For years it seemed the only thing I cooked at home was Italian food. I went through about a decade where it seemed as though I had grown up in an Italian family. I was big on regional Italian dishes and I loved the foods of Northern Italy and Emila-Romagnia.
Tonight I actually had the urge to make some fresh pasta. I had made my Ragu (kind of a ghetto Bolognese) the other day and I thought it might be fun to break out the pasta machine (old school Atlas) and see if it still worked.
I wanted to do a hand cut pasta and a Stracci (Italian for "rags") came to mind. Once you have your sheets of pasta rolled out this is basically a "anything goes" style of pasta. You simply cut rough shapes at your whim. The sauce was good, but I think this type of pasta would be better with a non-red sauce....just a hunch.
Okay, I am sure all of you are wonder "What, no fancy wine lable"? Well, the story is that since I made homemade pasta and homemade sauce, the wine is homemade as well. This is a bottle of my 2005 "Rosso". We blended 50% Holstein Vineyard Pinot Noir-Willamette Valley-Dundee Hills and 50% Del Rio Syrah-Rogue River Valley-Southern Oregon. To be honest I wish we had bottled the Pinot Noir separately since the 2005 (in my humble opinion) is a fantastic wine and since we only bottled 8 cases of it, I am now down to my last 3 bottles. While this blend drinks well, it is just a fun slurping wine. You pick up the acidity of the Pinot and the jammy/oakiness of the Syrah. The Syrah itself has an uncanny resemblance to an Australian Shirz. I am sure it has to do with us using a new Hungarian oak barrel. Big fruit, big oaky/vanilla nose and big alcohol. This wine would go great with bowling or even washing the car.
That is so cool that you make your own wine!
ReplyDeleteI have wanted to do that- I will have to pick your brain in the future....
You truly are my wine hero.
Brittany- Ask away, making wine is easy. Making good wine is the hard part. We purchased some grapes from Walla Walla two years ago to make Cabernet (not in the bottle yet).
ReplyDeleteWha? You bottle your own?? This is too fabulous. When I come to see Heather, can we hang out???
ReplyDeleteSay, I just bought this bottle of Paringa, Sparkling Shiraz, 2006 (South Australia)...I've never ever heard of this! Have you? What do you know about this? Was I nuts?
Oh, yes...the food. Wonderful...you killed me with that bolognese...I made a venison one a few weeks ago. I just love bolognese.
Catherine-Australian Sparkling Shiraz is good stuff-unfortunately in the 70's here in the U.S. the "Cold Duck" wine nearly stomped that entire industry out. Chill it and drink it with a rich chocolate dessert.
ReplyDeleteDo get in touch when you come to PDX-we will do something to write about. I should have my 2006 Pinot Noir in bottle by then and also our 2006 Cabernet as well.
You make your own wine, and your own pasta, I'm impressed.
ReplyDeleteI wrote an article about the Oklahoma wine industry, still in it's infancy (the wine industry not my article, am I misplacing my modifiers, or my mind?).
Hi Norm,
ReplyDeleteLooks like you've taken home-cooked meal to an entirely new level. Superb! I wish you well with your vineyard. It sounds like an exciting venture.