What’s In The Bag? Gifts for Lovers of Wine & Food

December 20, 2022 – It’s getting oh so close to the Big Day when the Man With The Bag makes his rounds, but let’s face it: gift giving is best done all year long, not only in a certain retail sanctioned season. Yes, your list is long and your time is short, so here are a few things to consider for the epicure you know, and perhaps yourself.

HELP

CRAVE in Hollister has not quite opened their doors for public visits, but they can provide you with a great selection of local and imported wines for gifting. Simply order online and arrange pickup or local delivery.  Proprietor Mike Kohne, suggests a vintage Port, or one of his excellent French Champagnes, like Deutz NV Brut Classic, or Pierre Gimmonet & Fils Blanc de Blanc. He stocks Bernardus, Morgan, Girard and Le P’tit Paysan Sauvignon Blancs, and Chardonnays from Calera, Chalone, Eden Rift, Hanzell and Ramey. You’ll also find reds from Alfaro, Kobza, Melville, Ser and Stirm. A comprehensive selection to make shopping easy.  

FOOD

If you haven’t heard of Rancho Gordo Beans, please let me introduce you to a source of top quality heirloom beans. Grown in Napa, and featuring heritage varieties you can’t find easily, these deliver incredible flavor and texture, and will turn you into a beanie, in a good way.  Remember the days of high tech when beanbag chairs were de rigeur in conference rooms? Heck, I remember walking into a job interview, where I was invited to sit down in a bean bag—wearing a suit, pantyhose and heels—and when I said I would rather not, the interviewer looked up and asked if I would like to write some lines of code on the white board, which I did, and promptly got the job. (And had his butt fired a few months later.) Cook them the according to the directions, with generous dollops of olive oil, and you can’t go wrong.

 If you are getting someone an InstaPot for Christmas, include a couple of bags of these beans.  Some of my faves are the Cranberry (awesome flavor), Scarlet Runners (meaty, nutty, mmm), Gigantes (a handsome main dish), Christmas Limas (so pretty and sooo good!), Aycote Negro (so darkly meaty), Cassoulet (the base for everything from duck confit to roasted mushrooms), Royal Corona (the bomb served with broth and sautéed chard) and King City Pink, our own local legend, smooth and creamy and great for frijoles or tacos. All different, all good for you, and all accompanied by cooking directions and recipe suggestions.  They also have French green lentils, wild rice and black quinoa. Superb quality and worth it. Visit: ranchogordo.com

Want to punch up your cooking? Boonville Barn Collective has Classic, Spicy, and Smoky Piment d’Ville from the 2022 harvest, plus Spicy Tomato Preserve made with Comapeño Chile Powder. Their Chile Flakes Trio, with red Serrano, Calabrian and Yahualica Chile de Arbol is a great intro to what makes their grown in Anderson Valley stuff so excellent. Ditch those store bought red flakes and find out what you’re missing. Visit: Boonvillebarn.com

There’s a lot of great olive oil in our back yard. Pleasant Valley Farms has 2022 Olio Nuovo for $45 for a 750ml and $24 for 350ml. Belle Farms is always a good option. Here’s a really intriguing one from Italy: Laudemio Frescobaldi Extra Virgin Olive Oil, so gorgeously green, and in a neat very Roman bottle that shows it off. They carry it at Montebello Market in Los Gatos, where you can also find cool stuff like cherrywood smoked sea salt, Cosentino Farms spiced apple butter, Whistlepig maple syrup, green hatch chile mustard and lots of fun themed gift baskets, ready to roll. 

WINE

Let’s start with local wines you can pick up at tasting rooms or have shipped. 

2020 Aptos Vineyard “Alternate Juror” Pinot Noir  – a swashbuckling rum cherry and baking spice infused execution of Saveria Vineyard by John Benedetti

2019 Big Basin Vineyards Howard Vineyard Chardonnay – classic and classy

2019 Eden Rift The Terraces Pinot Gris –  Acid is the word here, in this pure Alsatian expression

2020 Ferrari Ranch Chardonnay  – captures the perfect minerality and grace of Corralitos Chardonnay

2021 J. Lohr Arroyo Vista Chardonnay – Kristen Barnhisel crafts this complex wine from 5 clones, including Mt. Eden, with its Meyer lemon and tangerine flavors, adding to the yellow peach of clone 95, the apple and apricot of clone 17 and the Babcock peach of clone 17. A brilliant stylish effort.

2019 Roberts Ranch Estate Pinot Noir – Broad spectrum and well-rounded, hits all the notes you want in a Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir, from bass to soprano

2020 Sante Arcangeli Ananda Pinot Noir – Brilliant, poised and velvety

2020 Windy Oaks Syrah  – Delivers pure enjoyment with a fleshy texture

For those in search of great deals on wine from all over the world, there are two ways to get some gems, if you’re adventurous: Cameron Hughes and de Négoce. The former offers great deals from around the world purchased as shiners or in barrel lots, priced so experimenting is painless. I’ve had Mendoza Malbec, Columbia Valley Cab Franc, Napa Cab Sauv and Tuscan blends that were under $20 and amazing.  Several clubs are available, and if you like the idea of buying futures, de Négoce offers you considerable discounts, at 60 to 80% off retail. Just had a $60 Columbia Valley Cab for $18 that was quite fine. Selections from Amador to Willamette to Horse Heaven Hills are available and sampler packs make it easy.  A good gift idea for a wine aficionado, especially one on a budget. 

If you are looking to dazzle a space lover, or you’d like to welcome the New Year with a cosmic curiosity, how about the 2014 Stargazing Cuvée from Iron Horse Vineyards (Sebastopol), which bears the image of the Cosmic Cliffs of the Carina Nebula, released by NASA in July 2022. 

BOOKS

Lodi! – There’s no denying that Lodi is the motherlode of old vine Zin. But did you know its vineyards also hold some of the oldest field blends in the country? Wine writer and superb photographer Randy Caparoso’s stunning book, Lodi! gives you the real dirt on this historic region in a large format book that is as big  in person as the region’s impact on California’s rich wine history. With over 400 photographs by the author, and watercolor illustrations, it is as much a book for wine scholars as it is for those who appreciate wine for the sheer beauty of vineyards, vines and grapes. The foreword is by acclaimed California wine journalist, Mike Dunne. This is an eloquent and beautiful ode to the art of farming done with reverence, warmth and humor. 

Vegetariana – This old school cookbook from the illustrative pen of artist/author Nava Atlas, was originally published in 1984, but was completely redone in 2022 to render the recipes vegan. The author says her youngest son declared that as long as they were going through the trouble of being vegetarian, they might as well go all the way. Filled with pensive and whimsical drawings and quotes from Tolstoy (a devout vegetarian who took “Thou shalt not kill” to heart), Ben Franklin, Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King, this is a fun read, as it’s part philosophy, part cookbook, part history, all adding up to an appreciation for how fundamental our eating choices are, and how profoundly our actions impact the lives of other creatures. 

Vegetarianism as a practice stems from the belief in the sanctity of all life, and the need for kindness and compassion. Buddhism and Taoism believe in doing no harm to living beings, and that animals have souls, therefore all meat and eggs should be avoided. Perhaps veganism was a necessity for some but it has become a choice for many. 

Did you know that Percy Bysshe Shelley advocated the “natural diet,” absent of animal flesh of any kind? His wife, Mary, author of Frankenstein, created a monster with the same belief. 

It’s with a bit of embarrassment that I, an aspiring lover of vegetables who is trying to eat less meat, share that I was eating a turkey, cranberry and radicchio sandwich while perusing the book. This is not advised. But I still heartily enjoyed the history lessons, aphorisms and wonderful illustrations.  

Here’s a sampler of the nuggets:

Cesar Chavez: “We know we cannot defend and be kind to animals until we stop exploiting them.”

Pythagorus: As long as Man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. (c.a. 570BC—495BC)

Nikola Tesla: “Every effort should be made to stop the wanton, cruel slaughter of animals, which must be destructive to our morals.” 

Bette Davis as Margo Channing in All About Eve: “Remind me to tell you about the time I looked into the heart of an artichoke.”

George Bernard Shaw: “Whenever I tell people that I am a vegetarian, I am always told that cabbages have feelings.”

Mark Twain: “Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”

Whether educated or not, cabbages appear plentifully in this book. While the recipes may not convince you to pass up on bacon and eggs or a fat pork chop, they will get you thinking about the choices you make. And you’ll view vegetables and fruits (Chinese proverb: Better one bite of the peach of immortality than a whole basket of apricots), with renewed appreciation.