Big Food needs Big Wine
Mrs. Barbarian made a Costco run today, and returned with several industrial-scale boxes filled with foodstuffs. At first I thought she was planning to load a C-130 headed for Haiti, but no… we’re supposed to eat it all. Conspicuously absent from the booty was any wine (Costco is where you’ll find our every-day wine choice, Cameron Hughes.) Thankfully I had stopped at our local grocer to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy on Friday and as always made a detour through the wine section to grab a few bottles. Dinner tonight was meant to make a dent in this huge food cache and Mrs. Barbarian cooked up some cornbread from a package the size of a pillowcase. Meanwhile I opened a gunny sack of broccoli flowerettes, and some (thankfully in a small package) bratwurst.
Food of this scale requires a big wine. A sledgehammer of a wine. No subtlety required. I reached for the Petite Sirah.
Concannon was the first winery to bottle Durif’s grape on its own, and the label proclaims it as “America’s First Petite Sirah.” It is also a 125 year old family-owned winery. This is a 2006 vintage Central Coast Petite Sirah. The label says “Limited Release”, which may be hyperbole if I was able to grab this for $11.25 ($15.99 retail, $12.49 with grocer’s loyalty card, $11.25 when combined with a multi-bottle discount!) at my podunk small-town grocery store.
It certainly is quite good though. When I first opened the bottle the nose was a little strange but that vanished quickly. In fact by mid-meal the wine seems to have lost all of it’s nose. That is OK though since it tastes wonderful. Big and broad-shouldered like a Petite Sirah should be, and easily able to stand up to the big flavors on the plate. Mrs. Barbarian liked it even more than I did, as I noted that after dinner there was maybe a glass-and-a-half left, and I sat down to write this review. I snapped the photo you see above (note: new cell phone… much better image quality from the camera!), then turned back to my computer to write; when I next turned to grab the bottle to read the label it was empty. I heard her come in and leave the room, but did not turn to look. She obviously slurped up the rest of this nice wine.
One Response to “Big Food needs Big Wine”
By markc on Jan 27, 2010
Many of the wines featured here don’t seem to make to our local distributors.
I happened to be in one of our local liquor stores yesterday looking for some new Malbec to try and there was the Concannon Petite Sirah on the shelf for $9.99
I grabbed a bottle and look forward to trying it with the vegetable lasagna I just made.