I never finished up telling you about our Sonoma trip, but one of the highlights was spending the better part of one day wine-tasting with this lady:
That was obviously before Cate got pregnant. It’s always fun to meet “internet friends” in real life, and Cate and I got along just as well as I hoped we would. My next goal is to get Cate and Mike to come visit the Southeast!
In order to make the meet up as smooth as possible, we chose Kendall-Jackson since it was centrally located and right off the highway. I generally associate Kendall-Jackson with lowest common denominator wines: over-oaked Chardonnays and such that you can buy in a Walgreens or CVS (but not in Tennessee!). The faux-French chateau didn’t exactly help my impression. So imagine our surprise when we tasted some really solid wines!
It turns out that Kendall-Jackson also makes some exceptional limited release wines that we really enjoyed. We purchased a bottle of their Highland Estate series Camelot Highlands Chardonnay, a chardonnay sourced from the Santa Maria valley in Santa Barbara County. According to the bottle, it’s the only East-West valley in the California coast so it gets a daily dose of fog and moderate temperatures to combine for a long growing season.
We busted out this bottle the other night in order to relive a little bit of that cool California November, and it was just as good as we remembered it. The wine is aged for 8 months in 57% new French Oak barrels so it has just enough of that buttery toastiness to create a lush palate. The bottle talks about the tropical fruit in the flavor profile, but I also got a little bit of a floral profile, not unlike some of our favorite Viogniers. With just over 3700 cases produced of this particular wine, I doubt we’ll be able to find it again unless we make another trip to the West Coast.
There was food as well! Joe and I play this game where we come up with extremely florid descriptions of the night’s menu. This time it was Steelhead Trout with a Sour Cream-Cucumber Sauce, Grilled Zucchini Coins, and a Fiery Asian Slaw. The creamy sauce was a good cooling complement to the slaw, and we used up some of our remaining CSA produce.
Trout with Sour Cream-Cucumber Sauce
source: Cooking Light
Yields 2 servings
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup chopped peeled cucumber
- 1/4 cup fat-free sour cream
- 1/4 cup plain fat-free yogurt
- 1/4 teaspoon grated lemon rind
- 1 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
- 1/4 teaspoon dried dill
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon pepper
- 2 (6-ounce) trout fillets
- Olive oil
Preparation
- Combine first 6 ingredients in a bowl; stir well, and set cucumber mixture aside.
- Sprinkle salt and pepper over trout, and brush with olive oil. Heat a grill to medium heat. Grill trout, flipping once, until fish flakes easily with a fork. Spoon 1/4 cup sauce over each fillet and serve.
