Displaying items by tag: Colorado

2002 Cabernet Sauvignon

 

Two Rivers Winery

Grand Valley (Colorado)

Alcohol: 13.2%

Suggested Retail: $16.50

 

“Our reviewer discovered the wines of Colorado a decade ago.  He enjoyed the 2002 Cabernet from Two Rivers Winery when tasting it as a new wine on its release in 2005.  A recently uncovered bottle from that same vintage proved to be a pleasant surprise.

“Two Rivers is located in Mesa County, near the city of Grand Junction. Its vineyards lie within the Grand Valley appellation, where grapes are grown at very high altitude (averaging about 4700-feet in elevation).  Some of Colorado’s wines are excellent, but most are not widely distributed. About half of Two Rivers’ 14,000 annual case production is sold direct to consumers at the tasting room of the winery and chateau. The balance goes to many of the state’s better restaurants and hotels and to internet customers.

“We found this 13 year old Cabernet Sauvignon showed nicely integrated aspects of plum and cassis. Beyond the plum were blackberry flavors and maybe a little Bing Cherry.  Soft and smooth in the mid-palate, there was an almost glycerol-like richness to the finish.”

Food Affinity:  “Enough structure and acidity left to pair very nicely with food. We’d suggest serving a wine like this with lamb stew incorporating Cipollini

At Mesa’s Edgeby Eugenia Bone

 

Houghton Mifflin Company

ISBN 0-618-22126-3Hard Cover, 330 pages, $24.

 

Eugenia Bone is a New York writer with heavyweight credentials (Saveur, Food & Wine, Gourmet, etc.). In At Mesa’s Edge she has created an intriguing memoir and cookbook.

When her architect husband decides that there’s room in their urban life for a part-time existence in Colorado’s North Fork Valley, Eugenia packs kids and cooking supplies to spend a summer in the West. Ranch property has been purchased, but it needs work. The theme may seem familiar, but who of us hasn’t daydreamed of moving—at least on a temporary basis—to someplace completely different? Crawford, Colorado isn’t Italy or southern France, but it might be as different from New York City as those locales.

In addition to tending sick children and rehabbing the long-abandoned ranch house, she must deal with snakes, skunks, feral cats and neighboring cattle wandering through her vegetable garden. As the newcomer ingratiates herself with the locals, she finds a substantial number who’re deeply food-conscious. The area has long been famed for its fruit production and seems to have a significant number of latter day specialty food producers.

Her recipes acknowledge shared experiences with newly-found Colorado friends and acquaintances, as well as the contributions of family and friends in New York who shaped her love for food and her cooking style. Marilee Gillman’s Tortilla Soup includes broth from her own pheasants, but chicken broth will suffice, says Bone. Asparagus Vinaigrette is a treatment of this basic vegetable dish as prepared by French-born Yvon Gros, who with his wife Joanna, runs the Leroux Creek Inn in Hotchkiss. Bone uses purchased asparagus stalks as well as wild examples found growing in area ditches. The recipe for Fettucine with Wild Mushrooms is from the author’s brother, Cham Giobbi, who discovered Porcinis growing wild in the nearby West Elk Mountains. Leek and Cilantro Pesto Tart is a recipe the author says she took to “a potluck winetasting at Ela Family Farms on Rogers Mesa.”

Bone’s intimate introductions to the recipes makes them seem all the more appealing. Anecdotes from the preceding narrative are in a style similarly personal. Bone’s recollection of little details when old Greek men barbecued lamb at the home of the uncle of her friend painted a vivid picture. Her story of taking a hunter safety class with 12-year old boys to qualify for a Colorado license was funny—and provided a window to a western ethos untroubled by political correctness.

 

--reviewed by Dan Clarke