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Skinner Wines--a Taste of History

Drink Skinner wines, and you're drinking California history, literally. 

How Mike and Carey Skinner acquired a vineyard owned in the distant past by an ancestor amounts to a thrills and chills detective story.  Check their website for more details. Better yet, visit Skinner Vineyards & Winery in the Sierra foothills and get the story first hand.

James Skinner left Scotland in 1849, hoping to find gold in California. He not only found gold but struck it so rich that he was able to start one of the biggest wineries in the country.

That winery produced 15,000 gallons of wine and brandy a year. The present Skinner winery produces about 3,500 cases a year. 

"We're small, we're artisan," said Carey Skinner (at the top), speaking to the LA Wine Writers at Hotel Angeleno. And while they look to the past, the winery is up to date. The 12,000-square-foot building is solar-powered; goats trim the brush, wines are unfined and unfiltered,  and "we're on our way to being 100% organic," she said.

In order to link to the winery's origins, the Skinners checked probate records and made sure to plant the same grapes grown by the original Skinner. They call their Rhone style red blend Eighteen Sixty-One for the year that Skinner founded his winery. 

The 2012 release of Eighteen Sixty-One is 55% Grenache, 15% Mourvedre, 15% Counoise, 14% Syrah and 1% Viognier. It's at the left in the photo above. The 2010, a different blend, is at the right. Grenache and Mourvedre are their two main varietals. 

Still more historical links: The Skinners plan to make Angelica, a dessert wine from the past that is rare now, and to revive a white wine made from the grape Trousseau Gris. Known as Grey Riesling, it too has virtually disappeared.

Another link to the past, in name at least, is their Seven Generations Rhone style white blend, which is made yearly from the same five varietals. The 2013 (at left in the photo) is 38% Grenache Blanc, while the 2011 emphasizes Roussanne and Marsanne. The change was made because restaurants wanted a more acidic wine to sell by the glass, Skinner said.

The wines are shown with white-wine steamed mussels, curried risotto and spring peas from West Restaurant at the hotel.

Skinner Vineyards & Winery is located in the El Dorado wine region in the highest AVA  (American Viticultural Area) in the state. (Learn more about El Dorado here.) Rhone grapes grow well in the granitic soil, and so the Skinners specialize in Rhone style wines. Other wines that Skinner poured for the writers group were a Grenache, a Mourvedre and a Syrah. 

The Skinners divide their time between Pacific Palisades and the winery. They bought into El Dorado in 2006. There was "a tremendous amount of fear in setting this up," she said. "When we first opened, we prayed, is somebody going to come to our [tasting] room? Is somebody going to buy our wine? We're in one of the newest regions in California that people don't even know about."

For now, their wines are available online and in restaurants but not generally in stores. "We need to grow slowly," Skinner said. "We want people to find us."

Although gold is in their history, there's no gold dust to be found in their soils, other than agricultural riches. Buying their wines won't require a pouch of gold either. "We want to offer value in the glass," Skinner said. 

Dish of the Day: Vietnamese Eggplant

If you want a great dish, you absolutely must eat ca tim dut lo.

This is Vietnamese for baked eggplants with garlic sauce, which is No.169 on the almost endless menu of Bo De Tinh Tam Chay, a Vietnamese vegetarian restaurant in Little Saigon (above).

The long slim eggplants are drenched with a divine sauce--not the heavily garlicked mixture the name suggests but a slightly sweet liquid with only a hint of garlic (above).

What's in the sauce? Waiters didn't seem to know but mentioned chiles, although the sauce wasn't spicy; garlic, of course; ginger, sugar, vinegar and fish sauce. The eggplants are baked, not fried.

No. 88, pho ap chao don, or crisp flat rice noodles with mixed vegetables (above), also has a notable sauce, served on the side, not on the noodles. It's so simple, just Sriracha sauce, hoisin sauce and lemongrass, and so good, that I went hunting for both sauces in a nearby supermarket. The noodles are in the pho section of the menu, but they're dry, not in broth.

Here's a vegetarian version of the crisp stuffed crepe bang xeo, which comes with a heap of fresh herbs and fish-less fish sauce that is as intense and salty as the real thing.  It's No. 10, under appetizers. 

Bo De Tinh Tam Chay caters to all vegetarian needs. I went with vegans, and their restrictions did not get in the way of having delicious food.The menu offers the option of eliminating onion and garlic, which some of the observant avoid, like the Buddhist nun we talked with in the Westminster Super Store

Located in the same strip of businesses as the restaurant, this huge store is an excellent place to shop for Asian groceries you can't get elsewhere. It's the only place so far that I've been able to find fish sauce made in Vietnam. And a Vietnamese brand of Sriracha sauce was on special at two for the price of one. The photo above, by Yakir Levy, shows me examining the Sriracha bottles and gives some idea of how vast this market is.  

Bo De Tinh Tam Chay, 15352 Beach Blvd., Westminster, CA 92683. (714) 891-4455, open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. 

Westminster Super Store, 15440 Beach Blvd #123, Westminster, CA 92683. Tel: (714) 891-6288.  

Spring's Harvest of Good Fresh Food

Ever heard of breadless bruschetta?

Well there it is, at the top, a slice of roasted gold beet replacing the usual bread. Layered on the beet are avocado, sautéed leeks and kumquat slices, with mint for garnish.  It's a beauty of a first course, more elegant than the bready version.

Rather than a restaurant creation, it's from Melissa's, the produce company, which was showing off spring produce to a writers group to which I fortunately belong.

A vegetable lover, I was in heaven tasting what we'll be getting this season, and planning how to use it. For dinner tonight, I pulled together a salad with black kale as the base topped with mini San Marzano tomatoes, slices of watermelon radish and beets in balsamic vinaigrette (Melissa's sells the beets already cooked and in the dressing).

Kale is big for spring, and we admired a table full of it--the ruffly, chewy green kale you get in the supermarket, black kale, pretty flowering kale with purple stems (above) and kale sprouts, which are a hybrid of Brussels sprouts crossed with red Russian kale. In the center are kale chips.

We saw jumbo sized leeks, the kind they prefer in Europe, and which are expected to take over the market here. If you don't like cleaning leeks, you'll be pleased to know you can get them already cleaned, sliced and ready for your potage Parmentier (potato leek soup). To help you out, the recipe is on the package (above).

Artichoke hearts come steamed and ready to use.  And look at this--the red button pops out when your microwaved artichoke is done, as if it were a turkey (above).

The table-ready artichoke hearts and pre-prepared beets make it easy to assemble a salad like this (above).

Spring means fresh fava beans, and we had favas in a salad with roasted baby parsnips, arugula and grilled shrimp (above).

Spring also means rhubarb (above). Try it combined with dried strawberries in a cupcake frosted with buttercream, perked up with Pixie tangerine zest, and topped with a Pixie segment. The Pixies come from Ojai, and the crop this spring is so abundant they'll be here longer than usual, until the end of June.

That gives you plenty of time to make the cupcakes (above). Here is the recipe, created by Melissa's chef Tom Fraker.  

STRAWBERRY-RHUBARB MUFFINS

WITH TANGERINE FROSTING

1 egg 
3/4 cup milk 
1/3 cup canola oil 
1 teaspoon vanilla 
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon  
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 
1/2 cup granulated sugar 
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 
3/4 cup rhubarb, minced 
1/2 cup dried strawberries, chopped 
2 tablespoons brown sugar 

 

Buttercream Frosting:

 

1 pound unsalted butter, softened

1 pound powdered sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 pinch kosher salt

Zest from 3 Ojai Pixie tangerines

12 Pixie tangerine segments for garnish

 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

 

In a large bowl, combine the egg, milk, oil, vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon of the cinnamon and set aside.  

 

In another bowl, combine the flour, sugar and baking powder. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet while whisking constantly.  Mix thoroughly, making sure that there are no dry clumps in the batter.  Fold in the rhubarb and strawberries.

 

Place 12 paper muffin cups in a muffin pan and spray the cups lightly with cooking spray. Fill each cup about 2/3 full with the batter.

 

Mix the rest of the cinnamon and the brown sugar together. Sprinkle the sugar mixture over each muffin. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out dry. 

 

Let cool, then top with Buttercream Frosting. To make the frosting, combine the butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, salt and tangerine zest in a standing mixer with a paddle attachment. Mix slowly at first, then increase speed and mix 2 to 3 minutes. Frost the cupcakes and top each with a tangerine segment. Refrigerate any unused frosting. 

 

Makes 12 cupcakes.

 

Natural Goodies Draw Big Crowds

It was like walking on the streets of Mumbai, the crowd was so intense.  But this was Anaheim, and the attraction was Natural Products Expo West at the Anaheim Convention Center.

Traffic jams, lines, loaded shuttle buses, people rushing and stumbling over each other--all this to get inside a mammoth exhibit of foods and other products intended to fill you with well-being. 

There were lots of giveaways--maybe that was the attraction--from energy bars and granola to garden seeds and even rubber cows promoting milk.  Tastes handed out ranged from flatbread pizzas and soups to fruit yogurts and ice cream, accompanied by healthy drinks such as maple water. Big buzzwords were gluten-free, dairy-free and non-GMO. Edible seeds, grains, nuts and nut butters were all over the place.

If any drink dominated, it was coconut water, like that from Hawaii offered by girls in cool costumes (at the top). At a Thai booth, the water was poured from young coconuts hacked open before your eyes. 

"Drinking vinegar" from Pok Pok Phat Thai included exotic flavors such as turmeric, which is praised as a super healthy spice, and Thai basil (above). You can buy these at the restaurant, which is in Chinatown in downtown Los Angeles. 

To go with the drinks, there were crunchy snacks like those you find in shops in India (above). 

Circling around Korea's large pavilion were women wearing the traditional hanbok passing trays of typical dishes.  The tray above holds gu jeol pan, an elite dish of small crepes wrapped around eight different foods.

Sure to be popular is kimchi-flavored hot sauce from Korea (above).

Another Korean import is brown rice processed so that it is more like white rice in texture and cooks just as quickly. It's done in 20 minutes.

Sweet treats included chocolates (yes, chocolate is healthy), coconut spreads, brownies, nut bars, fig cookies and deeply flavored honey from Zambia (above). Really sweet is that the African Bronze Honey Company uses proceeds from sales to train and aid Zambia's forest beekeepers.

For the road, one booth offered coffee guaranteed not to keep you awake at night because it is laced with valerian. 

Fresh produce, even though "natural," was not big at the expo, although some was around, such as guavas from Mexico (above). The emphasis was on processed goods, and processed is not always a dirty word, that included food, health and beauty products.

The variety was overwhelming, too much to see even in the three days of the sprawling trade show. Judging from the enthusiastic crowds, the healthy food industry is booming. Perhaps one day it will catch up with the standard junky American diet.