Mushroom Recipes

This weekend is the start of the Wine & Mushroom Festival and Nancy Charles has made some mushroom appetizers for our tasting room visitors to enjoy. They're absolutely delicious and go very well with Pinot Noir. Here are the recipes -- all are very easy to make:

Marinated Mushrooms

1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
1 small onion, thinly sliced
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp dried parsley
1 tsp ground dry mustard
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1 pound small button mushrooms (or cremini)

In medium saucepan, mix vinegar, olive oil, onion, salt, parsley, dry mustard, brown sugar and garlic. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat. Stir in mushrooms. Simmer 10-12 minutes, stirring occasionally. Transfer to a container and chill in the refrigerator until serving.

Mushroom and Almond Pate

2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup sliced cremini mushrooms (3 oz)
1 cup oyster mushrooms (3 oz)
½ cup stemmed and sliced shitake
½ cup coarsely chopped onion
2 cloves garlic
¼ cup sherry
1 tbsp minced fresh tarragon
½ cup toasted, slivered almonds
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper

Cook first 5 ingredients 8 minutes, or until tender. Add garlic and cook. Add sherry, stir and remove from heat. Add tarragon and let cool. Transfer mixture to food processor and add remaining ingredients, blending until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning as desired. Garnish with red bell pepper strips, toasted almonds and parsley.

Mushroom Caponata

2 tbsp olive oil
1 eggplant, unpeeled, cut into ½” cubes
8 oz mixed mushrooms, sliced thin
3 cloves garlic, minced
½ red onion, diced small
1tbsp parsley, chopped
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
21 grams tomato, diced small
1 tbsp capers
Salt and pepper

Saute eggplant in olive oil in batches, until tender (about 5 minutes). Add salt and pepper. Cook mushrooms, garlic, onion and parsley 3-4 minutes, until softened. Add vinegar, tomatoes and capers and cook 2 minutes. Add eggplant into mixture, along with pine nuts and a pinch of sugar if desired. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (Can add 1 additional tbsp vinegar or ¼ cup tomato sauce if desired.)

2010 Alsace Festival

Tickets are now on sale for the 2010 Alsace Festival - a celebration of the most delicious white wines produced in the Anderson Valley. Tickets are only $65 per person for the grand tasting -- complete with wine, food, and live music. It's a great event -- get your tickets at http://www.avwines.com/!

Participating wineries include: Annie Amie Vineyards, Breggo Cellars, Chateau Grand Traverse, Claudia Springs Winery, Esterlina Vineyards, Greenwood Ridge Vineyards, Handley Cellars, Husch Vineyards, Lazy Creek Vineyards, Londer Vineyards, McFadden Farm, Foris Vineyards Winery, Navarro Vineyards, Philo Ridge Vineyards, Brandborg Winery & Vineyard, Toulouse Vineyards, Zina Hyde Cunningham, Graziano Family of Wines, Zin Valle, Robert Sinskey Vineyards, Fogarty Winery and many more...

Wine Club Par-lay

This past Saturday we had our first wine club pick-up party and open house. We hired a very talented band from the Mendocino Coast, some friends (luckily one a caterer) made delicious fall foods, and we opened the cellar to friends from near and far. We popped bottles of Pinot and Sauvignon Blanc, and event opened some of our 2008 Semillon, which we just released (one whopping barrel made). It was a great day and we look forward to having many more.

90 and 91 Points: More Scores and Reviews!

Scores and reviews on our 2007 Pinots have begun to come out, and we're very happy so far. Here's a look (more can be found on our Web site):

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Burghound recently rated all three 2007 Pinots 90 points and above -- one of the highest group ratings in the entire California Pinot issue, with well known names abounding:

2007 Zero New Oak Pinot: 90 points
"A fresh and relatively complex nose resembles that of the 'All-In' with the primary difference being that the wood is less obvious with lovely, balanced and pure medium-bodied flavors that possess good concentration and length on the sappy finish and mildly dusty finish. This is really very pretty and fashioned in an understated style..." - Allen Meadows

2007 All-In Pinot: 90 points
"A very pretty and impressively complex nose features notes of ripe red berry fruit, plum and violet aromas that are trimmed in a discreet touch of wood and merge into rich, delicious and pure middle weight flavors that possess an appealing mouth feel before culminating in a sappy and nicely balanced finish... This should reward 3 to perhaps 5 years of cellar time." -- Allen Meadows

2007 Clone 05 Pinot: 91 points
"The oak, if not completely invisible, has largely been successfully absorbed and allows the pretty red and blue berry fruit aromas that are nuanced by violet and spice hints to shine. The detailed, fresh and solidly focused middle weight flavors are delicious as they offer good breadth and a finely balanced, dusty and sappy finish. ..." -- Allen Meadows

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The San Francisco Chronicle reviewed their favorite 13 of more than 50 Mendocino County and Anderson Valley Pinot Noirs, and our 2007 Clone 05 Pinot was included in the favorites. They wrote: "The Charles family has quickly left its imprint with its new label. They isolated fruit from their Pommard clone and gave it extra oak. The result is smoky and heady, with allspice and cocoa accents on a dark-fruit base. Finessed tannins make it immediately drinkable."

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Wine Enthusiast magazine will be awarding the 2007 Clone 05 Pinot Noir 90 points in the December 2009 issue!

Harvest 2009 Complete

We're finally finished with this vintage's harvest. As I said before, everything looks great. The last fruit to be brought in was the Semillon, which the family got together and crushed ourselves after night-picking the evening before (thank goodness with some help). Photos are below. And we're all uttering a collective sigh of relief.

Below: Inspecting Semillon fruit after bringing it into the winery that night

Above: Compacting the press load with VERY sanitized rubber boots

Below: Cleaning out the press after one load

Below: Pressure washing is a very large part of winemaking

Birthday Day Off

For my birthday this year I asked for a day off. (Sad, I know.) But about 3 weeks after my actual birthday, which falls mid-harvest here, I got that day off. Joe and I started out by renting kayaks at Big River, near Mendocino. This is a great place to kayak because it's a tidal estuary (or some such formation of those words). If you time it right, the tide will either effortlessly float you up the river, or back down. We floated up, paddled way too far, then struggled all the way back. It was a good arm and shoulder workout, that's for sure. Along the way we saw otters, birds, fish, and a bunch of bicyclists and a few other kayakers. We opted to not take any dogs, which I think was smart for our first visit. It was great (Catch a Canoe is the name of the company, located out of the Stanford Inn).

After kayaking and beating Joe at a kayak race, we changed in the parking lot, then went to Mendocino. We tasted at Breggo's new Mendocino tasting room, then caught a very early dinner at Cafe Beaujolais. Neither of us had been and the food was fantastic. The wine list was solid but brief. We finally selected a glass of Roederer L'Ermitage for starters and a half bottle of Skewis Pinot Noir for dinner. MMMmmmm...

We even made it home and into bed early. Yes, I must be getting old. ;)

2009 Harvest at Charles Vineyard

Harvest 2009 is in mid-swing for the Charles Vineyard! So far we have picked Pommard Clone Pinot Noir for Schramsberg Vineyards and the Foursight 114,115,777 and Pommard. This past week we picked Papapietro Perry's fruit and some Pommard for Russian Hill. Tomorrow (Monday) and Tuesday PP's 114 Pinot Noir will come of the vine, as well as the Sauvignon Blanc for both Foursight and Navarro Vineyards. Whew!

It's an exciting and exhausting time of the year, especially with the tasting room. Let me tell you -- picking grapes at 6:00 a.m. then scurrying home to clean up and open the tasting room makes for a LONG day. But a good one.

Everything looks fantastic this year. Flavors were there from the beginning, the weather's been cool and even for the most part, so sugar progression is also steady. The only interesting thing about the 2009 fruit is that, in the earlier picks, there were still a few green berries hidden amongst some clusters. It was rare, but you'd have an entire ripe cluster with one green berry. The seeds would accordingly be green inside, but it wasn't common. To that end, we decreased the amount of whole clusters we're using by a bit, to accommodate increased tannins from green seeds and stems that were in some lots.

This weekend we had the tiniest of sprinkles and some dry lightning, which made everyone hold their collective breath. However, no fire issues, and not enough rain to really do anything.

In Anderson Valley, we're happy to report everything looking great so far.