Text 6890, 108 rader
Skriven 2006-10-24 05:02:24 av Ian Hoare (1:275/311)
     Kommentar till en text av MICHAEL LOO
Ärende: Re: various dissonances 465
===================================
Hi MICHAEL, 

 on Mon, 23 Oct 2006 09:05:00 -0400, you said:-

> -=> Ian Hoare said to Hap Newsom <=-

> IH> wine growing area, but when we visited it, it was being used for
> IH> quality Merlot production, though "K" vintners were making some Syrah
> IH> based wine that Australian wine makers wouldn't be ashamed of. 
>
>I've had decent Washington Syrahs, but I found in general that
>they're too acid and so remind me of unripe fruit more than
>they should.
Agreed, and that was what set 'K' apart. Big, big wines, by no means cheap,
but full of interest. Their Ovide "En cerise" was one of the few wines we
actually allowed ourselves to buy while on the West Coast.

> IH> Well, two things. If you're sure it's the Pinot Noir, I'm curious to
> IH> know where. I didn't see any worth talking about on '03. As for
> IH> distressing the vines, it's certainly a truism that "il faut souffrir
> IH> pour faire du bon vin" "The vine must suffer to make good wine". This
> IH> applies to Europe, at any rate, where the best wines are made from
> IH> vines grown on land that you'd not try to grow thistles on. The only
> IH> stress that doesn't lead to good wine is lack of adequate sunlight.
>
>Well, too much water is probably the worst thing ... too little water
>isn't a great picnic, either, mostly.

Sorry, I'd not considered too _much_ water as stress inducing - quite the
reverse. Too little - as long as it isn't a total drought - merely reduces
yield and increases quality.  

>To my knowledge, western Washington doesn't do much of
>note enologically, despite having a town named Napavine.

I accept that, though I find it a leetle surprising. 

>Rhone ones (but see above). A Woodward Canyon Chardonnay was
>the best new world example I've ever had, for example.

Interesting, I liked him and his wines enormously, as you'll no doubt
recall. However Chehalem Ian's reserve (from Oregon) and Tom Shudic's Ch
Burbank are the two which impressed me the most.


> IH> I doubt that you will, but if ever you do feel tempted and can lay
> IH> your hands on some _good_ (not those vast watery californian globes
> IH> I've seen from time to time) ripe haas avocados, then you might like to
> IH> try this. 
>
>I have recently found that the correct name is Hass avocado(e)s - this
>to my shock and surprise.

Right.. I sit corrected. Thanks. We don't get the Californian ones, as it
happens, but from Israel, but they grow there very well indeed. 
 
> IH> Guacamole (Lourdes Nichols - IMH)
>
>Looks very good, but I'd add a pinch of cumin and a
>half teaspoon of some hot substance or other to this.

Never thought of cumin, though the use of comino is of course widespread -
if not to say universal in Mexico. I blindly follow LN, so I'll try to
remember to try a pinch next time, it certainly wouldn't do any harm.

Well, what I do is to vary the hotness with chiles. We got some little asian
chiles the other day, and used those. I tell you what was interesting. We
made us a Guacamole for lunch using two hass avocados, and spiced it with
three of those chiles, seeded though leaving the ribs. It had a tingle, just
how I like it. 

However, for supper, Jacquie fixed us a stir fry of vegetables and in that
(which had a far greater weight/volume than the avocados), she used 4 seeded
chiles, and it was VERY significantly hotter than the Guacamole. I suppose
you'll retort that of course it only goes to show that the Mexicans know
something about the properties of the fruit.

>Substitutes:
>
>chayote squash (Once cooked, this works as an excellent
>low-calorie substitute for avocados in many dishes.)
>
>(for guacamole) peas (Puree raw peas in a blender.) OR
>
>(for guacamole) asparagus (Cook until tender, chill, then puree.) OR
>
>(for guacamole) broccoli (Cook until tender, chill, then puree.) OR

BAD Michael. It would be another mole, not an aguacate (avocado) one.


>Varieties:

Worthy of including in an info file. I think I'll do that.

>By the way, enjoyed your Laguiole writeup ... but the way the diacritics
translated gave me a headache. 

Thanks. Sorry about the French. I have the same trouble with some of my
French correspondents in Eudora. I probably set up Windows wrong or didn't
tell Agent what charset to use. I use "Western allowing Unicode - iso
8859-1" for sending and Codepage 1252 for Windows. Obviously your browser
didn't recognise them, so didn't translate them correctly to your codepage.

Bon appetit
Ian in Forges
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