Guilty of not having posted in almost a week!

Yes, totally guilty! But time has been running away from me, so that's why. I have been enjoying some nice wine with food lately, so here are some pics.

The above is a dry Riesling from the Wachau, Austria - 2006 Johann Donabaum Riesling Bergterrassen Federspiel. We had this wine with a delicious chicken done on the grill - the recipe courtesy of my coworker, Ronnie. The chicken was halved and literally roasted on the low heat side of the grill, after being marinated in olive oil, Dijon mustard, herbs de Provence, garlic powder, salt, black pepper. Wonderful! Also done on the grill were a couple of halved nectarines with some sugar, and some summer squash. What a meal!

Truthfully, though, a Riesling with some residual sugar on it would have paired even better. Especially with those great grilled nectarines!

Ah, here we go. Good ol' 2007 Monchhof Urziger Wurzgarten Riesling Spatlese, shown here alongside some grilled vegetables: yellow and red tomatoes and Chinese greens doused with sesame oil and a dash of soy sauce. Yum yum.

Well, looking forward to a tasting tomorrow evening of German Rieslings, a release of the the 2007s that we have, along with some 2006s that I love. I'll be writing about that tasting here, so stay tuned!

Yes, I did have a great wine week!

I wasn't sure how I was going to begin to post about all that's been going on this week with me, until I read one of my favorite blogs, Rockssandfruit by famous blogger and former poster on the board which shall not be named (where I discovered him, posting with great passion about German wines), Lyle Fass. Lyle posted a short post, at the end of which he said he hoped everyone had a good wine week. Well, that stimulated me to say, why yes, I did have a good wine week, a whirlwind of a good wine week, and so I'll dive in now and report on the highlights.

First off, on Tuesday, my day off, I went to the restaurant Benley, where I met up with Rudi Wiest representative Allie Mitchell, to show owner and chef Fong the German wines that go so fantastically with his French-inspired Vietnamese cuisine. Now, this is a local Long Beach restaurant that I simply do not frequent enough. My coworkers at The Wine Country are huge fans and regulars that the staff know by name, but sadly, I have only been there for lunch once before. It could be that I am generally not a lover of Fusion cuisine, since I am Chinese by descent and North American by environment and a self-professed Europhile, so Fusion is what I do at home on a regular basis and it don't impress me much. I am much more into classic cuisine by one culture when I am dining out, since I find the mish-mash very similar to general creations I put on the table at home.

But I digress.

The point here is that we went to Benley and showed an impressive array of German wines, all at price points that warrant consideration as by-the-glass pours. For distributors of wine, when they deal with restaurants (as opposed to retail, where my work is), getting on a wine list is good, but being on the by-the-glass program is even better, because folks tend to order wine by the glass because it is so low-risk and potentially high-return. It is also low-risk and high-return for the restaurant, because they can move the product quickly. In sum, having a wine by the glass at a restaurant is win-win for lots of people. So Allie brought a bunch of these relatively inexpensive German wines to show to the Benley chef.

Among them, the wines with some residual sugar did the best, while bone dry wines, such as the 2006 Wirsching Estate Silvaner didn't exactly sing. Usually, the Silvaner is fantastic with fish dishes and even raw sashimi, but with the often fragranced and spiced dishes that were characteristic of Benley, residual sugar seemed more pleasing on the palate.

The wines that were most impressive were 2003 Milz Neumagener Nusswingert Riesling Kabinett, which showed a great mouthfeel, considerable acidity considering it was an 03, and a candy-toffee-like finish which may have been characteristic of the vintage; 2006 Zilliken Saarburger Rausch Riesling Kabinett, which showed richness and complexity, indicative of both the large old oak barrel aging and the super-ripe vintage; 2002 Milz Trittenheimer Felsenkopf Riesling Spatlese, which was so tasty and not too sweet at all but plenty delicious on the palate.

Finally, the last wine is not really a value wine, but one of Allie's favorites which she tends to bring out to many accounts just because it is so good, and I have had it in the past but did not pass up the opportunity to taste it again - 1994 Wegeler Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese, a gorgeous, rich, complex beauty that is 14 years old, and always blows people away as a white wine that is 14 years old, which is only an adolescent when it comes to German Riesling, but if you haven't tasted a bunch of 1971s and 1959s, then it always comes as a real nice shock. That effect did come upon chef Fong, and of course that was the desired effect, and he was pretty happy when Allie offered that he could keep all these great bottles to sample later with some of his food after he was done with the dinner rush. I hope he did take this 1994 Wegeler home to enjoy.

After the wine showing, Johan joined us and the three of us had a nice dinner where we shared, family style, three appetizers (a refreshing chicken slaw salad that was so aromatic, a tender fried cuttlefish which was like calamari but more delicate, and another dish that at this time I cannot recall) and three mains (the curry scented flattened chicken, the grilled salmon, and the short rib). Everything was superb and we enjoyed this with one of the bottles Fong didn't keep for later, the 2004 Von Hovel Kabinett Off-dry, which did go well with the food.

To sum up that evening, Fong is fantastically great person, very nice, very organized, and loves the restaurant business and being a chef with a passion, and it was a pleasure meeting with him.

Fast forward to yesterday (Thursday) and I had the opportunity to meet some people that were on my list of people to meet: Terry Theise and Helmut Donnhoff. In the process, I met some other people.


It was at this function here, where The Wine Country owner Randy Kemner and I went up to West Hollywood to attend a seminar on Terroir. Not really sure that that was the draw - I think the real draw for most people, not just me, was listening to Terry Theise speak and also meeting some of his producers from both Austria and Germany, and tasting some of those great wines in frankly a pretty nice atmosphere.

Interestingly, when we arrived at the venue, the hosts were in a bit of a tizzy because the hotel had not received all the wine they were supposed to for this event. ie. they were supposed to receive three cases of wine for the tasting, but only receive one case, and they didn't exactly let anyone know until the start of the event. A bit stressful for the hosts. Terry Theise was fabulously funny about the whole debacle, frequently using expletives to describe how **'d up the situation was. In fact, he intro'd the whole talk by saying that the original title to the seminar was "Why Terroir Matters" but the new title of the seminar was "What the Fuck?" Anyway, I found him genuinely funny and very nice, too. I did have a chance to talk with him personally for a bit before the start of the talk, and told him I enjoyed his catalog and his writing style.

So to apologize for the mix-up and the lack of all the wine they had planned on serving, Terry ordered Champagne from the list to take the edge off - Jean Milan Terre Noel Blanc de Blancs . This is a label I have seen before but never tasted, and it was GOOD! The nose was fantastically bright and fresh yeast and a zippy mineral quality. On the palate, it was fresh and zingy and as long as the highway to Vegas. Boy it was long! This is easily a wine to enjoy over the course of an evening!

Finally, through some logistical Plan B, some wine was delivered from a nearby wine store, which was from the producers present, but not exactly what they had planned on pouring, but at least it gave the audience something to taste while the producers spoke of their terroir.

So among those present were 2 Johanneses, Johannes Leitz, from the Rheingau in Germany, pictured standing in the first picture above, and Johannes Hirsch from the Kamptal in Austria, pictured above (our left, her right) sitting next to the standing Caroline Diel of Schlossgut Diel from the Nahe, Germany. The other gentleman next to Caroline is Terry Theise (our right, her left).

And above here is Helmut Donnhoff of the Donnhoff estate in Nahe, Germany. A very quiet man with a big reputation. This kind of reminded me of Bank from Lotus of Siam, a Thai restaurant of huge repute in Las Vegas, who has this huge reputation, but when I met him, he was so quiet! This was like Helmut Donnhoff. He spoke mostly German while Terry translated for us.

And last but not least, Christine Saahs of Nikolaihof-Wachau, where I have visited and met her son Nicolaus, the present owner, and his girlfriend. She spoke of the biodynamic way of making wine not as a way to make better wine per se, ie. she did not say that biodynamic wine is better than conventionally made wine, but that biodynamism is a way to understand nature better, and to have healthy soil and healthy plants first and foremost. And in that way, it points to the importance of terroir, in that taking care of the soil and its environs is of primary importance to the wine grower.

Some other notable quotes from the producers included:

From Johannes Leitz: "I don't see myself as a winemaker. I am a grapegrower and press-house worker." Basically, he is a minimalist when it comes to manipulation. It's about the land and pressing the grapes that come from the land.

From Johannes Hirsch: "We are in the third year of converting to biodynamism. We are now taking the make-up off. And we can see more clearly the problems. But that is good. No more hiding under the make-up."

From Helmut Donnhoff, as translated by Terry Theise: "I aim to make wines that are like a large symphony playing quietly." Which I believe alludes to not hitting people over the head with loud music, but soft music with so much complexity and tones.

From Terry Theise: Oh, where to start. "Grand Cru sites are the earth's erogenous zones." "My definition of terroir is a cause and effect explanation for the flavors in a wine. Not that the minerals in the soil go directly into the grapes, but that the soil components imprint the flavors into the wine. Respecting terroir is respecting the fact that something in the land imparts flavor to the wine, instead of treating the land as a production unit that you bend to your will to make the kind of wine you want to make from it. This is a different approach to nature where you work with nature instead of whopping nature into what you want it to be." "Low yield is not necessarily better. More intensity is not necessarily better - it can only be seen as better if the only factor you consider to be important is intensity - as though saying that all meat should be beef. We don't treat food this way, that we always want the most intense meat ever, and we don't treat music this way, as though all music should be heavy metal. Look at other qualities in the flavor."

Finally, the last thing I will mention about my wine week is that I have taken a position at Rudi Wiest Selections, selling wine in Los Angeles, starting in September. I am very excited about this opportunity. I will still work at The Wine Country on the weekend selling my beloved German, Austrian, and Southern Hemisphere wines, as well as the vast array of wines from around the world that are there at our fingertips. And I will get to see my friends on a weekly basis and still feel the kinship of the place that has taught me everything I know about wine.

Meeting at Benley in less than an hour - Vietnamese food with Rudi Wiest German Riesling

In less than an hour, I have an appointment to meet Allie Mitchell of Rudi Wiest Selections at a local Vietnamese restaurant called Benley. Benley has won a lot of fans locally for their interesting, authentically prepared Vietnamese food with maybe just a hint of fusion.

Many of our customers stop by before they go to Benley to pick up a few bottles of German Riesling, and sometimes Vouvray or other Loire wine, to go with that light yet spicy and flavorful Asian fare.

So, I finally approached the owner and suggested he try some of these German Riesling straight from the source to see if he would like them on his list.

I'm excited, first because I'll be tasting them too (always a pleasure), second, because we might plan a German wine dinner there, and third, because after the tasting meeting, we'll be having dinner there! And we'll have all these opened bottles of German Riesling! Oh, no, what will we do???

How a Barolo Took my Breath Away, Then I Had to Taste Southern Hemisphere Blockbusters

So here's what happened.

It was Friday, and I was scheduled to do an evening tasting of New Zealand, Australia, Chile, and Argentina's best blockbuster wines. I came into work in the afternoon, started putting together my tasting sheet, which includes big names like Craggy Range and Cloudy Bay Te Koko from New Zealand, Penfolds RWT and Torbreck Run Rig from Australia, Don Melchor and Clos Apalta from Chile, and Achaval Ferrer and Catena Alta from Argentina - all my heavy hitters and top-notch producers from those four Southern Hemisphere countries. I was pretty happy with my line-up and looking forward to opening these high-end wines for my class of 24 participants.

But then lo and behold, my coworker and Italian wine buyer Ronnie opens his personal bottle of 1990 Borgogno Barolo Reserva, an aged Barolo that, when he bought it, was priced at about $169 a bottle, but now is being marked down to a paltry $132.99 in our big Barolo Blowout Sale. I had tasted the 1996 Borgogno Barolo Reserva with my family about a month ago when I went up to Canada and brought it up with me, and was at the time, not impressed. I dunno, we drank it but I didn't find it noteworthy and even doubted whether I even liked classically styled Barolo. I wondered at the time if maybe my tastes were more for the new modern styled Barolos that some people called "spoofulated" because I actually like Parusso.

But what I found when Ronnie so generously gave me a nice pour of his 1990 Borgogno was that this was a different animal from the 1996. A better vintage, I'm thinking? I don't know, since I'm not up on my Italian wine, especially in terms of knowing which vintages were good ones and which were not in the 1990s. Ronnie said that maybe the 1996 needed more time to be good. I wasn't sure about that since when I tasted the 1996 I thought maybe it was done. Who knows. Maybe another 6 years in the bottle would have done it good - there certainly have been times when I opened a wine possibly too early.

Anyway, back to the 1990. This was gorgeous, absolutely, with a nose that kept mine in the glass for a long, long time, inhaling its seductive bouquet. It had that perfectly aged wine nose, the one that keeps on inviting - a heady melange of smoked berry - if there is such a thing - fresh earth, and savory olive. The kind of aroma that makes one's mouth water. On the palate, the wine followed through without disappointing - the palate was rich without heaviness, like what I think a Burgundy of that age would do - give tons of flavor without tons of weight, but at the same time, not being thin at all. Know what I mean?

The wine was just fabulous. If it were a student, I would give it A+++.

Then, I had to start opening my wines for the evening class, and give them time to open up. And taste them to check if the order I was planning on serving them was okay. And I'm being honest here, I was not impressed with how the wines tasted, how they attacked my palate with extract and weight, how clumsy they felt against that elegant, mature Barolo. They were a bunch of unruly, noisy teenagers compared to a picture-perfect Supermodel with a PhD. But of course, I was not treating them fairly. The 1990 Barolo was a hard act to follow, for sure.

My saving grace is that the participants in my class did not taste a top-notch aged Barolo first, before tasting my line-up of Southern Hemisphere greats. They were happy, very happy with my wines, from the two starting whites to the New Zealand Pinot Noirs to the big bold Malbecs, Cabernets, and Shirazes. The other saving grace was that the audience was a group that already appreciated big, bold, yet well-made wines, so they knew what they were in for and liked that style. So they loved the wines. So all was well in the world and I was happy that the wines did what they were supposed to do. My audience's happiness made me happy.

The star in the line-up ended up being 2004 Torbreck Run Rig from Barossa Valley, which was our last wine, and a great way to end because it really did steal the show. Even I admit to liking that wine, especially later on the evening after this big boy had some time to open up. Also in its favor, I think being an '04 helped, because it has had some bottle time to mellow out and integrate. The wine was velvetty and showed off its lineage of being a wine made from old, old vines. There was a nice discussion that did ensue about how to tell when vines are old, and why are old vines better, and that was fun. Let's just say that the audience was great, and interactive and into the whole tasting. A tasting like that makes one love a job like mine.

So all ended well, even though in the afternoon about 4pm, I was a little worried! Great wine like Barolo, aged with care - I thought, man, my Southern Hems cannot compete! But in the end, all was well in the world of wine, where diversity reigns supreme, and everyone gets to have the wine they love. I'm not religious, but AMEN!

2007 Monchhof Urziger Wurzgarten Riesling Spatlese

I couldn't really sleep tonight, so decided to just get up and drink something and do some reading and a bit of work. What I chose to drink was 2007 Monchhof Urziger Wurzgarten Riesling Spatlese, a bottle I put in the fridge earlier, which was given to me personally by Robert Eymael, owner of Monchhof Estate. He is a generous and jolly man who jokes and laughs so naturally, and the last time I saw him was at the Rudi Wiest vintage tasting, where he gave me several bottles of his wines. Last weekend I already enjoyed the 2007 Monchhof Erdener Pralat Riesling Auslese which I brought to a dinner party in Orange County, and the whole table absolutely fell for the wine - there wasn't enough for people to have seconds and for this I was sorry! Now I have the Urziger Wurzgarten Spatlese left - the last one of the ones he gave me - and boy it is tasty!

This is a clean and fresh-tasting Spatlese without too much sweetness, just enough to balance its acidity. The wine in fact almost finishes bone dry. It is so unlike the 2006 Spatleses with their high proportion of botrytized grapes - this Spatlese is free from botrytis and all of that honeyed type of flavor. This is pure fruit. Wonderfully refreshing on the palate. It's a wine you can have sip after sip and glass after glass with no fatigue whatsoever.

I don't know how that man does it, but those Monchhof wines are just plain good, no doubt about it.

Austria Part VI: The Final 24 Hours & Conclusion

The last day of the Austria trip was spent in Carnuntum and Burgenland, and later in the evening on the Neusiedlersee. This was a day to see Red Wine Country, and also the Noble Sweet Wine Country.

Our first visit of the morning was to Glatzer in Carnuntum, where we tasted Glatzer wines along with Sattler, another red wine specialist. I didn't take any pictures of the Glatzer facilities, only the wonderful lunch we had there, which is partially pictured above. The food they serve at Glatzer is well known to be delicious - they don't make it themselves, but get it catered by a local first-class restaurant - and they are gracious hosts. I mean the food was fantastic and plentiful, like a full-on dinner instead of a simple winery lunch. The facility, on the other hand, did not inspire me to take photos - not because it was unpleasant, but because it was quite sterile looking, with row and rows of stainless steel fermenters in one room, and rows and rows of barriques in another. I personally am not a huge fan of photos of stainless steel tanks and rows of barrels just because it is not that exciting. They are like factory pictures; not very romantic. What I can say about Glatzer is the place looks meticulous and clean, and so are their wines. The basic Blaufrankisch from Glatzer is balanced and delicious and totally underpriced, which is fantastic. Retailing at less than $20, it is a perfect food-friendly and expressive red wine to get people into Blaufrankisch.

After leaving Glatzer, we took a long bus ride through Burgenland to the historic town of Rust, which sits on the edge of the large famous shallow lake, Neusiedlersee. The town also sits on the edge of Austria, bordering Hungary. Here, we meet with Heidi Schrock, female winemaker extraordinaire, whom I have already met at the Vie Vinum tasting in Vienna about 5 days prior. She is as bright and bubbly as I first met her, full of life and knowledge and elegance in a way that seemed so strikingly unique to me.

I was totally rude and snapped this picture of her when I just stepped off the bus, because she just looked so darned cute I couldn't resist. I was very proud of this picture I took of her because it seemed to capture her essence so. She is so photogenic! In retrospect, I could have waited till anytime to take the picture because she was like this the whole time - no need to rush to capture a moment when she exuded such happiness - she exuded happiness all the time I saw her!

Heidi Schrock is the owner of a winery of the same name and produces some cult dry wines as well as some noble sweet wines, the most famous of which is called Ruster Ausbruck, which is named after the historic town from which she hails, Rust. She gave us a tour of this little old town, where her winery is located.

Throughout the town of Rust, there are stork nests which have been placed there by humans (not storks) for the storks to return home to. Apparently, this is a tradition of which they are very proud. The storks migrate to South Africa in the winter and return to Rust in Austria in the summer. As we were there in June, the storks were just returning from their long flight. Apparently, each stork returns to the same nest each year. At the end of the summer, when the cold weather starts to come, the storks one day just all up and leave, simultaneously in flight, Heidi explained. She said that is usually a sad day for the Rust people. They love the storks.

After the tour through Rust, we board a boat which taxis us across the big shallow lake that is Neusiedlersee (pronounced NOI-ZEED-ler-ZAY). We are destined for Hungary. When I saw that on the itinerary before the trip, I imagined that we were going to a town in Hungary, and I would see a whole different country and culture on this Austrian trip. But that was not really what happened. We actually were going to an old border station, which is now just a resort-y hut which is owned by a 2-star Michelin restaurant, which uses the hut for catered parties. We were going to this isolated post to do our final tasting for the trip, and then have a relaxing dinner by the lake.

So no Hungarian culture trip this time. But we did hear some stuff about Hungary from our hosts. Apparently, this part of Austria used to be very closely associated with this part of Hungary in the not-so-distant past. They were in the same country, and the townspeople and the countryside folk from the now-Austrian side used to go into the town in Hungary to do lots of their shopping and other city stuff. Now it is a different country, so things have changed. But more recently, since Hungary and Austria are part of the European Union, things have become more open again, so there is again movement among the people who have historically considered themselves one and the same.

On this boat ride, we were also joined by Silvia Prieler of the winery Prieler in Burgenland owned by her family. Prieler makes some delicious red wines including a very famous Blaufrankisch from the Leitaberg sub-region, as well as a few white varieties such as Weissburgunder and Chardonnay. Note they don't really do Gruner Veltliner or Riesling down here in the Burgenland, since the climate is much warmer than the Kamptal, Kremstal, and Wachau, and here it is more suitable for red wines and some white varieties that are better in slightly warmer climes.

Above pictured is Kevin Pike of Skurnik Wines, the fearless leader for this trip and this group of over 26 of their clients, which included distributors, sommeliers, and retail buyers like myself. Kevin was super organized, a guy full of knowledge and total sense of the places he was taking us and the growers. He did such a superb job of organizing this effort, I am awed by what he put together. Truly, it was a great view of Austria, not just the wines, but the entire culture of the place, from the oppulent city of Vienna to the vast, gorgeous countryside, to the quaint villages.

Here he is sipping a delicious glass of one of our host's Rose wines, which almost has a hue not unlike that of his jacket. He's taking a brief chill on the boat ride.

And here we are, unloading off the boat, onto the old Hungarian border station. I guess this was a functional border station before Hungary and Austria both joined the European Union, when they would check passports. Now, it is a wooden structure for us to do tastings and such in. What a tranquil setting, looking out onto that mysterious lake.

Here are some of us chilling after tasting some pretty serious wines.

After tasting some wines, I was surpised to start tasting some Eau de Vie from a producer called Hans Reisetbauer. This guy is full-on passionate about making Eau de Vie. And other liquors. I even tasted a gin that was pretty fantastic. Just so fresh. His Eau de Vies are all distilled pure fruit products and he uses only the best fruit, from his orchard or fruit he sources that is of top quality, and he ferments it all down and then distills to make these pure concoctions. And he made some bizarre ones: ginger and carrot were two that come to mind. I think he is the only one to ferment ginger, which is not that easy to do, and then distill the resultant "ginger wine" into an Eau de Vie. It wasn't really my cup of tea, but it was full of the aroma of fresh young ginger and it was true to its origins. The young ginger he sources from China. He made some other berry and apple and pear Eau de Vies which I found to be lovely. He also made vintage stuff, ie. he feels there is as much vintage variation in Eau de Vie as in wine - one vintage can be really hot and ripe and produce intensely ripe and fruity Eau de Vies, and another vintage of the same fruit, same orchard can produce a leaner, steelier one.

I was so impressed by those Eau de Vies that I woke up early the next morning and hit the fine grocer Julius Meinl in Vienna to buy one of his products, the Pear William one for Johan as a souvenir.

Here's an interior shot of this upscale grocery store. Very nice. Has a glass elevator running through it as well.

And here's the last place I went to before the Vienna airport to fly home that Friday morning, the Hotel Sacher, which has that famous torte, Sachertorte. I shared a cab with a Sharon, a restaurant owner in Dallas, TX and journalist David Rosengarten, who were going there that morning on the way to the airport to pick up a torte to take home. I didn't get one since I really wasn't that into it (had heard it wasn't that great), but I did get to pop into the hotel and take in its very old school ambiance. Almost everything is done in red velvet.

So that sums up my Austria trip. The last 24 hours were so relaxing and enjoyable, not rushed or stressed. It gave me such a good feeling about Austria. I shared with another on the trip that I still liked Germany better, and German wines better, but Austria and its wines were definitely growing on me. The trip gave me the impetus to try more of the wines at the dinner table. The trip was also definitely informative, giving so much information for me to chew on - about its wines, its estates, its vineyards and region, and about its culture in general. I love this stuff, tons of mental goodies for me to mix and knead in my mind. Mind food. Yes. This was a trip full of that, and it made me feel so fortunate to be in this business, meeting people of like minds, delving into a culture that is not my own, but takes me in with such generosity and kindness.

Austria will forever be etched in my mind as a gorgeous place with solid, worthy, delicious wines and even more delicious food. I hope to return there soon. But in the meantime, I have the wines at my fingertips.

White Wine with Meat

So Samantha and I have been discussing for about a month the concept of White Wine with Meat. I think Samantha has actually been doing this concept for years, having for example Sauvignon Blanc with Steak, but I am not as familiar with the concept, as I have not been a white wine lover for that long. But after returning from Austria, and drinking more Gruner Veltliner, I'm starting to really enjoy white wine with meat.

I am a German Riesling lover, and still love German Riesling more than I love Gruner Veltliner, but I have to admit that drinking German Riesling did not inspire me to drink white wine with meat. Sure, aged German Riesling can pair well with certain meat-like dishes such as foie gras or pate, but your typical fruity German Riesling is not what I think of having with burgers, etc. When I think German Riesling, I'm thinking of eating more Asian-type dishes such as spicy crabmeat noodles or some Lotus of Siam-type creation, or even a Chinese stir-fry I mike make at home, but not so much just a red meat. But Gruner Veltliner seems to work well with meat-type dishes.

Take for example last evening - we were scheduled to have bison burgers, done on the barbecue, topped with Stilton blue cheese, alongside some grilled zucchini that has been marinated in champagne vinegar and olive oil and a few dashes of seasoned salt. This meal went GREAT with 2006 Johann Donabaum Gruner Veltliner "Johann" from the Wachau. It was perfect! In fact, my husband Johan did consider for a brief moment opening a red wine, which I did not outright object to, but I did say that I would slightly prefer the perfectly cold bottle of white that was already in the fridge...... it turned out to be a very good choice. Given the season, especially, this refreshing, yet full bodied white almost gave the impression of a Chardonnay, but without a stitch of oak. Even Johan picked up on this - and in fact, Wachau Gruner Veltliners do appeal to those who like white Burgundy and Chardonnay, but not so much oak. There is a rich aroma on the nose of apricots and white flowers, followed but an equally rich palate that has really no greeness to it, just ripe fruit and balancing acidity and a touch of minerals.

Finally, here are some pictures of the famous David Rosengarten which I took on my Austria trip, which he was a part of. I didn't know who he was prior to meeting him, but he is a food writer/journalist who used to be on the Food Network, and wrote the book Red Wine with Fish. I am now crediting him with my phrase White Wine with Meat, which I think he might have covered in his book, but I think another book could be written just about White Wine with Meat!

These pics are taken on the final day of our Austria journey. We are at an old border station on the Hungarian side of the Lake Neusiedl (Neusiedlersee), which is located in the region of Burgenland. This huge lake is very shallow and muddy-appearing, but gives such a relaxing aura, with its water plants that grow up out of it, and the whole muggy humidity it gives to the air.