Chad and were wearing pink sweaters and/or backwards baseball hats.

We only stayed at the Wine Riot for about 30 minutes. In that time I tasted maybe 5 wines because it was almost impossible to get a pour. The rep from Hess stared at us for about 10 minutes, and it was like we were invisible as he poured repeat pours for the other 4 people at the table. Really?

Anywho, there were a few highlights of the event worth mentioning.

1) The Travessia table -The husband and I have been big fans of Travessia wines and their winemaker, Marco Montez, since last summer , and we were happy to see him and to taste the 2008 Unoaked Chardonnay, Bastard Rosé, and Vidal Blanc at the Wine Riot. As always, I loved the Rosé and Vidal Blanc the best. The Rosé is a blend of 3 different wines, whites and reds, and in my opinion it is still one of the best Rosé wines I have ever had. I have said it before, but if you are in the MA or RI areas, do check out this cool little winery in New Bedford or look for them at upcoming wine events in the area. Totally and completely worth your time.

2) The Mionetto table- Tasting Mionetto Prosecco brought back fond memories of the Newport Wine & Food Festival from last fall, sitting on the expansive lawn, overlooking the blue ocean, and drinking prosecco with friends. Mionetto makes great, very food friendly bubbly at great values and are always worth a try.

3) Cabot Cheese– Cabot makes the best cheese, and I always seem to find their table at every food and wine event I attend. I might just be doing a Cabot giveaway next week. . . check back to find out for sure 😉

I didn’t encounter much beside those 3. One of the reps from 90+ Cellars sort of laughed at me for “taking photos for posterity” which would have been fine if their wine didn’t remind me of nail polish remover. Oh and I tasted possibly the worst wine I have ever had a German bubbly with bits of gold in it. I guess the gimmicky gold should have given me a clue. . . but I literally spit it back into my wine glass it was so awful, like a sharp, bubbly vinegar.

After our short stint at the Wine Riot, the husband indulged my race weekend excitement by driving me through the finish line of a lifetime.

Exciting. My left knee really hurts, and I am hoping that it will allow me to finish. . .

My Saturday night carbo loading took place at Prezza in Boston’s North End which was full of fellow marathoners eating pasta to gear up for the big race. The Prezza menu was full of dishes that we wanted to try.

And they had a great by the glass wine list. I was excited to see Gloria Ferrer Va de vi on the list. You can read about our Gloria Ferrer winery visits here, here, and here. Love it.

We started with the Crispy Shrimp with Italian Slaw and Cherry Pepper Aioli, a delicious dish with sweet jumbo shrimp and a crispy phyllo nest topped with a zesty, creamy sauce.

We also had one of my favorite Italian dishes, Zucchini Flowers with Creamy Polenta, Pancetta, and Tomatoes. The polenta was probably my favorite part of the entire meal! It was so creamy and buttery.

The hubs ordered the Paella which was full of clams, lobster, mussels, chicken, and chorizo.

And I had a half order of Gnocchi a la Bolognese which came in an incredibly rich sauce. It was delicious and very filling. Along with some bread and olives in olive oil, I think the gnocchi gave me my carbohydrate fill for the night.

The dessert menu was incredible though, and even though I wanted 4 different things, we decided on the flourless chocolate cake which was hot, molten perfection, topped with vanilla bean ice cream.

Prezza provided the PERFECT meal for a very chilly, gray April evening. Like many North End restaurants, it does not look like much from the outside, but the elegant dining room and bar stretch far back, creating a comfortable and special environment for a fine dining experience.

One more day to the Boston Marathon, and there is still time to support Team ALLY! http://firstgiving.com/meghanmalloyteamally AND to enter my Equal Exchange giveaway which ends on Tuesday!

Tags: Boston, Boston Marathon, Cabot, Dining out, Food, foodie, Mionetto, Prezza, Travessia, wine, Wine Riot

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