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Learn how to make little smokies with barbecue sauce, in the slow cooker, and wrapped in bacon and dusted with brown sugar. This is an epic appetizer!The Taub family, owners of Palm Bay International, one of the nation’s leading wine importers, is expanding its presence in California. The family’s Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon brand Heritance has purchased Saracina Vineyards in Mendocino from John Fetzer and his wife, Patty Rock. The deal, which closed in early October, includes a winery, 250 acres of land with 100 acres planted to vines, along with the Saracina brand and its second label Atrea. The sale price was not disclosed.
The deal gives the Taub family an established winery and a foothold in Mendocino. They plan to move production of their Heritance, Au Contraire and Angry Bunch brands to Saracina’s winemaking facility. Winemaker Alex MacGregor will continue to make the Saracina and Atrea wines.
Marc Taub, CEO of Taub Family Companies, which includes Palm Bay International and Taub Family Selections, had been looking for a home for his growing roster of California brands. “Marc was familiar with the Saracina ranch and loves the property,” Bethany Burke, senior vice president of corporate communications at Taub Family Companies, told Wine Spectator.
Fetzer and Rock will no longer be involved in the winery, but they have retained part of the Saracina property, including a residence. The eldest of 11 siblings, Fetzer launched Saracina in 2001—nearly a decade after his family sold Fetzer Vineyards to spirits company Brown-Forman (Fetzer and its affiliated brands are now owned by Chile’s Concha y Toro). The couple built a tasting room and wine cave on the 600-acre former Sundial Ranch near the town of Hopland, and tapped MacGregor and consultant David Ramey to make the wines.
Saracina makes wine from a variety of grapes including Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel and Sauvignon Blanc from its sustainably farmed estate vineyards and purchased grapes. The winery produces around 7,500 cases of wine annually.
Once one of the foremost dynasties in California wine, the Fetzer family has been divesting its wine holdings in recent years. In 2017, the family sold its 80-acre ranch in Redwood Valley, the site of the original Fetzer winery, to cannabis distributor Flow Kana. The Saracina sale leaves third-generation vintners Jake and Ben Fetzer as the only family members with their own wine label, Masut, in the Eagle Peak appellation of Mendocino.
Marc Taub’s father, David, who passed away in 2012, launched Palm Bay in 1977, importing Italian wine. The family now imports and produces nearly 90 wine and spirits brands from 17 countries around the world, with a focus on Italy. In 2014, Marc turned to California, launching Pinot Noir brand Au Contraire in Sonoma. They later added Heritance, which was founded by wine-industry veterans Bernard Portet and Don Chase.
The Taub family doesn’t plan to make any change to the Saracina wines but they will add new projects down the road. “We definitely want to take advantage of what [Fetzer and Rock] have been doing here,” said Burke. “Marc is looking at this as a long-term opportunity to lay down roots for his family.”
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From classic gingerbread men and snowballs to stained glass sugar cookies and gluten-free and vegan cookies, you’ll find the best assortment of holiday cookies!This is an absolute must for your Thanksgiving holiday menu! It’s so easy and so good with the sage-butter and crisp bacon bits!
Say hello to your new favorite Thanksgiving side dish for 2018.
It’s mashed sweet potatoes with maple, sage and bacon. A super fun twist to the usual mashed potatoes.
But to be honest, I think this is actually way better.
Hello, we have sage butter mixed right in! I’m sorry but no, you can’t top that. Not to mention, the crisp bacon bits right on top.
It’s absolutely perfect. And I’ve been eating it by the spoonful for recipe testing to ensure you get the very best mashed sweet potatoes this holiday season.
See, I take my job very seriously, you guys.
This is an absolute must for your Thanksgiving holiday menu! It’s so easy and so good with the sage-butter and crisp bacon bits!
Tag @damn_delicious on Instagram and hashtag it #damndelicious.
The post Mashed Sweet Potatoes appeared first on Damn Delicious.
Few main courses are as elegant and decadent as a standing rib roast. You can master the art of roasting it to perfection with these tips and video recipes.Bordeaux winemakers hoping for a big harvest in 2018, after France’s cataclysmic frosts of 2017, were disappointed. Heavy rains early in the season led to mildew, while hail in some areas also thinned the crop. Then, the weather dramatically changed course. “Sun, sun, sun,” is how Christian Moueix, who oversees several estates on the Right Bank, described the summer, citing data showing record levels of solar exposure.
While the growing season was challenging, ideal weather late in the season ripened the crop well. Quantity may be low, but vintners have high hopes for quality.
Welcome to Wine Spectator’s 2018 Wine Harvest Report, our coverage of Northern Hemisphere wine regions. (You can find our Southern Hemisphere 2018 reports here.) While we won’t know how good a vintage is until we taste the finished wines, these reports offer firsthand accounts from top winemakers in leading regions.
The first half of 2018 was about protecting vines from disease triggered by heavy rains. To combat aggressive mildew, growers across the region were forced to take added precautions. Some were luckier than others. Although not unscathed, Moueix was fortunate. “Mildew affected only a few blocks, but since it was before crop thinning, it did not affect the final yield,” he said. Vigilant crop management was essential, so that his teams could prune off infected clusters in time, he added. And those wineries who employ either organic or biodynamic farming faced even bigger challenges, since they have less options for fighting mildew.
During the dry, summer months, reserves from the spring rains were critical. Soil type and vine age were both factors. Damien Barton Sartorius, co-owner of châteaus Langoa Barton, Léoville Barton and Mauvesin Barton in the Médoc, notes that when it came time to harvest, “We started with the younger plants that struggled from drought, as their roots are not long enough to reach underground water.”
Philippe Dhalluin, who oversees Château Mouton-Rothschild and two other properties in Pauillac, added, “Estates located on deep gravelly soils like Mouton or d’Armailhac got very small berries and consequently very low yields.” Conversely, “an estate like Clerc Milon with subsoil slightly richer in clay had better yields.”
With the exception of sweet-wine producers, most vintners were grateful when summer conditions continued into autumn. Mild temperatures and little rain gave growers flexibility in timing their picks based on each grape variety’s ripeness levels.
At Château Lynch Bages in Pauillac, harvest progressed quickly. The team began picking white grapes on Sept. 5. “After a relatively late bud burst, the vintage never stopped gaining [speed], resulting in a rather early picking,” said proprietor Jean-Charles Cazes.
Château Angélus in St.-Emilion was in no rush to pick—harvest lasted from Sept. 24 to Oct. 11. “September was a very mellow month, allowing us to pick the grapes slowly at perfect maturity,” said public relations manager Victoire Touton.
There were worries that the drastic weather reversal would hurt thin-skinned Merlot grapes, but all varieties excelled this year, vintners say. Thick-skinned Cabernet Sauvignon proved fairly resistant to spring mildew, and slow-ripening Petit Verdot benefited greatly from the extra weeks of warmth.
The outlook for white wines is equally positive. Pascal Chatonnet, who owns four Right Bank properties, admits that he was skeptical about this year’s Sauvignon Blanc crop when harvest began, but within only a few hours, “Fermentation had revealed the potential of the vintage.”
The challenging weather made life more difficult in dessert-wine regions, however. Hailstorms pummeled Sauternes during the summer. François Amirault, technical director at Château de Fargues, reports that they lost 80 percent of the crop. Additionally, drought extended into fall, hindering botrytis development until much needed rain and humidity arrived in late October. “We were approximately three weeks behind our average harvest start date,” said Aline Baly of Château Coutet in Barsac.
Overall, the Bordelais are optimistic, despite the setbacks. Although the year’s weather conditions are reminiscent of the less-than-remarkable 1962 vintage, many believe the potential quality of the wines could be on par with classic vintages such as 1990, 2005 and 2010. Bordeaux’s farming techniques have come a long way since 1962, after all.
Jean-Michel Laporte, director of Château Talbot in St.-Julien, is hesitant about making judgments just yet. “It’s too soon to compare it with another great recent vintage, but it tastes really good, and looks incredibly promising.”
Château Margaux’s managing director, Philippe Bascaules, was more unabashedly confident. Like many others, Château Margaux suffered low yields in 2018. But, said Bascaules, “In terms of quality, no doubt, this vintage will be among the greatest vintages produced at Margaux.”
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With the cooler weather of autumn upon us I am ready to warm up with some new braises and satisfy my sweet tooth with a holiday favorite at Urban Plates.
Meatballs have roots in many different cuisines and can be found throughout Europe, Asia, South America, North America and the Middle East. Perhaps some of the most common associations are with Italian cuisine and images of spaghetti and tomato sauce may be the first thing you think of when the word meatball is mentioned.
Our Meatball Braise has some roots in Italian cuisine, but with our chef’s twist. We start by making a beef bone broth that is slow-cooked to draw all the nutrients and flavor from the bones and fresh vegetables. We then make a tomato-based sauce with chunks of organic tomatoes, organic carrots, onions, celery and fresh basil leaves. We simmer this sauce with the beef bone broth to marry all of the flavors. While the sauce is slowly cooking we blend grass-fed, grass-finished ground beef, cage-free ground turkey, fresh parsley, basil, oregano garlic, dried paprika, cayenne peppers, red chili, ground coriander, milk, eggs and panko bread crumbs to bind everything together. We then sear the meatballs and gently cook them in the tomato beef broth.
The end result are tender and juicy meatballs with a spiced flavor, a little heat from the cayenne and a slight sweetness from the tomato sauce. The sauce has a great mix of textures from the chunky vegetables and eats lighter than a traditional tomato sauce.
We serve our meatball braise over scratch-made mashed potatoes or organic brown or white rice. Finally, the plate is garnished with fresh parsley and shaved asiago cheese! This is the perfect cool weather dish and we hope you enjoy.
Our Lamb Osso Bucco debuted last Fall and was such a hit we felt like it would be perfect for the fall and winter weather that is quickly approaching. Inspired by a culinary trip in Italy our chef has carefully sourced a sustainably raised grass fed lamb shank as the center of this dish.
We start our Lamb Osso Bucco with a classic red wine sauce reduction infused with thyme, oregano, rosemary, lemon and bay leaf. After the sauce has only a hint of acidity and the herbs have bloomed we combine the bone in lamb with our scratch made chicken stock, organic carrots, onion, celery and the wine reduction sauce. We then slow-cook everything until the lamb is spoon tender, almost falling off the bone and the marrow has permeated the sauce. This slow and careful, yet simple preparation makes this a hearty and delicious dish with a light bodied sauce. We top the lamb with a mint gremolata, an Italian herb sauce, made from fresh raw mint, lemon zest, garlic and a hint of spices. This bright green sauce adds a refreshing aspect to the whole dish and pairs perfectly with the earthy lamb.
I love eating this with our mashed potatoes on colder nights when I am in the mood for something comforting. Otherwise it is just as delicious served over organic white or brown rice.
Our Pumpkin Walnut Cake has returned and will be offered through the holidays. This cake was crafted to satisfy your sweet tooth craving without the guilt. Inspired by a Thanksgiving favorite, pumpkin pie, it has all the flavors we look forward to this time of the year.
This cake consists of velvety pumpkin mousse made with pumpkin puree, raw cashews, nut milk, coconut oil and seasoned with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, turmeric and vanilla bean. These delicious sweet warming spices also have the added health benefits of lowering blood sugar levels, being anti-inflammatory and also aiding with digestion. Unlike traditional mousse our version is thickened with raw cashews instead of heavy cream, making the Urban Plates mousse dairy free!
We then layer the mousse with walnut cake made with pumpkin puree, organic olive oil, walnuts and sweeten it with dates and raisins instead of cane sugar. The cake is finished with raw pumpkin seeds and edible flowers. We are proud to say this cake is vegan and gluten-free!
Cheers,
Chef Jen
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