… is that the same as P3 or P-cubed?
a wine cradle – hopefully we’ll have some amazing “mature” wines to decant using this cradle, a candle and a decanter often between now & exam time
Here are a few photos of Sunday’s family supper where service practice is planned into each meal served at home these days. Each practice is on a wine, paired with a specific course. The best part is our family tradition is to share Sunday supper. Sometimes we share our cozy supper with just the three of us; sometimes, we have a close friend or two join us; on really special occasions, we’ll have a festive supper with “all the leaves in the table”.
easy, fresh white wine from Languedoc. Fresh acid, green apples, herbaceous & lemon flavors brightened the avocado, roasted tomato & shrimp salad
This Sunday was just our little family. #1 Hubby was chef du jour making a salad of avocados, roasted tomatoes, sweet onion and sautéed shrimp to start our dinner paired with a Picpoul de Pinet from Languedoc.
After the salad, we had broiled steel-head salmon with mushroom & roasted garlic polenta, and our last bottle of 2007 Saintsbury Brown Ranch Pinot Noir. This lovely Carneros Pinot did not require decanting but P2P did purely for more decanting practice for the ISG exam…. hopefully our friends Mr. Graves and Mr. Ward at Saintsbury will forgive the rather extravagant “practice” wine. It was just as delicious as we anticipated.
Did you know the little gold crown on the Brown Ranch label is an homage to Burgundy, the “king of Pinot Noir”? Don’t you just love that?
Hospitality is in the DNA of aspiring Sommeliers. The study of wine, wine service, wine history, viticulture, vinification, terroir, varietals… You get an idea of the details… and that’s all they would be – details, unless the driving force for the focus were not to share the love and knowledge of wine by serving guests in restaurants, hotels, country clubs, inns, and wineries with gracious hospitality, fresh food creatively prepared, and wines thoughtfully paired. It takes a fair amount of planning to do this. So part of the training is learning to plan our time wisely, while preparing our studies for the numerous facets of the substantial final exams, and preparing foods and pairing them with wines for fellow classmates is a helpful component of class.
Pork rillettes with accompaniments including pickled dried apricots & currants
Yesterday was P2P’s turn to discuss pairing foods and wines from the Loire. It was amazing how much study, reflection, and testing recipes with wines the preparation took. It was kind of intimidating too. P2P did some cooking years ago for some friends who had a popular catering enterprise in Birmingham, AL. That’s it. Other than that, all cooking has been for family and friends as we’ve traipsed about the Country. There are restaurant owners, managers, and chefs in this class, as well as a few of us who want to grow into those positions. They make a fun class – our instructor is great, sharing with each of the students a genuine esprit d’hospitality. Wonderfully, we want each other to succeed.
Jo Pithon Anjou sans some of that wonderful acidity of its youth
So yesterday was my privilege to serve pork rillettes, chevre & parsley on endive, pickled apricots & currants with an Anjou and Sancerre. Both the pairings were a “little past their prime” but it was really interesting how faded they tasted in comparison to the younger, fresher, brighter versions we were tasting with the main Loire portion of the class. It’s helpful… and also a very good lesson in why to taste each wine on its own merit when it comes to the blind-tasting portion of our exam. It will be pretty tempting to compare “this with that” and that would lead one right into a labyrinth that would be hard to find the way out of without wasting precious time. Sounds silly to be so fascinated with these minute details, but it’s truly helpful and something to also put into practice at work and home tastings now. ~ à bientôt!
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