The holiday season is in full swing. The holidays bring thoughts
of peace and faith, the bustle of gift shopping, reverence to
charitable works in our communities, resolutions of personal
betterment in the New Year, and of course, meal planning for family
and friends.
The holiday season is in full swing. The holidays bring thoughts of peace and faith, the bustle of gift shopping, reverence to charitable works in our communities, resolutions of personal betterment in the New Year, and of course, meal planning for family and friends.
When it comes to meal planning, a lot of us are stuck in a rut of preparing the same dishes at Christmas as those we prepared for Thanksgiving.
Many families are choosing to go a little outside of the traditional and serve something that is a family favorite, an ethnic dish or seasonally fresh.
Crab, specifically Dungeness crab, is in season and has quickly replaced the turkey on many tables. Found in coastal waters from Santa Barbara all the way to Alaska, Dungeness crabs are sought for their incredible flavor and reasonable price.
The meat from the crab is perfect for salads, soups, crab cakes and other appetizers. These first courses would be paired nicely with a variety of white wines.
The one thing I would recommend, if you are making a salad, is to be careful with the use of vinegar in dressing. Vinaigrettes can overwhelm most wines, so make sure to pick a wine with good acidity – by doing this, the acidity in the wine helps mellow the bitterness of the vinegar.
It is the season to celebrate all that we have been blessed with, so why not pull out some sparkling wine or champagne.
Two recommendations for the bubbly include Champagne Tarlant a Oeuilly from France. This brut champagne is made with equal parts chardonnay, pinot noir and meunier grapes. It is refreshingly crisp, with hints of Myer lemon. The other is a sparkling wine from Schramsberg, a Brut Blanc de Noirs. It is very effervescent, with nice citrus and a bit of grassiness. Both are around $30.
Along the same lines, a nice Riesling would work well here too. One I tried recently was a 2005 Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Sonnenuhr from Germany ($12). Nice minerals, with a slight sweetness that reminds me of chewing on sugar cane.
My counterparts in the paper, food columnist Elizabeth Gage and grilling columnist Mitch Mariani, both said they love steamed or grilled crab with a bit of lemon and drawn butter. I could not agree more!
You could serve chardonnay, one that has nice acidity and a bit of creaminess, but I would recommend going with varietals like viognier or roussanne.
Sarah’s Vineyard 2004 Rousanne Besson Vineyard is a nice match, light in texture with apples and citrus. This Rhone wine lets the crab express its flavor without overpowering the simplicity of the dish.
Anyone who loves crab has probably had crab cioppino. Cioppino is comparable to a seafood stew and can be made in many ways, using a variety of ingredients and spices.
When I first came to Gilroy, a couple friends took me to my first cioppino dinner – all you can eat cioppino for the price of ticket. This was a fundraiser to support the Gilroy High School’s athletic programs.
At first, I patiently cracked the crab and delicately worked out the meat from the shell. As I ate more crab, and drank more wine, I put what little table manners I had aside. Crab shell shrapnel started flying in all directions.
I do not know how much I ate that night, but two things happened. The folks on either side of me got up and moved to a different table and I was in a food coma for three days.
My favorite cioppino recipe comes from a recipe by Nunzio Alioto that I found on the Food Network Web site. It combines olive oil, garlic, onions, fresh tomatoes, fish stock, shrimp, mussels, clams, red and white wine, salt, pepper, basil, chopped parsley and red pepper flakes.
The cioppino is loaded with seafood, but the spicy sauce is actually what you want to pair with the wine. Most full-bodied reds would overwhelm the food; most white wines would be smothered by the dish. Find some nice, medium-bodied red wines to serve.
Two pinot noir wines I like are the 2004 Migration Anderson Valley from Goldeneye Winery.
This is a nice, big fruity pinot noir with a touch of earthiness ($28). The 2004 Acacia Pinot Noir is a solid, easy to find, easy to drink pinot for around $15.
Not well known and underrated, grenache can also find good harmony with cioppino.
A great match would be the 2003 Marilyn Remark grenache. It is loaded with black fruit, pepper and a mild smokiness. The finish is long and elegant ($45).
Next year, if you are getting bored with the same old thing, get in a crabby mood and try something different.
Cheers!
David Cox is a wine enthusiast and executive director of St. Joseph’s Family Center in Gilroy. He can be reached at wi**********@***oo.com.
