Cooking With Wine

"I always cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food." I saw an apron that sported this phrase and immediately wondered if I should really be laughing so - it's hitting perhaps a little to close to home. I didn't buy the apron - but only because we already have a couple and never seem to even wear those ones.

There was a gathering of the Wine Boyz on the horizon, so I had to get some of the prep work done in advance. I thought some marinated mussels would pair nicely with the wines of our next theme and that truly called for some cooking wine - if only because I actually needed to put a bit into the cooking stock and marinade. Since I needed to know the exact flavour components of the wine that I was going to use, I naturally had to sacrifice myself and have a couple glasses while working away.

732. 2009 Red Rooster Reserve Pinot Gris (VQA Okanagan Valley)

I didn't find a lot of references to the differences between the Reserve Pinot Gris and the regular label; however, it appears that this Reserve is a single vineyard wine sourced on the Naramata Bench. I'll assume that the regular label Pinot Gris features fruit from the various vineyards available to the winery. I did see that production was limited to 222 cases though. So, we're pretty lucky to have our hands on some.

Winemaker, Karen Gillis points out that the Erickson Vineyard is known for its "site specific minerality and stone fruit flavours. Richer in mouth feel than many Okanagan Pinot Gris, it was a bit of shame that I had to use any of it for the mussels. Luckily, we were able to limit the amount that went into the cooking and sip back on the better part of the bottle.

The Wine Boyz will appreciate the mussels though.