A Challenge to our Customers
September 3, 2010 at 4:30 pm by Jay
I think I have an awesome idea. I’m pretty sure I stole it from a
customer, but who cares, it’s mine now. We’re always talking about what
we do with our wines at home, “I had beef short ribs with Iby
Blaufrankisch and it was great” etc. Let’s turn this dialog into a
two-way street.
On the first Friday of every month, along with the Weekend Wine we will issue a challenge. Come in, taste the Weekend Wine, buy a bottle. Take it away and do something great with it. Something that makes us happy, something cool that we get excited to hear about. Make great food. Have an exceptional moment in time built around or enhanced by the wine. At some point over the next three weeks, tell us what you did. Bring us or send us photos and descriptions of your time with our wine: jmurrie@cups.net. We have an in-house panel of food-and-wine-and-fun analysts, a group so jaded that it will take truly transcendent pairings and epic tales to impress them. Just kidding. But if your Lamb Saag was killer with our Brouilly, send us a recipe and a story (style points will be awarded), and in the Friday email one month after the initial challenge, we’ll decide who among you brightened our workday the most and heap praise upon that person via our Friday email. And announce the next One Plate wine. And give the winner a totally arbitrary fun prize. Because everyone loves prizes.
Why? It’s part cooking contest, part living contest. I want to hear what happens when these wines leave Elliott Rd. I want to have more fun at work, because I know among the heterogeneous throng of customers that filter through our doors weekly there are many, many talented, creative, and cool people. I want our discourse to be more around your life and kitchen, and less about mine.
A quick summary.
#1 We do this once per month.
#2 You have 21 days to wow us with dropped-off stories and props or via emailed prose and pictures.
#3 We deliberate for seven days and announce a favorite. The person who brought us to our knees with their brilliance, or made us laugh uncontrollably.
#4 We give you something cool. This will change each time, so by all means take your best shot at winning repeatedly.
#5 On the first Friday of the following month we start again.
And here’s the awesome part. We get to know you. You make our jobs more fun, keep our days lively. We hopefully take irreverent, informal steps forward in the collective 3CUPS community dialog around food.
Questions? I’m sure you’ll have many. Email them to Jay, or drop by the shop Tues-Saturday. All are welcome.
This Month’s Wine (also our
)
2009 Pascal Janvier
Jasnieres
$18.99 (10% off this weekend)
Where is it? North from everything you know in Loire. On the Loir, a tributary running from near Touraine’s northern border with Normandy down to the Loire proper. Nobody grows grapes here. which must make Pascal Janvier a somebody among nobody (nobodies?). Sixty hectares are farmed, mostly on a south-facing middle swath of a 4-kilometer-long stretch of hillside. Like I said, nothing. As a point of comparison, Touraine total is 15,000 hectares. Jasnieres is barely 1/3 of one percent of the region. But it is an important little place, known since the time of Henri IV as the great centre of Loir (not Loire) wine cultivation.
What is it? Chenin Blanc grown in a region small enough to take its name from a single enclosed vineyard or clos. The soils have plenty of silex and rock and the growing conditions are decidedly cool-climate, which is wine geek speak for this being a region capable of making exceptional minerally white wines. Somewhat counter-intuitively, cooler climates can be where real flavor development is possible to create complex wines. In Jasnieres, harvest can be in October or even early November without any threat of the potential alcohol levels in finished wines becoming unpleasantly high. These extra weeks are when the grapes and their component seeds and stems and skins can lose any trace of greenness and achieve a rare perfect balance of complex, mature flavor, and fresh, vibrant acidity. Less radiant heat over the course of the viticultural cycle means more acidity in grapes at harvest, a vital component in the wines of Jasnieres.
Who is he? Pascal Janvier has been farming his 10 hectares of vines for nearly two decades. He was not born to be a vigneron: he found his passion after formative years in art school. This makes sense. This bottle shows the hand of a creative, intellectual grower. Served cold, the chalky lime brightness of his white wine makes me crave fish, particularly tender grilled octopus tentacles. But since my every wish does not come true, any fresh fruits de mer.
On the first Friday of every month, along with the Weekend Wine we will issue a challenge. Come in, taste the Weekend Wine, buy a bottle. Take it away and do something great with it. Something that makes us happy, something cool that we get excited to hear about. Make great food. Have an exceptional moment in time built around or enhanced by the wine. At some point over the next three weeks, tell us what you did. Bring us or send us photos and descriptions of your time with our wine: jmurrie@cups.net. We have an in-house panel of food-and-wine-and-fun analysts, a group so jaded that it will take truly transcendent pairings and epic tales to impress them. Just kidding. But if your Lamb Saag was killer with our Brouilly, send us a recipe and a story (style points will be awarded), and in the Friday email one month after the initial challenge, we’ll decide who among you brightened our workday the most and heap praise upon that person via our Friday email. And announce the next One Plate wine. And give the winner a totally arbitrary fun prize. Because everyone loves prizes.
Why? It’s part cooking contest, part living contest. I want to hear what happens when these wines leave Elliott Rd. I want to have more fun at work, because I know among the heterogeneous throng of customers that filter through our doors weekly there are many, many talented, creative, and cool people. I want our discourse to be more around your life and kitchen, and less about mine.
A quick summary.
#1 We do this once per month.
#2 You have 21 days to wow us with dropped-off stories and props or via emailed prose and pictures.
#3 We deliberate for seven days and announce a favorite. The person who brought us to our knees with their brilliance, or made us laugh uncontrollably.
#4 We give you something cool. This will change each time, so by all means take your best shot at winning repeatedly.
#5 On the first Friday of the following month we start again.
And here’s the awesome part. We get to know you. You make our jobs more fun, keep our days lively. We hopefully take irreverent, informal steps forward in the collective 3CUPS community dialog around food.
Questions? I’m sure you’ll have many. Email them to Jay, or drop by the shop Tues-Saturday. All are welcome.
This Month’s Wine (also our
)2009 Pascal Janvier
Jasnieres$18.99 (10% off this weekend)
Where is it? North from everything you know in Loire. On the Loir, a tributary running from near Touraine’s northern border with Normandy down to the Loire proper. Nobody grows grapes here. which must make Pascal Janvier a somebody among nobody (nobodies?). Sixty hectares are farmed, mostly on a south-facing middle swath of a 4-kilometer-long stretch of hillside. Like I said, nothing. As a point of comparison, Touraine total is 15,000 hectares. Jasnieres is barely 1/3 of one percent of the region. But it is an important little place, known since the time of Henri IV as the great centre of Loir (not Loire) wine cultivation.
What is it? Chenin Blanc grown in a region small enough to take its name from a single enclosed vineyard or clos. The soils have plenty of silex and rock and the growing conditions are decidedly cool-climate, which is wine geek speak for this being a region capable of making exceptional minerally white wines. Somewhat counter-intuitively, cooler climates can be where real flavor development is possible to create complex wines. In Jasnieres, harvest can be in October or even early November without any threat of the potential alcohol levels in finished wines becoming unpleasantly high. These extra weeks are when the grapes and their component seeds and stems and skins can lose any trace of greenness and achieve a rare perfect balance of complex, mature flavor, and fresh, vibrant acidity. Less radiant heat over the course of the viticultural cycle means more acidity in grapes at harvest, a vital component in the wines of Jasnieres.
Who is he? Pascal Janvier has been farming his 10 hectares of vines for nearly two decades. He was not born to be a vigneron: he found his passion after formative years in art school. This makes sense. This bottle shows the hand of a creative, intellectual grower. Served cold, the chalky lime brightness of his white wine makes me crave fish, particularly tender grilled octopus tentacles. But since my every wish does not come true, any fresh fruits de mer.