Whether it’s his Sunday night paella or his Little Neck clams with rosemary sausage (served daily), Chef Esteban’s seafood is among the best in the River City.
The Muscadet (above) by Château de l’Oiselinière, currently served by the glass at Vino Vino, is the ideal pairing: made from old-vine Melon de Bourgogne by one of the appellation’s most storied and revered producers, this wine pops with acidity and minerality.
100 per cent Sauvignon Blanc from Bordeaux, 100 per cent delicious!
The Copain 2010 Anderson Valley Tous Ensemble from Pinot Noir is showing BEAUTIFULLY right now, one of our favorites. Bright red and black berry fruit with gentle tannin and balanced acidity… Great seafood wine… Calamari, anyone?
The Sigàlas white (75% Assyrtiko, 25% Athiri) from the Greek island of Santorini is just one of the new killer white wines by the glass at Vino Vino.
The minerality in this awesome wine paired gorgeously last night with steamed mussels and Chef Esteban’s housemade aioli and housecut fries.
There are a bunch of new and exotic white wines by the glass at Vino Vino. Come see why our white wine list is ON FIRE!
At Vino Vino, one of the things we love so much about our Calamari (one of Chef Esteban’s classic dishes) is how well it pairs with so many different types of wine.
Whether red, white, bubbly, sweet, or dry… It’s just one of those dishes — thanks to Chef Esteban’s light breading, high-temperature frying, and the high quality of the calamari themselves — that pairs well with whatever you’re in the mood for drinking.
The dish was superb the other night with this Domaine de la Janasse Côtes du Rhône Villages Terre d’Argile 2006. The earthiness and savoriness of this wine sang beautifully against the lightness of the seafood and the acidity of Chef Esteban’s tomato dipping sauce.
The wine is called terre d’argile (literally, clay subsoil) because of the high clay content of the growing site where the wine is “raised.” The soils give this juicy red that classic, unique minerality that you only find in the Côtes du Rhône, one of our favorite appellations.
With a few months of cold weather still ahead of us and lots of great wintry “comfort food” dishes on Chef Esteban’s menu right now (like pork pot roast, potato, tangerine, carrots, fennel and duck breast, duck confit, sweet potato, grapes, natural jus), we’ve been turning again and again to an Alpine Pinot Noir by the Abbazia di Novacella (AHB-bah-TZEE-ah dee NOH-vah-CHEHL-lah) from the German-speaking Alps of Northern Italy.
The Abbey of Novacella is one of Italy’s oldest, continuously operating wineries, with roots stretching back to the Middle Ages. The cool summer temperatures of the South Tyrol are ideal for creating fresh, clean expressions of Pinot Noir, gently tannic yet with good body and rich flavor.
Abbazia di Novacella 2009 Pinot Nero, currently served by-the-glass at Vino Vino.
Above: Spanish winemaker Laureano Serres Montagut and his “head-trained” vines. His Macabeo is just one of the “no added sulfite” wines we will be tasting on Monday with celebrated wine writer Alice Feiring.
Wine and Love
Monday, October 25, 2010, 7 p.m.
Six wines, four courses
To reserve for this event ($75 per person),
please call (512) 465-9282.
We will have copies of Alice Feiring’s book,
The Battle for Wine and Love
available for her to sign for guests.
Have you ever wondered what wines without added sulfites taste like? On Monday night at Vino Vino, we will be tasting 3 “unsulfured” wines with celebrity wine writer Alice Feiring.
Since antiquity, winemakers have used some form of sulfur to “stabilize” their wines. In other words, they add sulfur to stop the wine from oxidizing (when in contact with oxygen) and changing color. Without sulfur, the wines would stink and they would turn brown. In the 19th century, European winemakers realized they could add SO2 (sulfur dioxide) to stabilize their wines. Today, all winemakers — in Europe and the U.S. — are required to write “contains sulfites” on their labels.
In recent years, however, winemakers have perfected techniques in winemaking that allows the wine to stabilize using the natural sulfites produced by fermentation. ALL WINE contains sulfites, even wines to which no SO2 has been added. But a new breed of winemaker has discovered that great wines don’t need to be sulfured. They just need to be made with respect for nature and they require a little aeration before service.
Come and find out what “no added sulfite” wine tastes like at Vino Vino with one of our favorite wine writers in the world, the inimitable Alice Feiring, one of our country’s leading experts on natural winemaking and an advocate of “no sulfur” in contemporary winemaking.
THESE WINES HAVE NEVER BEEN AVAILABLE
IN TEXAS UNTIL NOW
Benito Santos 2007 Rías Baixas Vinedo de Xoan Albariño
80-100 year-old pre-phylloxera Albariño grown in sandy and granite soils
Laureano Serres 2009 Abeurador Macabeo (no added sulfite)
100% Macabeo (Viura) grown in clay soils, vinified with 2 days of skin contact, no added sulfite
Vinya Sanfeliu 2009 Trepat Rosat (no added sulfite)
Trepat is a native grape of Penedes traditionally used to make rosé, no added sulfite
A classic 100% Tempranillo aged in large, old American oak casks
Els Jelipins 2004 Sumoll (no added sulfite)
Sumoll with a small amount of Garnacha, grown in clay and limestone soils, whole-cluster fermentation in open-topped barrels, no added sulfite
Primitivo Quiles 1948 Fondillón
Old-vine Monastrell grown in limestone-soils, vinified using the Solera system
Wine Tasting Party
ROMANCING THE RHÔNE
navigating the best value in fine and collectible wine today
Wednesday, September 8, 5:30 p.m.
$20 per person (including tax and gratuity)
Taste 6 wines from the Rhône Valley of France
with pairings created especially by Chef Esteban.
Stay for dinner and receive a 20% discount.
Receive a 20% discount for all retail sales.
The wine world is abuzz right now with the wines of Spain and Basque Country. Today, New York Times wine writer Eric Asimov published a great article on the Basque Country wine Txakolina (Txakoli) in his weekly column and he also posted on his blog about these wonderful wines, which until recently were almost impossible to find in the U.S.
You can taste Ameztoi 2009 Txakolina Rubentis Rose, a Txakolina (Txakoli) imported by André today at our Spanish and Basque Wine Tasting Party, featuring the wines of De Maison Imports, André’s company. (As Eric points out in his article today, Txakoli and Txakolina are used interchangeably.)
BASQUE AND SPANISH WINE TASTING
Weds., August 11, 5:30 p.m.
$15 per person (including tax and gratuity)
taste 6 wines from Basque Country and Spain with pairings created by Chef Esteban
Stay tuned for details for our annual TXAK BLOK event, Saturday,
August 21, where André Tamers will be pouring 6 bottlings of Txakolina!
Above: Local Latin sensation Son y No Son on the set of the 2006 hit movie, Infamous, about the life of Truman Capote.
TUES JULY 27 — FREE SHOW 9 PM
The sexy Latin grooves of
Son y No Son
