Valentine's Day Dinner and Wine

Here is a somewhat belated post on what we did on Valentine's Day. We typically celebrate Valentine's Day with our Greek friends, it was a regular event that alternated homes as we each tried to outdo the other with the meal and the wine. One year, our friends invited us to their home and called it "Chez Finesse" and had a high end restaurant style menu. But this year they had another engagement so that left us to fend for ourselves.
My husband decided to make duck with fig sauce. I love duck! Growing up in Hawaii, there wasn't much of a chance to eat duck so I wonder where my love of duck came from.

Duck and pinot noir is the perfect pairing and on Valentine's day, my husband descended into his cellar to bring up this 1995 Dominique Laurent Clos de la Roche. It is now 30+ years old! We think it might have lost some of the lush fruit flavors, but it was redolent with spice and a slight raisined fruit flavors with a strong acidic finish. Because the duck had a sweet fig sauce, it paired very well with the wine.
I learned more about Dominique Laurent online. Dominique Laurent is a pastry chef turned negociant. The key to his success is that he searches for vineyards cultivated by skilled vignerons, with a particular emphasis on old vines. Laurent's philosophy is that the right type of barrel is key to the elevage. He selects Troncais wood and personally oversees the air-drying process.
Hope you all had a Happy Valentine's Day!

Vintage 2026: February

Hello! I have been offline for a few weeks. The big thing about this vintage so far has been the snow that we have had. In my last blogpost I wrote that we had not seen such cold and snow since 2015. On January 26, we had between 10-12 inches of snow along the shoreline which has not melted due to the extremely cold weather that we have had.
As I write this, the weather forecasters are calling for a "bombogenesis" of snow and wind to arrive on Sunday into Monday bringing between 10-20 inches of snow and wind gusts of 50 mph! This is what the forecasrters predict:

I will remember the winter of the 2026 vintage as an uncharacteristically cold and snowy one!

Vintage 2026: January Weather

This has got to be the coldest winter that we have experienced in a long time. The winter weather reared it's head on December 14, 2025 when we had our harvest party. There was a mix of rain and snow and it put a slight damper on our party turnout.
In mid-January there was a slight uptick in temperatures that our weather forecasters called the January thaw. Even though the temperatures were around 40 degrees, the windchill brought the temperatures into the 20s. This warm spell was followed by a wintery mix of rain and snow on January 18 that brought more snow overnight into January 19, giving us snow that we had to shovel!
This week we are facing a huge snowstorm heading our way on Sunday and Monday. In talking to friends we think that we have not experienced this type of weather since 2015. I actually blogged about it in Vintage Notes 2015.
Let's hope that when February comes, Punxsutawney Phil will come out of his home at Gobbler's Knob and give us some good weather news!

Kizakura Junmai Daiginjo Sake

Last year we went to Hawaii to celebrate my mother's 96th birthday and at that time we went to some sake stores in search of sake to bring home with us and scored a few bottles.
A few nights ago, our friends invited us for dinner, which was a delicious harissa coated salmon that he paired with a Chateau Beaucastel. There was salmon leftover so he gave that to us.
How does sake and salmon come together? In the back of my mind, I recalled the stacked tuna dish that I had in Hawaii and wanted to recreate it with the salmon. I made sushi rice on the bottom, shredded the salmon, put avocado and green onions on top. Then I asked my husband if we had any sake to pair with my concoction and he thought that we did and retrieved this Kizakura Junmai Daiginjo sake and salmon.

The pairing was a good one. This sake is made from 100% Yamadanishiki rice at a polish ratio of 50% and is 16% alcohol! We drank the sake in mini glasses and savored it along with the sushi rice salmon stack. Maybe another trip to Hawaii to purchase more sake is warranted. Actually, this sake can be purchased online!