The Versatility of Champagne

We have been drinking our fair share of Champagne this past winter and spring. We typically pair Champagne with appetizer courses and one of the ultimate pairings that we can think of is fresh shucked oysters. We are very fortunate to live along the Connecticut shoreline where oysters are making a wonderful, decadent, and tasty resurgence.
However, we are learning about the versatility of Champagne and how it can be paired. For example, we had this Laherte Feres with pasta. I blogged about Paul Bara Bouzy Réserve Brut Champagne being perfect with lavender goat cheese and surprisingly, Point Reyes blue cheese topped with fig jam or honey.
Recently, we had this Vilmart & Co. Champagne.

We paired the Champagne with sushi and scallops, a quick and easy dinner after coming home from the vineyard. My husband seared the scallops with a little trick of soaking it in milk for an hour before searing. What do you think of the color and crust? It was delicious! I am still trying to perfect my sushi making.

Waiting for Fischer Twister

Our days are now filled with shoot thinning and weed whacking. My husband does the weed whacking and I am shoot thinning. How many rows can we do a day, you ask. The answer is 2. At this rate, it will take us 18 days to do the entire vineyard. Here is what we have done so far:

What we are waiting for is the arrival of the Fischer Trimmer that my husband ordered last October. It looks like this and makes short work of cutting down the growing weeds in the vine row:

Let's hope that waiting for our Fischer Twister is not like waiting for Godot.

Vintage 2022: May Vine Growth Spurt

It's almost the end of May and in the vineyard, the vines are growing! I blogged about budbreak on May 13 and now almost two weeks later, we are in the process of shoot removal!
Our vines are tall grafted vines where our trunk is the rootstock which is approximately 24 inches above the ground and our scion, or the variety (such as Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, etc) has been grafted at this height.^* This brings additional work that we must do which is to clear the graft union or what we called "the head region" from all undesirable growth. We do this while we are also shoot thinning in preparations for this year.

My husband has also begun the process of weed whacking the vine rows. We invested in an automated Fischer Twister but it hasn't shown up at the dealer yet so yesterday, he was back to using our electric line trimmer.
Here is a view of the Chardonnay that was weed whacked under the vines and shoot thinned. On either side of the row that has been weeded, are rows where the weeds are growing like weeds! When I took the photo, I especially liked the shadow of the vines. Yes, it was late in the afternoon.

^*Additional blogs on tall grafted vines:
1. German Publication on Stem Vines
2. May 2012 Update on Tall Grafts at Mercier
3. Fall Update on Tall Grafts at Mercier

2020 Librandi Asylia

Our son and his family came to visit us this past weekend. He and his family lived in Seattle until a few months ago when he moved back to the East Coast! A cause for celebration---we get to see more of our grandchildren! The bonus this weekend was that he offered to cook and brought some wine to pair with the food.
He made Korean style shrimp on a bed of grits flavored with nori! The thing about Asian food is that it is a little difficult to find the right wine pairing. Earlier, I blogged about Modena Vecchia and Sushi. I found that sparkling red wine was a perfect pairing for sushi. For the Korean dinner that our son made, he brought this 2020 Librandi Asylia, a grape that I had never heard of before. It is grown mainly in Lazio, central Italy and Calabria in the South where is it called Greco Bianco.¹ The Librandi Asylia comes from Calabria. The wine was fruity and dry and went very well with the Korean shrimp.

What a treat!
References:
1. Wine Searcher, Greco Bianco Wine, November 26, 2019.