Amalie Robert Estate: 2021 The Feast of St. Valentine's Day Survival Guide

Hello and Welcome, 

We have a VERY SPECIAL gift to celebrate in the year 2021 and that is Valentine’s Day is on a Sunday! Instead of a hustle and bustle last minute event, you have ALL DAY to celebrate! And we have a few tips and ideas to share on how to do just that. Our first suggestion is to not lose your head.  A FLOG communication(Farming bLOG) by Dena & Ernie from Amalie Robert Estate. Oregon Willamette Valley Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Have a look and see what we see on Instagram @AmalieRobert Estate.  

The feast of St. Valentine of February 14 was first established in 496 AD by Pope Gelasius I, who included Valentine among all those "... whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God." And this is the very reason that prior to 2021, indoor dining on February 14th was so very popular. This year, indoor dining will still be popular, just that it will be in-house indoor dining.  Well, some of those acts of Valentine were also known to Claudius the Cruel of Rome. Sometime around the year 270 AD, Claudius the Cruel was in the conquering business and to be successful, he needed a strong army. However, he was having a difficult time finding volunteers for his campaigns. He reasoned that the young men of Rome were unwilling to join his army due to the strong attachment to their loved ones. A reasonable conclusion to be sure. Claudius chose to rectify this problem by banning all marriages and engagements in Rome. While somewhat of a non sequitur, still that did not send the young men of Rome flocking to join with him. After some time, Claudius discovered he had a priest undermining his efforts. It was in fact true that the soon to be martyred St. Valentine was continuing to perform marriages. Certainly not an indecisive man, Claudius ordered Valentine arrested and put to death. But not before being beaten with clubs, stoned (in the historical sense) and then decapitated. This last step was most likely meant to send a strong message that further activity of this nature would be frowned upon. While awaiting his fate, Valentine is rumored to have written a farewell note. The note was to the jailer’s daughter which had looked after him during his brief incarceration. Kind of a pre-Stockholm Syndrome sort of relationship it would seem. He signed the note “From Your Valentine.” That phrase is in common use today and now you know where it may have originated. 

Valentine was put to death on February 14th in the year 270 AD. But it seems Claudius could not let him go, as is evidenced by him keeping Valentine’s head. Eventually, St. Valentine's remains were deposited in St Anton's Church, Madrid, where they have lain since the late 1700’s. They were a present from the Pope to King Carlos IV and have been displayed publicly since 1984. Please let this bit of history inform your gift giving choices this Valentine’s Day.

Roses are red, Violets are purple

You are so sweet, and so is maple surple!

Being Sunday and all, your feast of St. Valentine’s Day begins with brunch! Brunch is that luxurious word that means so many things that are just inherently understood. Leisure on display with a late alarm, deliciously sweet and savory pastries, fresh fruits, eggs extraordinaire and perhaps a glass of Champagne to greet the afternoon. And most of all, a little gift tucked into the mid-morning rapture. Choose wisely.

Somewhere along the way, Ernie picked up a set of heart shaped ramekins. These are the perfect vessels to deliver a bouffant “egg extraordinaire.” This will take a little forethought and some advance preparation. As this is an annual event, you will have time. Since there is no such thing as left-over hash browns, roast a couple extra “creamer” red potatoes the night before and retrieve them while they are still a bit firm.

Here we go. In a medium skillet, add a dollop of duck fat, butter or olive oil. (Note: Lipitor is now widely available in generic form with little or no co-pay.) Cube the potatoes in ¼ inch squares and add them to the pan over medium heat. Add your intended’s choice of preferred omelet vegetables diced small, such as peppers, onions and mushrooms. Add a dash of smoked HOT paprika for color and heat. Turn, flip or mix to cook evenly, but not overly so. Is that a Champagne pop I heard? No? Why not?

While this mixture is heating, grab a mason jar with a sealing ring and lid. Crack 2 eggs, sans shell, and add a dollop of sour cream. Ernie likes to add some broccoli bits at this stage, but YOU certainly do not have to. Attach the sealing apparatus and pretend you are making an evening martini. Any more than 30 seconds though and the show gets kinda boring.

Remove the ramekins from the preheated oven. Split the potato and vegetable mixture evenly between the two ramekins, paying special attention that the are only about 75% full. The reason for this will become important soon. But don’t worry if they are too full, that is what’s known as a self-correcting situation.

Give your mason jar a final shake and then pour the contents all over the first ramekin. Crack another pair of eggs, shake and repeat. Top with a little freshly cracked black pepper and a dusting of paprika for color. Return to the oven and bake at 325 until you have achieved maximum bouffant! When they are bouff’d to your satisfaction, set them on a cooling rack for about 10 minutes before separating. This will take a total of about 30-45 minutes or so.

Everyone has moved on from the orange juice, so now would be a good time to sample the Champagne and prepare your desired breakfast animals (in whatever form they may take.) Fresh local fruits may be hard to find, so adopt a tropical locale with mangos, pineapple, strawberries and whatever else you can fit into a Champagne flute. Remember, fresh fruit is good for you and Champagne is the perfect delivery beverage.

And now the moment of truth - A card and a small gift. If executed properly, now might be the right time for a “nap” before dinner…

A Valentine’s Feast with the Hers and His Reserves – Amalie’s Cuvée and Estate Selection.

After having skillfully delivered brunch and engaging in a leisurely afternoon activity, thoughts turn to the Valentine’s Day dinner. Our suggestion for this menu is to stick with the tried-and-true cool climate varietals of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

Let’s Get Started. Smoked salmon, either hard smoked Alaskan salmon or lox style Atlantic salmon lend their charms to garlic parmesan crostini with fresh dill aioli and capers. Add a little soft blue cheese and things get a little funky-good as the salt from the cheese works its magic on the acid in the wine. This course pairs nicely with a BFC such as the Heirloom Cameo Chardonnay. Alternatively, a more steely interpretation of Chardonnay, the Dijon Clones, brings a little more focus and acidity to the event. This is a “hands-on” course, and we find that if you can eat it with your fingers, it just tastes better. The candles are a nice touch. The Hers course is stuffed quail. There are all manner of combinations to choose from here, but there are three key components to any good stuffing. The first is the enticement and we like chanterelle or morel mushrooms for this. The next is the bitter green such as spinach or anything along those lines, maybe even kale. And we need a binder to hold this all together such as quinoa or polenta. A little manchego in the mix helps hold it all together and can dual as a snacking cheese. Munge all of that together with an optional egg, and you are ready to stuff the birds. Treat them to an olive oil spritz and a dusting of paprika on the way to the oven. 

Amalie’s Cuvée is a natural pairing for this dish. You can trust that we have run repeated and replicated trials. Each and every vintage we put to the test comes through with flying colors. Amalie’s Cuvée is Dena’s barrel selection from our 35 acre estate vineyard that she helped plant back at the turn of the century. That should tell you two things. First thing is she has met the farming challenge head-on, and second, she knows where the Pommard is planted. Yep, she is a Pommard girl – and you could be too! Every vintage we taste the wines in barrel to sort out who gets what. Each day that we taste, we focus on one of the three main clones we grow: Dijon clones, Pommard clone or Wadenswil clone. When it is all said and done, Pommard is the dominate clone in her blend with a little Dijon clone for texture and some Wadenswil clone to bring out her wild side. And its personal, Amalie is her middle name. The His course is Steak Diane (from the Goddess of the hunt of Roman mythology.) While the preparation remains mostly the same, the protein can vary widely from beef to venison or buffalo. Since Ernie grew up in Montana where the buffalo roam, we are going to go with buffalo. The advance ingredient preparation for Steak Diane allows for a table side implementation. A bit of strut, pomp and circumstance if you will. That being said, open flame in a confined space can have immediate and long-lasting consequences. Marriage proposals get delivered this way. Diana was also goddess of the moon. Recognize and respect that this is pretty powerful stuff we are offering up here. 

Estate Selection is a masculine wine in touch with its feminine side, which is why it is the perfect pairing for Steak Diane, and candlelit settings. Ernie favors the wild side of Pinot Noir and that comes from his errant youth. Wadenswil clone provides that “color outside the lines” type palate profile. However as time has taken its toll, Ernie discovered the soothing nature that a little Pommard clone can offer. Add a little Dijon clone 667, which is the black sheep of the Dijon clone family, and that is a good first step in the blending trials. Of course, Dena has VETO power. So you know if the blend made it to the bottle, it has her stamp of approval. She is also the one person who runs the corker. We don’t get anywhere without her say so. 

Chardonnay is not just for brunch in your Champagne. The variety that started the morning festivities, may also be the segue to the rest of your evening. We are talking about the once in a lifetime wine Pabuk’s Gift Late Harvest (Botrytis) Chardonnay. This is going to take a little more than a little effort, so you may want to get started right away. The easy pairing is a blue cheese such as Stilton, or our preference Shropshire. But there is so much more that this wine has to offer. Think goat cheese. Now think patisserie. Now put that together and start imagining goat cheese cheesecake with seared pineapple topping. Or a goat cheese flan on a cinnamon graham crust topped with Seville orange marmalade. People eat with their eyes first so your presentation and delivery, along with that very romantic card that you didn’t forget, are paramount. While making this wine, Ernie implored the help of Dick Erath. The 2013 vintage provided the naturally occurring environmental factors to make an ethereal late harvest wine. Never before, and hopefully never again, will those growing conditions be repeated. With Dick as his conspiring winemaker, Ernie forged ahead with harvesting desiccated Chardonnay berries from the vines in November. Once in the press, it was a tough shlog, as raisins don’t put out a lot of juice. Undaunted he continued, as fools press on where angels fear to tread. The juice was 44 Brix, for those who keep track. Ernie had experienced some out of this world Trockenbeerenauslese wines and they typically run in the 10% alcohol range. That was good enough for him and he arrested the fermentation with dry ice. Yeast don’t really care for that and they kinda packed it in right then and there. All went pretty well and soon it was time to bottle. So Dick made the trek back to the winery with his girlfriend to see how Ernie’s effort had turned out. The look and smell of the wine passed muster and then everyone took a sip. Dick appeared pleasantly surprised and his girlfriend was complimentary. Ernie was beaming as his conspiring winemaker and early mentor had given him the nod for an effort that was far from guaranteed to succeed. Dick then tilted his head and with a twinkle in his eye, looked at Ernie, then his girlfriend and said, “You know, this is the kind of wine that can be applied topically and removed orally.” And so, it is. Good luck Mr. and Mrs. Gorsky. Kindest Regards,

Dena & Ernie