essex wine report

I must tell you that we had the finest pork roast last night. It was the Berkshire pork which we found at Schwabs in LaSalle.

We had a wonderful bottle of wine with it. It was an ’04 Moira Vineyard Chardonnay from Malivoire. This was simply a wonderful wine from an exceptional winery. If I wasn’t so thrilled with the pork, I would have written a rave review about the wine. But the wine was great. Full, oaky... just wonderful. This wine reminds me of the original Muscedere Oaked Chardonnay...the one I reviewed prior to release. This is a love it or leave it wine...I don’t like alot of oak, but this one is great...hope I can find some more.

If/when you go to Niagara, make a run to the Bench and see Malivoire. Wonderful wine, wonderful help and great wine….really great wine.

Now back to the pork. Get some..get some soon…..this is pork like our grandparents ate. It reminds me of boar (that’s a good thing). It isn’t white its off white and it is wonderful. There is texture like the pig was able to walk around. This is very different from commercial pork (IT HAS TASTE AND TEXTURE!!!) I dislike commercial pork, and have hated it since they introduced “seasoned pork”…….oi!! If I want to season my pork I will do it with real spices, not industrial grade dreck.

This pork was excellent, excellent …..just soo right. We just salted and peppered with a little Herbes de Provence and some olive oil then bunged it in the oven. Well, we ate the whole roast….guess what??? I am going to get some chops and whatever I can ASAP so I can have more. I haven’t had a pork chop in years!!!! I just can’t wait to grill some.

So as far as I know its available at Sanson Winery and Schwabs in LaSalle. I would guess others will carry it soon. Buy it before I do.

Its interesting how one can just run into something important and the person who has the information/product isn’t screaming about it.

We were buying veal on Saturday (not white veal but just young beef) and found that a favourite butcher only carries local meat and has Berkshire pork. The pork comes from a farm in Wheatly and is very special as it is an old variety.

Now the fact that he is carrying the meat is wonderful...we have a roast in the oven right now….but he actually butchers meat, that is he buys carcasses and cuts them himself. Ergo the trimmings become ground meat, sausage etc...like the way its supposed to be done. Not like the abattoir in California who has the ‘little’ recall and did dairy cattle for hamburger...yummy.

The butcher is Schwabs in LaSalle. I have bought from him for years yet I wasn’t aware that he sold only local meat. I wish he made a big deal about it but he doesn’t. He actually knows the names of the farmers whom he buys from and their practices. This is what the local food movement is about. 

We need to support people like him as the money stays local and he has a good handle on his suppliers. This is a win win for all of us. Just like the old days. The megalomart may be cheaper, but where does the meat come from??? Is it full of hormones and chemicals????? Is it pumped full of water????

So I suggest you support the Schwabs in LaSalle and any other merchant who tries to do the ‘right thing’ whether its selling local, or makes product here rather than in some megafactory. Like going to an independent restaurant who actually cooks food rather than just reheats bagged food, buy from merchants who buy from the local farmers.  

I will endevour to report on any merchant I find who supports the local food movement. If you have a favourite let me know. The word needs to get out.

I used to go to the market every Saturday morning with my Grandmother. We would go to the old one and she just had to visit all her friends, argue with the corn people about the type of corn...she loved Seneca Chief and knew her stuff. It was funny, she had to go upstairs to see the chicken lady and get 3 chicken legs, no more no less, then she would take 10 minutes to go down the ramp from the 2^nd floor. God help me if I tried to help her or take her Granny cart from her (she was in her 90’s and lied about her age). She taught me about fresh food, who to buy from and how to choose produce. She had some odd methods and couldn’t really cook well but she bought well.  Before the old market closed I would always get weepy as I walked up the ramp, I felt her presence. I guess that is why I miss it.

The old market was great, but it was rather dirty. Lucky for her, she passed away before the market went into a tailspin, closed and was reborn on Ottawa Street. 

I can state that I have never been a fan of the ‘new market’. It just doesn’t feel right to me and there are too few farmers. I used to love to buy from Farmer Bobs and just loved to see the seasons go by. The current market just seems to supermarkety to me. True some growers still go there and I try to see their products, but the feel is gone.

Are there bright spots? Yes there are reasons to go.

Produce: there are still growers from the county: Simpson Orchards is my fav as this is where I get my cider apples

The others are good too...I have nothing against the fruit mongers but I like the farmers 

Cheese: now the cheese lady successor is quite good and they have a wonderful selection….they carry the stuff from Niagara...yum...seems we are always overstocked when we are there

Fish: the new fish monger seems ok...product and price good...lots of perch and pickerel

Bakeries: I miss Adler...ok that dates me but the new ones are ok and well ok

Meat: Good stuff, but I want organic boar again so I’m boycotting Fieldgate Organics (lol not really but the boar was wonderful). Try Gourmet Butcher...Mac is an old mate of mine. 

The sausage availability at the market is wonderful. An Eastern European feel is with the sausages and that to me is good.

Olives: the seem better from the market. Get some garlic stuffed from Romano’s. Makes a wonderful Martini which is better than Pete the Younger’s. Actually, the olives are worth the trip.

I truly think that an decent city has at least one good market. Though I don’t care for the new market, it is all we have, so I guess I have to live with it. If I had my way I would take Eddie Francis on a field trip to Eastern Market in Detroit and show him a real market. Farmers, vendors, food, drink; the have it all. I like it better than Kensington Market. We could have that here in a smaller size, but a nice one...we used to have one.

Tomorrow is Family Day, so Terry and I decided to make a nice meal. This involved some nice lamb chops and maybe, just maybe...no actually, the best Ontario wine I have ever had.

We employed a quick marinade on the chops (herbes de Provence and olive oil (Spanish), then grilled them. We had them with some mashed potatoes salad and bread.

The wine...what can I say was a 2002 Nebbiolo from Ridgepoint. They are located on the bench across the street from Tawse.

The nose is amazing, It is soooooooo different from the usual. I get hints of chocolate and we both got nice leather. It is just so nice.

The flavour is amazing. This is a BIG WINE, a man’s wine (per Terry) and just is so nice. It isn’t fruit forward it is very very dark. I get the classic leather tones and some of the tar I am supposed to get. It basically twinged my tongue but the tannins are there and not attacking me. I really love this wine. 

It was extremely food friendly. The earthy tones of the herbes de Provence (fennel, rosemary etc) just went so well with the dark notes. I felt I was drinking a great wine from the old country.

The winery itself just seems so old world to me. Mauro out back with the kids and the dog, the wife running the store and the sister running the restaurant...just like I would like to believe the old country would be like.

It took me 3 years to get this wine (its always sold out) and I just want to eat at the restaurant. I just see a 1960’s vintage Sophia Loren stomping the grapes...what a vision. Mauro you made one hell of a bottle of wine!!! And I got some left. 

This week has flown by. It’s Thursday (ok its now Sunday)  and this is the first chance that I have been able to sit down long enuff to write this.

The weekend was a disaster. I finally managed to get Terry to allow me to install my dishwasher. A five minute job I thought. Five trips to the local Home Hardware in Essex and 2.5 full days later it was done. Terry’s brother installed her dishwasher about 9 years ago and well installed it like a gas fitter would. Very different from a plumber or any other species of intelligencia. Well, I had to demo the whole thing and then proceeded to run a new water line. That went rather well and after a trip to Windsor and getting my grinder I was able to free the water supply from the machine. So getting the water done meant I needed a drink and food so it was off to Calabria. Its close and we like it.

New to the menu is a lamb skewer antipasti. It was great and was a value. Lamb, roast peppers, feta, olives…...very nice and a super value. Oops the lamb is LOCAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well it was time to close so John decided to open some wine(all his wine is local). It was the new Meritage from Sprucewood, we tasted at the opening. Would I refuse the wine…...no no no no…. The wine was very nice. The nose is wonderful. Lots of fruit and just really nice.

The taste was wonderful. This wine is very well balanced and is just so nice. It was truly enjoyable and all three of us just liked it alot.

The one problem is that it is just too light to be a Meritage. Its a great wine and would be wonderful if it wasn’t a Meritage. To me and most people a Meritage should be a BIG chewy wine that is made for a big steak. This wine is just wonderful to drink by the fire. It would be wonderful with a roast, beef bourgunione  or where a heavy Pinot would work. We all commented that it was a proper upper end for their line of wine. It is just right for that.

All in all, we all enjoyed the wine. Thank’s John.

Oh yeah...Sunday was more fun and at 6 I realized that I had a wrong fitting. Duct tape over the waste tee (to keep the stink in) until Monday’s trip and well $150 later my dishwasher works. I’m still knackered!

Just to prove that I do drink non-locals, I want to talk about a lovely cost effective wine we picked up.

From Alsace we present W. Gisselbrecht Pinot Blanc. Under $13 it rates as a bargain.

We had it with schnitzel and garlic mashed potatoes and it just went so well. 

If you are not familiar with Alsatian wine, treat the wine like a Riesling as it is similar in style to the good German ones, but drier.

The wine had a wonderful floral nose and was soo inviting.

The taste was lighter than those big Alsatian whites but bigger than most New World Pinot Blancs. It was round and unctuous, I really liked it. Very fruity,

So if you are in Vintages give it a try. If you like the Alsatian style this is a wonderful entry into this world.

Until this morning I had thought that spring was just about upon us. It is very cold but I maintain that spring will be here soon and besides the groundhog (is that beastie good eatin???) says so.

The coming of spring brings with it the return of fresh food. The biggest food trend I see is local food. As a self anointed ‘Localvore’ I wish to comment on this.

The current ‘Hip Dinner Party’ is the 100 mile meal. I remember talking to my late lamented poultry supplier (you think after 3 generations buying from them they would have the decency to consult me when they sold out….Linda you were to find me a new supplier!!!!!!)  about her first clients doing a 100 miler...well Terry and I had just thrown a 5 miler... just because. Chicken from Cottam, veggies from Murray’s farm down the road and wine from Mastronardi...hahaha we could have biked…..if I wasn’t so lazy. Apart from lipids, spices and obviously non-locables we did it.

I really believe that this is the way to go. Mario Batali always says “get to know your butcher”. Why?? You can get the good stuff, and avoid those evil little packages with the label pasted over the evil parts. And if you buy meat with a best before of 2010 is it real??? Now apply this to food. Farmer Bob grows his food and sells some on his stand. This was picked today and not shipped for a week from Central America and was picked unripe. One evening I was ‘educated’ by a proud local farmer. I learned alot about organic food and how really it is unnecessary with the local practices. I don’t know if I buy it but I will take his word for it.

Further to this was a ‘lesson’ I received from a local vintner. He explained that yes, his prices may be higher than some imported wines, BUT he knows exactly what practices went into the wine. Did they use pesticides? and if so,are those legal in Canada….. What are their field practices…..cleanliness etc. Yes the wines are tested but we know what our people do. How about some Chinese dog food or those imported fish that were fed contaminated food. I think he’s right.

This year Sanson is adding Berkshire pork to their food offerings. Last year they had heirloom vegetables, and organic beef. Now with the proper pork, I can go there and get my wine, meat and veg….a whole meal of proper local food. Excellent!!!! Oh yes and if one travels to Wagner, you can get dessert, as Harold has strudel and pie and ice fruit wine….yum. OOPS he also has organic beef and other critters to...wonderful.

The point to this is that we have all the elements to develop a local cuisine. Look to Napa 20yrs ago. They went local and now have a wonderful local food scene. Why should I order fish from Chile, veg from Central America and wine from Australia, when I can have fish from Kingsville veg from all over and wine from the county. Which will be fresher???? Which will have taste??? Do you want tomatoes from Florida or Harrow??? Now WWGS….what’s that….What Would Gordon Say. Gordon Ramsay may have be voted the meanest man in England, but watch his show and he will mildly and politely explain that fresh local simple food is the best way to go. He has several Michelin stars so he just may be right.

The question is: are the local restaurants getting it. Yes some are. More local wine is showing up, but they seem more interested in selling Yellow Penguin than local Pinot. Calabria in Cottam and Jack’s in Kingsville get it. Calabria is now or soon expanding its menu to more great local stuff...excellent Linda!!

So what’s the point to this. Find our favorite local fruit stand and experience the bounty we live in. Don’t give up on kiwi’s and avocados but there is great local goodies and you will be supporting local farmers. Fresh is good and I just heard 4 fois gras in waiting next door….now they will be fresh!!!!! Naw, just joking the are pets for the neighbor kids…...at least for now.