Duck Pond
Chardonnay
Merlot
Cabernet Sauvignon
Only $9.99 a bottle
Chardonnay
Rich fruit aromas. Hot sunny days and cool desert nights are just right
to bring Chardonnay to peak ripeness without losing the important acids.
Pineapple, pear and guava fruits, hints of lemon and oak fill the mouth.
Enjoy it with creamy soups, light pastas and fish.
Merlot
Dark fruits such as plum and blackberry work well with the moderate
oak,
hints of leather and velvety texture. A bit of chocolate lingers along
the smooth finish. Excellent accompaniment for lamb or roast beef. Pair
with other foods of medium intensity such as grilled portabellas, filets
and lasagna.
Cabernet Sauvignon
Introduced by rich, oakey aromas, this wine pairs cassis and caramel
with earth and woody flavors to produce a well balanced Cabernet Sauvignon.
Football, the World Series, Halloween and leaves that change color - that’s October. It’s the time when we put on our sweaters for the first time in months and move inside for more of our activities. We hope this issue of The Little Rooster newsletter will give you some ideas that will add enjoyment to the time you spend with friends and family. As always, stop by and say hello whenever you’re in our neighborhood and let us know if there’s anything special we can do to serve you better.
One of our special choices you might be interested in is our wine of the month from Duck Pond Cellars, It’s a beautiful vineyard located on a total of 300 acres near Salem, Oregon.
Also take a look at our special recipes. "Camote Tartes Tatins With Pumpkin-Seed Brittle".
As always, in this newsletter you will find need-to-know information regarding our October wine tasting as well as a host of related tidbits. Through our website you will be able to access our archived newsletters, recipes, check our wine of the month, research wines and beers, learn about our tastings and other specials. We will aim to educate and inform and hope that you will come back to visit us online often. Give it a look and see what people are excited about. Visit us at Littleroosterliquors.com and enjoy!
The Guest
of the Month is a highlight in our newsletter where we feature knowledgeable
people in the wine, beer and food industries to help educate us with their
expertise.
This month I am pleased to announce that Gary V. Costa from Connecticut Distributors
will be our guest writer. I thoroughly enjoyed his
very informative article about “Cork Or Screw Caps ? ”. I
hope you do the same!
A big thanks goes out to all who have written to me with comments and suggestions about new wines, spirits and beer. Keep those thoughts and concerns coming. Remember, you, the customer, drive what we do here. This month, our Beer of the Month is Halloween Ale, brewed at Gritty’s brewpub in Freeport, ME Please check out our article by resident beer expert, Scott Brinckerhoff, for more details and a tasty recipe to go with this brew.
•
Fri. 10/1 4:30-7:30 pm – Wine of the Month! –
Duck Pond Chardonnay, Merlot & Cabernet Sauvignon
• Fri. 10/8 4:30-7:30 pm –
Domaine De Pouy’s Wine
• Fri. 10/15 4:30-7:30 pm –
Donna Cristina ’s Merlot
• Fri. 10/22 4:30-7:30 pm –
Bourdoux & Chateau Des Tulleries red & Chateau Les Tulleries white
• Fri. 10/29 4:30-7:30 pm –
Mas De Guiot ’s Grenache-Syrah
Viognier
Viognier is a white grape, which is originally a product of France. The wine has a higher percentage of alcohol than many other whites. The color is deep yellow. This wine produces rich flavors with low acidity.
The flavors may consist of honeysuckle, apricot, and peaches. Viognier has great soft round texture and a floral nose. This wine does consist
of a slightly spicy component. The rich complexity makes it a great alternative to Chardonnay.
This grape is gown mainly in a small area in the Rhone Valley of France.
It is also grown in Cote Rotie among the syrah grapes and in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. Qriginally in California there were only a handful of produces, but in the 1990s it became more popular. Now there are over 30 producers of Viognier.
In the U.S it is also grown in Virginia. Work is being done in Italy and Australia to produce this wine.
Due to its complexity Viognier can be served with a variety of foods. Pork Roast, Sword fish, and most spicy foods, to name a few.
Check out our Roosterwear.
Cork Or Screw Caps ?
By
Gary V. Costa, Connecticut Distributors
One of the worst things that I can think of when
opening a bottle of Wine, particularly if have never tasted this particular bottle, is for it to
Taste bad. That's bad enough if you are at home, but what about out at
A restaurant , with friends, and they asked you to choose the wine?
First of all there is a big difference between a wine that you don't like
And a wine that is spoiled in some way. The tricky part is sometimes it
Takes a lot of experience to know the difference, even for someone who
Drinks wine on a very regular basis.
There are several common things that can go wrong with a wine after it has been bottled.
The most common is that the wine becomes "corked". This is when either there was mold spores left in the cork
during the Manufacturing process (remember, cork is actually the bark of a cork oak
Tree. It takes 20 years to develop before harvest.) and / or the reaction of
The chlorine used to sterilize the corks with leftover mold spores. Add that to a nice dark moist
environment and you can get a bottle of wine that both Smells and tastes (yuk !!!) like your dog smells after if came in out of the rain!
What happens is that when all of the above occurs in a bottle of wine , TCA
Or trichloranisole is formed. This big ugly sounding chemical won't hurt you or make you sick,
but it will ruin your bottle of wine in even tiny amounts.
The second most common problem is that air leaked into the bottle,
(again caused by a bad cork) and the wine oxidized or to put it simply,
It "rusted" . It will taste sort of burnt or medicine like. In advanced staged
Of oxidation, white wines will turn brownish and red wines will take on an
Orange tint.
The bottom line is this. If you are at a restaurant and you think the wine is
Spoiled, let your waiter know immediately !!! All good restaurants would rather give you a good bottle rather
than make you think that that is the way The wine is supposed to taste. And don't feel bad for the restaurant. This
Is more common than you might think. The restaurant gets a full refund
On spoiled wines from their distributor. (providing it is a fairly recent
Vintage).
All that said and done, after reading the information above,
what seems to be the cause of 90% of the wines that go bad in the bottle? Answer:
THE CORK !
Well there is a solution, and it is coming to a Restaurant or Wine
Shop near you as soon as now! SCREW CAPS.
DON"T LAUGH. Yes, you are going to start seeing screw top closures
On a number of your favorite wines, in fact some are already in the
Marketplace. I don't mean just on inexpensive wines either. You are going to see screw tops across
the board from inexpensive wines all the way Through some of the "First Growth" houses of France.
The wine producers that are making this switch are not doing it to save
Money on the closure, industry sources have stated that it actually costs
Approx. $ .01 more to use a screw top closure. The savings is in the 8-10%
Of their product that goes bad every year.
So keep this all in mind. When you go to your local wine shop and see
A screw cap, DON"T BE AFRAID !!. When your waiter comes up
To you with your wine selection and he opens it without a corkscrew,
BE HAPPY !! You know that your wine will be the freshest that it can be.
P.S. A reprint of a very good article by Wine Spectator Senior Editor
James Laube will be available at The Little Rooster that also addresses
This subject.
A 'Gritty' beer proves quite smooth
Halibut Indian-style, in a yogurt sauce
4 thick halibut (or other white fish) steaks
Did you know?
Scott Brinckerhoff
of Haddam is a freelance writer specializing in business communications.
He also brews beer, keeps bees and cooks "seriously." Each issue,
he'll provide offbeat comments on our monthly beer, long with a recipe.
No sooner do the leaves begin to turn coppery than Gritty's copper-colored Halloween Ale,
The Little Rooster's beer of the month, becomes available for a short while.
An ESB or Extra Special Bitter, Gritty's Halloween Ale is rich in color and flavor.
Or maybe given its all-English composition of malt, hops and yeast, we should say "flavour."
Halloween Ale, brewed at Gritty's brewpub in Freeport, ME, makes its appearance about the
same time that pumpkins begin popping up at roadside stands throughout New England.
It's a well-carbonated brew that will please your palate and raise your eyebrows as you note
its complex tastes that hint of fruit, caramel and maybe a bit of pine, which is certainly
appropriate for a Maine product.
Halloween Ale pours into an ample off-white head, leaving behind some lacing as the glass empties.
The beer goes down easily, belying the "gritty" moniker. It's smooth but serious and at 6 percent alcohol,
'tis a manly brew. Still, it's not overpowered by hops and is just sweet and aromatic enough that
ladies too might well find it appealing, so long as they don't mind pouring from a bottle featuring a
headless bartender and flying bats.
Gritty's has been around since 1988, when a British firm designed their first brew pub in Portland.
A second one opened in Freeport in 1995, testament to how successful the Gritty's concept and
product line have been. There are far worse ways to spend an afternoon than an hour or so in LL
Bean's fly fishing department followed by an hour or two at Gritty's in Freeport,
enjoying a couple of Halloween drafts and some pub fare.
But if Maine isn't on your immediate agenda, The Little Rooster is ready to jump start your
Halloween Ale experience, so grab a six-pack while they last.
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tablespoon grated ginger or bottled ginger paste
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
4 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon red chili flakes
8 oz. plain yogurt (not nonfat)
Sea salt and pepper
Lemon wedges and coriander leaves for garnish
Place the halibut in a large ovenproof dish and cover. In a food processor or blender, combine the onion,
garlic, ginger, coriander, cumin, lemon juice and chili flakes with half of the yogurt, blending until
smooth. Add the remaining yogurt and blend again. Season with the salt and pepper.
Pour the yogurt marinade over the fish, turning the fish several times to be sure it's coated.
Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, or overnight.
Cover the fish with foil and bake in a preheated 375º oven for 10 minutes.
Remove the foil and bake for another 7-10 minutes. Serve hot, garnished with lemon wedges and coriander leaves.
Basmati rice and a side of spinach round this meal out nicely.
ESBs, or Extra Special Bitters are hiding in plain sight all over the United States.
Turns out there are literally hundreds of them being brewed, almost entirely in small breweries,
all over the country. Despite their prevalence, they never seem to have captured the attention of
most beer drinkers. That's too bad - they're a pleasant change from the insipid stuff many of us
drink casually. Judging from comments at www.beeradvocate.com, Breweries around North
America are creating some very well regarded examples of ESBs.
The next time you're game for an ale that's on the dark side, not too happy, but well carbonated
and with a fruity or floral aroma, try an ESB. After all, the English have been brewing,
drinking and exporting them since the Middle Ages.
Active time: Start to finish - 25 min
Ingredients:
Pumpkin-Seed Brittle
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
1/4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1 cup raw shelled pumpkin seeds, toasted
Tartes
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
2 large 3-inch-diameter yams (red-skinned sweet potatoes), peeled, cut crosswise into eight 1/2-inch-thick slices total
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes, room temperature
1 17.3-ounce package frozen puff pastry (2 sheets), thawed
1 large egg
Vanilla ice cream
For brittle
Spray large rimmed baking sheet with nonstick spray. Stir sugar, 2 tablespoons water,
and pinch of salt in small saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat to high.
Boil without stirring until mixture turns deep amber, occasionally swirling pan and brushing down sides
with wet pastry brush, about 5 minutes. Stir in seeds; immediately spread out on baking sheet.
Cool until hardened. Break into pieces. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Store in airtight container
at room temperature.)
For tartes
Bring 8 cups water, 1 tablespoon vanilla, and 1 teaspoon salt to boil in heavy large saucepan.
Add yam slices; cook until just tender, about 6 minutes (do not overcook). Using slotted spoon,
transfer yam slices to rack; cool.
Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly spray eight 3/4-cup ramekins or custard cups with nonstick spray.
Stir 1 cup sugar and 3 tablespoons water in heavy small saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves.
Increase temperature to high. Boil without stirring until syrup turns deep amber,
occasionally swirling pan and brushing down sides with wet pastry brush, about 5 minutes.
Remove from heat. Gradually add butter, whisking until melted and smooth (mixture will bubble).
Whisk in 1 teaspoon vanilla. Divide caramel among ramekins. Place 1 yam slice atop caramel in each ramekin.
Using 3 1/2-inch round cookie cutter, cut pastry into 8 disks. Pierce pastry all over with fork.
Top each yam slice with pastry disk. Beat egg in bowl to blend. Brush pastry lightly with egg.
Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sugar. Bake until pastry is browned and puffed, about 25 minutes.
Invert tartes onto plates. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream and brittle.
Makes 8 servings.