Flaherty Wines

Punchdowns

5:00 am. It’s cold and dark, but I’m up before the birds to punch down the fermenting lots. Normally, I would wait for it to warm up, but today I’ll be away from the house, so the punchdowns have to happen early, before I shower and dress, wake the kids, fix breakfast, and get them off to school. The nights are getting colder as fall segues into winter, so we’re having to keep the lids on the bins. After dragging off the heavy plastic lids, I pull out the defrosted jugs that helped keep the musts cool overnight. I then grab the step ladder and climb onto the edge of the first bin. I used to be able to punch down from the top of the ladder. A couple of years ago, however, I had a cycling accident that caused a hairline fracture in my right shoulder and a tiny tear in my rotator cuff.  I no longer have the strength or flexibility to reach up and pull down to punch through the hard cap of grape skins, so up I climb. I stand on the corner of the bin for better balance, then lean into the punchdown tool to force the first breakthrough. These last lots have been smaller than the first syrahs, so the cap isn’t as hard—fewer skins for the gas to push up and less gas to cause the pressure. It takes precisely twelve punches to break through the cap in the initial round (three by four, since the bins aren’t square), and then I follow up with a few more vigorous rounds. I lift the tool, knock off the grape skins, and swing it over to the next bin. Carefully, I step across the gap, balancing against the handle of the tool as I press it into the hard cap of the new bin, then start the process again. When all the bins are finished, I drop to the ground in one of the gaps.

Next up: densities. I start by digging a hole in the grape skins, which have already risen since the punchdown. This explains why my hands look so dirty this time of year, with black cuticles and dingy skin: wine stains. I press the strainer into the hole, letting the juice seep up. I fill the pitcher, then pour the juice into the test tube and drop in the hydrometer. As the hydrometer drops, I blow off the bubbles and give the hydrometer a spin, waiting for it to settle so I can take the reading. Let’s see… It’s… I move the tube around this way and that, trying to catch enough light to see the tiny number. I eventually carry it over to the light, dripping all the way, so that I can see the reading. The same thing happens with the thermometer, as I try to catch sight of the red gauge in the dark. These early morning numbers are always somewhat approximate, but I duly note down my best guess in the wine-stained notebook. I move from the driest bin to the sweetest, until all the measurements are taken. As luck would have it, one of the lots has dropped under 1070, so I sprinkle on the yeast nutrients, climb onto the bin, and punch it down again.

Finally, I drag out frozen jugs to drop into the bins, to keep the fermentations from getting too hot during the day. I leverage the lids back up onto the bins, then I wash up the tools and instruments with cold water and head into the house. Time to start the day.

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Marinated eggplant

Our vacation this past summer (in January) included a detour over the frontier into San Martín de los Andes. What a delightful town! One of the things we loved about Argentina was the food, especially the fiambrerías, which are reminiscent of an Italian deli. The best one in San Martín (based on our short tour) sold a variety of cheeses, cured meats, and dried fruit, and it had an entire wall stocked with little jars. I am fascinated by little jars. What’s in them? In this case, everything from olives to roasted peppers to pestos to cured fish. Our favorite of these delicacies was berenjenas en escabeche. Berenjenas are eggplants in English, while escabeche is originally a Spanish dish of marinated cooked fish, served cold. I suppose you could marinate just about anything and call it escabeche (be sure to pronounce that -che!), but the Argentines are on to something with this eggplant. It’s wonderful as an appetizer, served on crostini or crackers, or as a condiment on sandwiches. It also makes an interesting addition to a composed salad (or in the case of my weekday lunch, a decidedly uncomposed salad). It pairs well with roasted red peppers, salami, tapenade–you name it. You might even catch yourself eating it right out of the jar.

Berenjenas en escabeche

About 1 kilo (2 lbs) eggplant
Salt
2/3 cup white wine vinegar
Water
2–3 garlic cloves, peeled and very thinly sliced
Dried oregano
Red pepper flakes (I used merquén chili powder)
6 bay leaves
Olive oil

Peel the eggplants and then cut them lengthwise into fairly thick slices. Sprinkle both sides generously with salt, stack neatly on a plate or rimmed tray (alternating directions, so that the layers crisscross), and weight them down, then leave them for a couple of hours so that the salt can extract the bitter juices. Rinse the eggplants very well under running water. (I use a lot of salt, so I have to make sure I get most of it off before I cook the eggplant.) Squeeze out any excess water. Cut the slices into strips–how you cut them will depend on the size of your eggplants, but I aim for something roughly the size of a slug. (The finished eggplant does, in fact, resemble slugs, but don’t let that put you off.)

In a medium-sized pot, combine the vinegar with 1  1/3 cups water (so you have two cups total liquid). Bring to a boil, then add the eggplant. If necessary, add a bit more water and vinegar to cover. Return to the boil and simmer for a few minutes, until the eggplant is tender and cooked through, but not mushy. Drain the eggplant and briefly rinse under cold water. Set out to drain for about an hour.

In a clean one-liter jar, pour a thin layer of olive oil. Begin layering the eggplant with garlic slices, oregano, and red pepper or chili powder. When the jar is about half full, slip the bay leaves vertically down the sides, so that they ring the eggplant in the jar (think Stonehenge). Finish layering in the eggplant, then pour in enough olive oil to just cover the eggplant. Close the jar and let sit at room temperature overnight, then refrigerate. The marinated eggplant will last at least a couple of weeks in the refrigerator. It is best served at room temperature.

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Banana pudding

A few days ago, I glanced at the overripe bananas sitting on the counter and knew they had to go. I was reaching out to toss them into the compost when it hit: a craving for banana pudding—something creamy and rich and flavored with those ripe bananas. I poured over my cookbooks and then turned to the Internet, but I was quite surprised by the dearth of recipes for banana-flavored pudding. Search for “banana pudding recipe” and you will be deluged with versions of a southern U.S. trifle, layered with store-bought cookies, vanilla pudding (often from a box, as well), and sliced bananas. That was definitely not what I was craving. As usual, the solution was to create something myself. This was an easy enough proposition, since it’s just a cornstarch pudding with bananas added in. All the same, for those of you out there looking for a real banana pudding made with real bananas in the pudding, here is a simple yet luscious solution.

Banana pudding

2/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
Pinch of salt
3 egg yolks
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1  1/2 to 2 overripe bananas, mashed

Combine the sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a small saucepan and set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks, then blend in the milk and cream. Add just enough of the cream to the sugar mixture to make a smooth paste, then add the rest and whisk to blend. Heat to a simmer, stirring frequently at first  then constantly as it gets closer to the boil. (A heatproof spatula is best, so you can continuously scrape the bottom of the pan.) Continue to stir constantly for a couple of minutes until the pudding thickens. Add the vanilla and the mashed bananas, then transfer to individual ramekins. (I used one and a half fairly large bananas, which made enough pudding to just fill six half-cup ramekins.) Place a piece of plastic wrap over the top of the pudding, gently pressing it right onto the pudding to prevent a skin from forming. Chill before serving.

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In the midst of harvest

Things have been crazy around here! We are into our third week of harvest, and it’s been busy. So far, we’ve received about eight tons of syrah and one ton of tempranillo, spread out of over three weekends. The fruit looks really good. I made a syrah sorbet from freshly crushed juice on Saturday (my personal test of vintage quality), and it was excellent—ripe fruit flavors with just a hint of green and nice acid balance.

So far, the fermentations have gone smoothly. The first weekend, the weather was still quite warm, so the must warmed up a little more quickly than we might have liked. We thus had three out of four bins rock through fermentation, with one moving through more slowly. The following week we had just the opposite: three cool fermentations and only one faster lot. So far this week, all the lots are quite cool thanks to a decisive turn in the seasonal temperatures, which will  slow the fermentations down considerably.

We had a great crew up on Saturday to press out a couple of the early bins and then crush the newly received fruit. Everyone worked hard, and the day’s tasks flowed smoothly. We shared some wonderful meals and more than a few bottles of fine wine. It was a lovely holiday weekend.

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Cream of tomato soup

One summer during college, I worked at the restaurant at Domaine Chandon in the Napa Valley—one of the top restaurants in the valley back then. I worked in reservations rather than in the kitchen, however, so it was really just an office job. Despite the lack of cooking experience, this was my first exposure to haute cuisine. The dining room was gorgeous, the kitchen impeccable, the food spectacular, and the chef and sous chefs stars. One of the restaurant’s signature dishes was a cream of tomato soup served en croute, with a puff pastry lid baked onto the serving bowl. It was very impressive–and it was also the only recipe that Chef Philippe Jeanty ever gave out if a customer requested the secret to some delectable dish. Needless to say, I procured a copy.

Summer is segueing into fall in Chile, and as the days grow shorter and cooler, my thoughts turn to soup. Tomatoes are at their peak now, so this is always one of the first soups I make each year. I have changed the recipe slightly. First, I never serve it en croute. Frozen puff pastry is not available here (and I don’t intend to make it just for this soup); I don’t have oven-proof bowls; and I much prefer homemade bread or a crusty baguette over puff pastry. Second, the original recipe calls for all heavy cream, which is just way too rich for my current taste and cholesterol level. Over the years, I’ve gradually replaced some of the cream with milk and now use just one cup cream and two cups of milk, though half and half is also good. Finally, the original recipe calls for a pinch of dried thyme, but I prefer fresh thyme, of which I have plenty in my herb garden. Otherwise, it’s pretty much true to the original.

Cream of tomato soup

3 pounds (1  1/2 kilos) fresh tomatoes, chopped
1 pound (450 grams) yellow onions, peeled and chopped
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 cloves garlic, peeled
1 bay leaf (fresh is best)
1 small sprig fresh thyme (or a pinch of dried)
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
salt and pepper
Additional thyme for garnish

Melt the butter in a large soup pot, then add the onions and cook until soft. Add the tomatoes, garlic, bay leaf, and thyme and season lightly with salt and pepper. Cook slowly, uncovered, for  an hour and a half. Remove the bay leaf and the stalk from the thyme, then puree the soup in a blender or food processor. Strain. (This takes some effort—I generally stir the soup in the strainer and gently tap it on the bowl to help the liquid pass through faster.) (I have occasionally made the soup without straining, but it really is better strained.) Return the soup to the pot, stir in the cream, and adjust the salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot, garnished with a sprinkling of thyme leaves.

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Preharvest update

It’s been incredibly busy around here for the past few weeks. The kids started back to school in early March, which is always a hectic time as we race around ordering books and buying supplies and sizing uniforms. Add in an inordinate amount of editing and translating work for me, plus an early harvest for Ed at Tarapacá, and it feels like we’ve been running nonstop for weeks. The grapes, in contrast, have been tranquilly doing their thing, gently ripening in the late summer sun. The vineyard continues to be somewhat uneven, with more vigorous plants on the outer edges and thinner plants in the middle, but overall it looks healthy and is carrying a good crop.

And that brings us to the present moment: the calm before the storm. We’ve settled into the routines of the new school year, and we’ve made our preparations for harvest. The fermentation bins are ready to go, the new barrels will be arriving soon, the yeast and nutrients have been purchased, and the crusher-destemmer is lined up. Now we just have to wait for the grapes to peak. We’re planning to harvest the tempranillo in one week. The syrah will come in about a week or so behind that, followed by the cabernet. We’re also experimenting with a barrel’s worth of carmenère this year, to try out a new vineyard. But for now, we wait.

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Pizza pie

A few weeks ago, my son suggested that we make a pizza pie—as in a pie filled with pizza. It took me a while to get on board with the idea, but eventually we gave it a shot (we’ll try pretty much anything in the Flaherty kitchen). I insisted on using commercial pizza, since making homemade pizza seemed like a lot effort for the project. That meant waiting until the next time we went to Santiago, since we don’t have a decent pizza place in our little town. We eventually put it together, however, and I was pleasantly surprised by the results: it turned out to be a lot of fun and very tasty. I made my standard pie crust (without the sugar), and we layered in pizza slices. I used a standard pie pan (i.e., not deep dish), so we only needed one to two layers of pizza (one where the crust was thickest, two for the thinner mid-pizza pieces). My first thought was to trim down the slices so that they would fit in a circle in the pie dish, but that took too long and wasted too much pizza. My son was a more efficient filler, simply cutting up slices and fitting them in any which way.

We then topped the pizza slices with homemade tomato sauce and extra mozzarella cheese. I used a total of about one cup of sauce, which gave the pie a nice texture, neither dry nor soggy. It did dominate the flavors, however, so if we do this again we’ll add more pizza toppings on top of the cheese.

Finally, we closed it with the top crust. First, brush the rim of the bottom crust with water, then roll the dough around the rolling pin and unroll it over the pie. Trim off the extra crust, so that it just fits over the pie pan. Next, flute the edges to seal the crust, placing your right index finger under the two crusts and your left index finger and thumb on the top, then press together to seal the two crusts together. Make steam vents by poking the crust all over with a fork or cutting in a few slits. Finally, bake the pie in a preheated oven (about 375 F) for 45 minutes. Let cool slightly before cutting and serving.

Now that’s a pizza pie!

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