December 2, 2024 • 20 mins
Champagne is lovely. It means “festive” to most of us. But it’s pricey. Very.
We’re Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, veteran cookbook authors of thirty-six (and counting) cookbooks. We love bubbly wine! But let’s talk all sorts of alternatives to the budget-busting champagne.
Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:
[00:50] Our one-minute cooking tip: Use a salad spinner to fix an overdressed salad.
[02:35] Champagne alternatives for the holidays: Cava, Prosecco, and Cremant.
[17:57] What’s making us happy in food this week: wild pheasant braised with apples and lamb birria.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this isthe podcast Cooking With Bruce and Mark.
And I'm Mark Skarborough.
And together with Bruce, we havewritten, as you probably well know
at this point, three dozen cookbooks.
We're working on our thirty seventh.
We have written other books, too.
I wrote a memoir.
Bruce has written Well, knitting books.
Bruce teaches Knitting Online.
You should check out his website,Bruce weinstein.net to find out
(00:23):
where his classes are and whathe's up to with knitting next.
But this is our podcast aboutthe main passion in our life,
which is food and cooking.
We've got, as is always thecase, a one minute cooking tip.
We have entire.
segment coming up about sparklywines for the holidays that
are not champagne from France.
And we'll tell you what's makingus happy in food this week.
(00:45):
So let's get started.
Our one minute cooking tip.
Have you ever overdressed a salad?
Of course you have.
I have.
I have.
Here's what you do.
Dump it back in your salad spinner.
Oh no.
Give it a whirl andthe dressing flies off.
Oh, this is like your gravy thermos idea.
What?
(01:05):
But then, you've taken most ofthe dressing off, and the leaves
may be a little bruised, so putsome fresh, new, undressed crisp
leaves with them and it's perfect.
Okay, wait a minute.
Stop.
This works if you've dressed your saladas we always do with oil and vinegar.
It does not work withThousand Island dressing.
You cannot put leaves in a salad.
Spinner with Thousand IslandDressing, or Creamy Ranch, or French.
(01:28):
You can, as long as it has no,you know, crunchy bits in it.
There are no solids inyour salad dressing.
Thickened dressing's notgonna spin off, come on.
In that case, you justneed to warrant leaves.
But yeah, okay, I'll buy it.
If you overdress an oil and vinegar,or a clear ish vinaigrette, On a salad,
you can probably spin it off in aspinner, but you got a mess to clean up.
(01:51):
You do have a mess, but if you're shorton lettuce and don't have enough left
for a whole new salad, then there you go.
Okay.
I get it.
All right, fine.
I'll grant you this one minute cleaningtip because it didn't involve a thermos.
Anyway, before we get to the next segmentof the podcast, let me say that there
is a Facebook group called Cookingwith Bruce and Mark, and you can also
follow us on all kinds of channels.
(02:12):
We're on Instagram under our own names.
We're at TikTok, uh, in a channelcalled Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
And of course, as you know, there'sour website, Cooking with Bruce
and Mark, or just bruceandmark.
com.
You can find us all over the place, andwe'd love to connect with you elsewhere.
Okay.
I'll Up next, a whole discussionabout bubbles for the holidays.
(02:35):
By now, I think you know Mark and Ilove champagne more than any other wine.
I do.
And you also know that we like achampagne alternative called Petnat.
But we're not talking aboutPetnat today, finally.
It's an episode where we'renot discussing Petnat.
Oh, no, we always talk about Petnat.
Pétalons naturels.
We always talk about Petnat.
And one of the reasons we always go toPetnat is because a case of champagne
often costs Or more, and we don'twant to spend that kind of money.
(03:00):
With tariffs coming, who knowshow much it's going to cost.
Right, so you want to stock up forChristmas and New Year's, so we've done
a little, you know, research, and we'vegot champagne alternatives that you might
want to think about for the holidays.
Okay, basically to lay this out, we'regoing to Cava, Prosecco, and Cremant.
Uh, these are different, uh, sparklywines from different places, from
(03:20):
Spain, from Italy, and from France.
Not from the Champagne region,but from other places in France,
particularly from, uh, Burgundy.
But we want to talk about that,but let's start with Cava.
Okay, so Bruce is the person who actuallyintroduced me to Spanish Cava in my life.
I didn't even know it was a thing, um,so what do you want to say about Cava?
(03:41):
Well, we've talked about Cava before,and so, you know, we have said it before.
It mostly comes from northern Spain, andit's a relatively inexpensive bubbly wine.
Most people think that, oh, Cava'sgoing to cost you about 10 a bottle.
But there are a couple of levels ofCava above that standard base level that
you're going to find in your liquor store.
(04:02):
There is Reserva Cavaand a Grand Reserva Cava.
The Reserva actuallyrequires 15 months of aging.
Which is the same requirement, getthis, for non vintage champagne.
I think one of the problems here, andoften the argument about cava, is that the
Champagne region of France, where so muchof World War I was fought, in that region,
(04:26):
the grapes are subjected to a more humidand slightly, well, not even slightly,
colder climate that is damper and colder,and I think the, uh, kind of standard
answer here is the grapes then produce,like the Pinot Noir grapes and others that
are used for champagne there, are juicier,and they have less of a raisiny quality
(04:47):
to them because they're not in such a dryclimate, and I think that's also true.
Often the knock against kavais that it gets too dry, but of
course for us, we like dry wine.
So for us, it works better.
I think also it works better because forme, the grapes are, how do I say this?
(05:08):
It's delicately less soft.
Mark has this thingabout wines in general.
The grapes have to suffer.
And so you like, Mark, you like wines fromregions that are dry and arid and desert
like because the wine tastes more intense.
I prefer southern Italianwines to Tuscan wines.
(05:28):
I prefer southern French winesto Burgundies and Bordeaux's.
I like Spanish wines.
I like wines where, again,things have to Yeah.
Worked very hard.
I like Paso Robles in Californiamuch more than I like Napa wine.
And because of that, when we get downto talking about, Cromance is actually
one that I think Mark likes better thanChampagne, but we're still on cavas.
(05:50):
We had the Reserva Cava, right?
15 months of aging, same requirementfor non vintage Champagnes.
Then there's a level called Gran Reserva.
That is not only is the wine requiredto be from a single vintage, and
these bottles are vintage dated,it must age for at least 30 months.
If you compare this to vintagechampagne, their requirement is
(06:12):
36 months, so it's really close.
It's close.
You'll actually find many Grand ReservaCava producers that age their wine much
longer than this minimum 30 months.
And we should always say thatall of these Reserva and Grand
Reserva Cavas are vintage.
are running half theprice on an average basis.
Let's say half the price of whata French champagne would run you.
(06:34):
And then there is this problem ofwhat is now lying beyond the various
levels of Spanish control of wineproduction with Reserva and all that.
And that is a group of producersrecently, uh, spearheaded by
Raventos, who we actually love.
It was our favorite cava, which is.
No longer kava as you'reabout to explain, right.
(06:55):
They have spearheaded, uh, an initiativewith 11 other wineries and have actually
broken away from the Spanish kava, DOC,that is the official Spanish designation
of Kava in the last couple years, andthey're starting to produce wines with.
Only native grapes without any ofthose French traders like Chardonnay
(07:17):
and Pinot Noir that have made theirway down to the Iberian Peninsula.
And they're trying to do it with,again, well, they are doing it
with native grapes and they'reescaping the strictures of the D.
O.
C.
in Spain.
However, they are producing wines that arefiner than a lot of the Grand Reservas.
(07:37):
Reventos was a Reservaand a Grand Reserva.
wine maker.
So they are still following really strictrules to make really good wine, but
they have made it intrinsically Spanish.
And I cannot say enough how much welove Reventos wine, which used to be
a cava and there's really no lava.
(07:58):
So that is a fabulous wine.
in just a conversational way cover,but they can't actually come under the
official governmental bureaucratic.
And you'll find those bottles, andthey make whites, they make rosés,
uh, they make really, really drybrutes and some little semi brutes.
(08:19):
You'll find them for a stealat about 20 bucks a bottle.
And they taste like theyare worth the money.
A lot more than that, right?
And I think that that is Bruce'sand my go to is the Raventos covers.
Well, they're not covers, but yeah,Raventos, sparkling wines and the other
wineries that have broken with them.
I think that's our go to at thispoint if we're not gonna pop All
(08:41):
the money for true French Champagne.
So let's move on to Prosecco from Italy.
And my thing is that Prosecco oftengets in North America and outside
of Italy, a lot of Europe a bad rap.
It does.
Well, it's often very inexpensive.
And what you'll find as a housepour of Prosecco in a lot of
restaurants and bars in the U.
S.
(09:01):
Right.
Is really inexpensive.
Right.
Because just the fact that it'ssparkling, Restaurants and bartenders
think, Oh, people will like it.
And it's not always the bestProsecco that is produced.
No, it isn't.
I tell you, if you're ever inPortland, Maine, we have a favorite
oyster joint called The Shop.
(09:22):
That it's not the onethat everyone talks about.
This is a separate restaurant.
I mean, it's not separate.
It's a different restaurant altogetherup on Monjoy Hill, The Shop.
And just so you know, ifyou ever go to The Shop.
All they've got is oysters, raw oysters,and some clams, but that's really it.
But here's the kicker.
They have Prosecco on tap, on tap,so you can get a picture of Prosecco.
(09:46):
So, you know, it's not thefinest Prosecco ever produced.
And I kind of like that pictureof Prosecco, it cranks me up.
Most Prosecco is produced inthe region North of Venice.
And again, On inexpensive, you cannormally get a bottle for under
10 bucks, but you can look forProsecco superior, especially from
(10:07):
the DOCG, the Italian designation.
And I'm going to butcher this Italian.
That's coming from ConiglianoValdobbiadene, and I'm sure
I've pronounced that wrong.
If you speak Italian, please drop me anote and tell me how I screwed that up.
But this is a hilly region thatis directly between Venice.
(10:27):
And here are two really good bottlesof Proceco Superior to look for.
One is Ribuli, R I B U L I, and theother is Bottega, B O T T E G A.
Both are going to set you back a littlemore than that Reventos did, maybe 25.
(10:50):
Have to price a good champagne still.
Yeah, exactly.
And, you know, listen, a part ofthis has to do with the economies
of these countries and also theinternational reputation of the product.
So Spain is in a slightly moredepressed state even than Italy.
I know Italy's economy iskind of teetering right now,
but even more so than Italy.
(11:11):
And so, you know, the Spanish wine isgoing to naturally be cheaper because
of economic factors, but that said,you shouldn't look down on Cava and
certainly not on Prosecco themselves.
And they are all cheaperthan French Champagne.
And remember the thing aboutFrench Champagne, which I love,
listen, I love French Champagne.
There's no doubt about it, butyou're paying for the brand.
(11:32):
You're paying for theregional brand Champagne.
And there are a thousand differentbottlers of Champagne in Champagne.
And to be honest, they're notall fantastic just because
they're in the Champagne region.
We have had bottles of champagnethat I've been like, eh, that's
not so great, not worth the 50.
I'm not sure I'd buy it.
(11:52):
You think every champagne is good?
No, I don't think every, but,okay, every Italian out there can
hate me now and every Spaniard canhate me now, but I can't help it.
The French are the masters of wine.
Don't hate me.
They are the masters of wine.
I think I hate you for that.
Every California producer now hates me.
I think the Italian wine.
(12:12):
But, okay, let me finish my sentence.
Come on.
But that doesn't mean that I thinkthat I'm always drinking French
wine, nor am I always payingthe upcharge for French wine.
When French wine is right, it is right.
There is no doubt about it.
And there is no doubt about thatwhen champagne is right, it tops
(12:33):
everything that we're saying.
But the key words you said there, the keywords you said there was when it's right.
Yes.
It's not.
Always.
And now I'm going to say that I thinkit's more right than it's wrong.
Okay.
It's more right thanthese are often right.
That all said, my wine cellar, ourwine cellar right now is full of kava.
(12:54):
So yes, I do.
I think that kava is great.
Of course I do.
Do I think French champagne,like a beautiful bottle of
Paul Roger is spectacular?
Of course, but you know,it's, it's hard to pop.
55, 60 for a bottle.
So, uh, I, I, you can seewe've popped for Cava.
(13:14):
Okay, that's way too much information.
But let's talk about Cremant, which is aFrench wine that is not from Champagne.
But it is the same wine.
It is made the same way, oftenmade from the same grapes.
It is.
And it is, you know, put in thosewooden racks and it's riddled where
you, they shake them and all the It is.
yeast falls to the top and they I, I thinkthat there's this thing about Cremant.
(13:35):
And it is that, uh, for many of us myage, when we were tramped around with
let's go Europe in the 1980s, late 70s and80s, and we're backpacking across Europe,
Cremant was the crappy, bubbly wine thatwe drank because we didn't have any money.
It's way changed since then.
(13:57):
Oh my goodness.
Way, way changed.
But for many of us, it stillcarries that kind of, Oh, Jesus.
cheap bottle of wine we bought anddrank in a public park in France.
Well, it basically is Champagnemade outside of any region except
Champagne, and there are 20 regionsin France where they make this.
The most famous four, we'll start withthe first, the Cremant de Bourgogne.
(14:20):
Right.
Burgundy.
Most of the Cremon you'llfind is from Burgundy.
It has the same quality as Burgundy wines.
They tend to be a little bit lighter, theytend to be a little softer and smoother.
It's a very wet, moist, humid region.
So the wine doesn't suffer,the grapes don't suffer.
Not like they do down south.
(14:41):
Which now, let's talk aboutdown south for a second.
There's Cremon.
de Limoux, which is made basicallyin the French Riviera in the
Languedoc Roussillon region.
That's much more to your liking, isn't it?
Well, yeah, because the grapesare going to suffer down there
in Languedoc because it's so dry.
It's basically, if you don't knowthat, uh, southern bits of France,
(15:02):
like near Roussillon and down thatway are kind of the northernmost
outpost of the Saharan ecosystem.
So the grapes are definitelygoing to suffer down there in that
dry and at times bitter bitterclimate, well, bitter wind climate.
Uh, there's also a Cremant that's made inAlsace, which is up by the German border.
And it much more, uh,looks to German wines.
(15:26):
It has that kind of Germanic wine taste.
If you know what that means alittle bit, uh, uh, what do I say?
A little bit sweeter, alittle bit more of sharp.
points in it.
I'm not putting down German wine,but German wine is not as notoriously
rounded as French and Spanish wine.
And so there are crements made inAlsace that kind of look toward Germany.
(15:50):
I know there's a lot ofhistory in what I just said.
They look toward history.
So there, uh, they, youshould check this out.
They're all made with PinotBlanc, not Pinot Noir.
And our favorite one, this is, and Ithink this is probably our favorite
crement, is from Alsace and look for it.
Albrecht Tradition and Albrecht Tradition.
It's 100 percent PinotBlanc, as Mark said.
(16:12):
It's an incredible champagne standin, also for about 25 bucks a bottle.
And we said there were four.
The fourth one is actually rightacross the valley from Burgundy.
It's Cremon de Jura.
And you're going to get verysimilar Cremons there that you
get in the Cremon de Bologna.
Similar, but Slightly, oh man,this is an overgeneralization,
(16:33):
slightly less sophisticated.
Um, It's not Bourgogne.
It's not Burgundy, and the climate, themicroclimates are different, and it's
not quite as layered and sophisticated asBurgundy grapes get, and Burgundy wines
get, and even Clermonts from Burgundy get.
But, listen.
If, if I were spending money, and I didspend money for the holidays, and I did
(16:56):
buy wine, we bought Cava, as you heard,and we went right to Raventos and to
those other wineries selected aroundRaventos that have kind of broken off
from the Spanish bureaucratic system.
You can find them all.
That's where we went.
Yeah, go to Raventos.
com, look them up, Google RaventosWinery, and you will find their whole
list of wineries that have broken fromthe DOC and are producing amazing wine.
(17:20):
Wonderful wines.
Before we get to the last segment of thispodcast, let me say that it would be great
if you could subscribe to this podcastand, more importantly, could you rate it?
Dare I ask for five stars?
If you could rate it, that would be great.
And if you can write a review, evenjust nice podcast or thanks for
the podcast on whatever platformallows you to write ratings.
That helps us because otherwise wehave chosen to remain unsupported
(17:44):
and our support is from you.
So that's the way you canhelp us out with this podcast.
It keeps the podcastfresh in the algorithms.
Thanks for helping us out.
Okay.
As is traditional, the final segment.
of this podcast every week.
What's making us happy in food this week?
Wild pheasant braised with apples.
(18:04):
Oh my gosh.
And juniper berries.
That was something.
Last night we were invited toa friend's house for dinner.
Yeah, Bruce did not make this.
I did not make this.
A friend of ours made it.
Allison made it.
And if you're listeningAllison, that was delicious.
You are a very good cook.
And of course there was somuch food to eat before dinner.
All this smoked salmon.
Cold smoked, hot smoked, there werecheeses, there was shrimp cocktail, and
(18:28):
then she braised these wild pheasantsthat her son had shot in Montana, and
she braised them in wine and cream andbutter with juniper berries and apples
and served them with baked potatoes thatI brought, of all things, a plum chutney
to serve with, and it was spectacular.
I had butter . And salt and pepper on mybaked potato, but okay, uh, that's great.
(18:50):
But I, that's what Ihad on my baked potato.
It was spectacular.
Uh, they were reallymild for wild pheasants.
I mean, you know, I know these things arereleased for, for hunting expeditions,
so they're not game birds per se in theUnited States, but still, nonetheless,
they were nicely, uh, mild and it wasreally beautiful stuff all the way around.
(19:12):
I guess what's making me happy infood is because something beautiful.
Bruce made.
He made, earlier this week, lamb birria.
And he made it in the old fashioned way ofmaking a birria, if you know about this.
It's a Mexican braised dish withlots of chilies and aromatics.
You serve it with tortillas.
He made his own homemadeblue corn tortillas.
(19:32):
Of course I did.
And we had lots of salsa macha togo on top of it and sour cream.
Pickled red onion.
Pickled red onions, and the lamb birriawere on lamb necks from a local farm.
He pulled the meat off after it gottender in the oven after 900 years,
and he pulled the meat off and thencrisped the meat on a griddle and
just brought the griddle to the table.
(19:54):
In bacon fat.
Crisped.
With the crisp lamb meat having beenmade nice and crunchy and bacon fat.
That was really an insane meal.
Um, thank you.
It was delicious.
Always.
Yeah.
That's the podcast for this week.
Thanks for listening.
We appreciate your spending time with us.
us in the giant podcast landscape, as wealways say, and we would love to connect
(20:17):
with you on any social media platform.
And every week we tell youwhat's making us happy in food.
So connect with us on the socialplatform, Facebook in our group,
Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
There, you will findsome videos that we do.
You will see some things we share aboutthe stuff we're eating, and please go
there and tell us what is making youhappy in food this week, because we want
(20:38):
to know on Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this isthe podcast Cooking With Bruce and Mark.
And I'm Mark Skarborough.
And together with Bruce, we havewritten, as you probably well know
at this point, three dozen cookbooks.
We're working on our thirty seventh.
We have written other books, too.
I wrote a memoir.
Bruce has written Well, knitting books.
Bruce teaches Knitting Online.
You should check out his website,Bruce weinstein.net to find out
(00:23):
where his classes are and whathe's up to with knitting next.
But this is our podcast aboutthe main passion in our life,
which is food and cooking.
We've got, as is always thecase, a one minute cooking tip.
We have entire.
segment coming up about sparklywines for the holidays that
are not champagne from France.
And we'll tell you what's makingus happy in food this week.
(00:45):
So let's get started.
Our one minute cooking tip.
Have you ever overdressed a salad?
Of course you have.
I have.
I have.
Here's what you do.
Dump it back in your salad spinner.
Oh no.
Give it a whirl andthe dressing flies off.
Oh, this is like your gravy thermos idea.
What?
(01:05):
But then, you've taken most ofthe dressing off, and the leaves
may be a little bruised, so putsome fresh, new, undressed crisp
leaves with them and it's perfect.
Okay, wait a minute.
Stop.
This works if you've dressed your saladas we always do with oil and vinegar.
It does not work withThousand Island dressing.
You cannot put leaves in a salad.
Spinner with Thousand IslandDressing, or Creamy Ranch, or French.
(01:28):
You can, as long as it has no,you know, crunchy bits in it.
There are no solids inyour salad dressing.
Thickened dressing's notgonna spin off, come on.
In that case, you justneed to warrant leaves.
But yeah, okay, I'll buy it.
If you overdress an oil and vinegar,or a clear ish vinaigrette, On a salad,
you can probably spin it off in aspinner, but you got a mess to clean up.
(01:51):
You do have a mess, but if you're shorton lettuce and don't have enough left
for a whole new salad, then there you go.
Okay.
I get it.
All right, fine.
I'll grant you this one minute cleaningtip because it didn't involve a thermos.
Anyway, before we get to the next segmentof the podcast, let me say that there
is a Facebook group called Cookingwith Bruce and Mark, and you can also
follow us on all kinds of channels.
(02:12):
We're on Instagram under our own names.
We're at TikTok, uh, in a channelcalled Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
And of course, as you know, there'sour website, Cooking with Bruce
and Mark, or just bruceandmark.
com.
You can find us all over the place, andwe'd love to connect with you elsewhere.
Okay.
I'll Up next, a whole discussionabout bubbles for the holidays.
(02:35):
By now, I think you know Mark and Ilove champagne more than any other wine.
I do.
And you also know that we like achampagne alternative called Petnat.
But we're not talking aboutPetnat today, finally.
It's an episode where we'renot discussing Petnat.
Oh, no, we always talk about Petnat.
Pétalons naturels.
We always talk about Petnat.
And one of the reasons we always go toPetnat is because a case of champagne
often costs Or more, and we don'twant to spend that kind of money.
(03:00):
With tariffs coming, who knowshow much it's going to cost.
Right, so you want to stock up forChristmas and New Year's, so we've done
a little, you know, research, and we'vegot champagne alternatives that you might
want to think about for the holidays.
Okay, basically to lay this out, we'regoing to Cava, Prosecco, and Cremant.
Uh, these are different, uh, sparklywines from different places, from
(03:20):
Spain, from Italy, and from France.
Not from the Champagne region,but from other places in France,
particularly from, uh, Burgundy.
But we want to talk about that,but let's start with Cava.
Okay, so Bruce is the person who actuallyintroduced me to Spanish Cava in my life.
I didn't even know it was a thing, um,so what do you want to say about Cava?
(03:41):
Well, we've talked about Cava before,and so, you know, we have said it before.
It mostly comes from northern Spain, andit's a relatively inexpensive bubbly wine.
Most people think that, oh, Cava'sgoing to cost you about 10 a bottle.
But there are a couple of levels ofCava above that standard base level that
you're going to find in your liquor store.
(04:02):
There is Reserva Cavaand a Grand Reserva Cava.
The Reserva actuallyrequires 15 months of aging.
Which is the same requirement, getthis, for non vintage champagne.
I think one of the problems here, andoften the argument about cava, is that the
Champagne region of France, where so muchof World War I was fought, in that region,
(04:26):
the grapes are subjected to a more humidand slightly, well, not even slightly,
colder climate that is damper and colder,and I think the, uh, kind of standard
answer here is the grapes then produce,like the Pinot Noir grapes and others that
are used for champagne there, are juicier,and they have less of a raisiny quality
(04:47):
to them because they're not in such a dryclimate, and I think that's also true.
Often the knock against kavais that it gets too dry, but of
course for us, we like dry wine.
So for us, it works better.
I think also it works better because forme, the grapes are, how do I say this?
(05:08):
It's delicately less soft.
Mark has this thingabout wines in general.
The grapes have to suffer.
And so you like, Mark, you like wines fromregions that are dry and arid and desert
like because the wine tastes more intense.
I prefer southern Italianwines to Tuscan wines.
(05:28):
I prefer southern French winesto Burgundies and Bordeaux's.
I like Spanish wines.
I like wines where, again,things have to Yeah.
Worked very hard.
I like Paso Robles in Californiamuch more than I like Napa wine.
And because of that, when we get downto talking about, Cromance is actually
one that I think Mark likes better thanChampagne, but we're still on cavas.
(05:50):
We had the Reserva Cava, right?
15 months of aging, same requirementfor non vintage Champagnes.
Then there's a level called Gran Reserva.
That is not only is the wine requiredto be from a single vintage, and
these bottles are vintage dated,it must age for at least 30 months.
If you compare this to vintagechampagne, their requirement is
(06:12):
36 months, so it's really close.
It's close.
You'll actually find many Grand ReservaCava producers that age their wine much
longer than this minimum 30 months.
And we should always say thatall of these Reserva and Grand
Reserva Cavas are vintage.
are running half theprice on an average basis.
Let's say half the price of whata French champagne would run you.
(06:34):
And then there is this problem ofwhat is now lying beyond the various
levels of Spanish control of wineproduction with Reserva and all that.
And that is a group of producersrecently, uh, spearheaded by
Raventos, who we actually love.
It was our favorite cava, which is.
No longer kava as you'reabout to explain, right.
(06:55):
They have spearheaded, uh, an initiativewith 11 other wineries and have actually
broken away from the Spanish kava, DOC,that is the official Spanish designation
of Kava in the last couple years, andthey're starting to produce wines with.
Only native grapes without any ofthose French traders like Chardonnay
(07:17):
and Pinot Noir that have made theirway down to the Iberian Peninsula.
And they're trying to do it with,again, well, they are doing it
with native grapes and they'reescaping the strictures of the D.
O.
C.
in Spain.
However, they are producing wines that arefiner than a lot of the Grand Reservas.
(07:37):
Reventos was a Reservaand a Grand Reserva.
wine maker.
So they are still following really strictrules to make really good wine, but
they have made it intrinsically Spanish.
And I cannot say enough how much welove Reventos wine, which used to be
a cava and there's really no lava.
(07:58):
So that is a fabulous wine.
in just a conversational way cover,but they can't actually come under the
official governmental bureaucratic.
And you'll find those bottles, andthey make whites, they make rosés,
uh, they make really, really drybrutes and some little semi brutes.
(08:19):
You'll find them for a stealat about 20 bucks a bottle.
And they taste like theyare worth the money.
A lot more than that, right?
And I think that that is Bruce'sand my go to is the Raventos covers.
Well, they're not covers, but yeah,Raventos, sparkling wines and the other
wineries that have broken with them.
I think that's our go to at thispoint if we're not gonna pop All
(08:41):
the money for true French Champagne.
So let's move on to Prosecco from Italy.
And my thing is that Prosecco oftengets in North America and outside
of Italy, a lot of Europe a bad rap.
It does.
Well, it's often very inexpensive.
And what you'll find as a housepour of Prosecco in a lot of
restaurants and bars in the U.
S.
(09:01):
Right.
Is really inexpensive.
Right.
Because just the fact that it'ssparkling, Restaurants and bartenders
think, Oh, people will like it.
And it's not always the bestProsecco that is produced.
No, it isn't.
I tell you, if you're ever inPortland, Maine, we have a favorite
oyster joint called The Shop.
(09:22):
That it's not the onethat everyone talks about.
This is a separate restaurant.
I mean, it's not separate.
It's a different restaurant altogetherup on Monjoy Hill, The Shop.
And just so you know, ifyou ever go to The Shop.
All they've got is oysters, raw oysters,and some clams, but that's really it.
But here's the kicker.
They have Prosecco on tap, on tap,so you can get a picture of Prosecco.
(09:46):
So, you know, it's not thefinest Prosecco ever produced.
And I kind of like that pictureof Prosecco, it cranks me up.
Most Prosecco is produced inthe region North of Venice.
And again, On inexpensive, you cannormally get a bottle for under
10 bucks, but you can look forProsecco superior, especially from
(10:07):
the DOCG, the Italian designation.
And I'm going to butcher this Italian.
That's coming from ConiglianoValdobbiadene, and I'm sure
I've pronounced that wrong.
If you speak Italian, please drop me anote and tell me how I screwed that up.
But this is a hilly region thatis directly between Venice.
(10:27):
And here are two really good bottlesof Proceco Superior to look for.
One is Ribuli, R I B U L I, and theother is Bottega, B O T T E G A.
Both are going to set you back a littlemore than that Reventos did, maybe 25.
(10:50):
Have to price a good champagne still.
Yeah, exactly.
And, you know, listen, a part ofthis has to do with the economies
of these countries and also theinternational reputation of the product.
So Spain is in a slightly moredepressed state even than Italy.
I know Italy's economy iskind of teetering right now,
but even more so than Italy.
(11:11):
And so, you know, the Spanish wine isgoing to naturally be cheaper because
of economic factors, but that said,you shouldn't look down on Cava and
certainly not on Prosecco themselves.
And they are all cheaperthan French Champagne.
And remember the thing aboutFrench Champagne, which I love,
listen, I love French Champagne.
There's no doubt about it, butyou're paying for the brand.
(11:32):
You're paying for theregional brand Champagne.
And there are a thousand differentbottlers of Champagne in Champagne.
And to be honest, they're notall fantastic just because
they're in the Champagne region.
We have had bottles of champagnethat I've been like, eh, that's
not so great, not worth the 50.
I'm not sure I'd buy it.
(11:52):
You think every champagne is good?
No, I don't think every, but,okay, every Italian out there can
hate me now and every Spaniard canhate me now, but I can't help it.
The French are the masters of wine.
Don't hate me.
They are the masters of wine.
I think I hate you for that.
Every California producer now hates me.
I think the Italian wine.
(12:12):
But, okay, let me finish my sentence.
Come on.
But that doesn't mean that I thinkthat I'm always drinking French
wine, nor am I always payingthe upcharge for French wine.
When French wine is right, it is right.
There is no doubt about it.
And there is no doubt about thatwhen champagne is right, it tops
(12:33):
everything that we're saying.
But the key words you said there, the keywords you said there was when it's right.
Yes.
It's not.
Always.
And now I'm going to say that I thinkit's more right than it's wrong.
Okay.
It's more right thanthese are often right.
That all said, my wine cellar, ourwine cellar right now is full of kava.
(12:54):
So yes, I do.
I think that kava is great.
Of course I do.
Do I think French champagne,like a beautiful bottle of
Paul Roger is spectacular?
Of course, but you know,it's, it's hard to pop.
55, 60 for a bottle.
So, uh, I, I, you can seewe've popped for Cava.
(13:14):
Okay, that's way too much information.
But let's talk about Cremant, which is aFrench wine that is not from Champagne.
But it is the same wine.
It is made the same way, oftenmade from the same grapes.
It is.
And it is, you know, put in thosewooden racks and it's riddled where
you, they shake them and all the It is.
yeast falls to the top and they I, I thinkthat there's this thing about Cremant.
(13:35):
And it is that, uh, for many of us myage, when we were tramped around with
let's go Europe in the 1980s, late 70s and80s, and we're backpacking across Europe,
Cremant was the crappy, bubbly wine thatwe drank because we didn't have any money.
It's way changed since then.
(13:57):
Oh my goodness.
Way, way changed.
But for many of us, it stillcarries that kind of, Oh, Jesus.
cheap bottle of wine we bought anddrank in a public park in France.
Well, it basically is Champagnemade outside of any region except
Champagne, and there are 20 regionsin France where they make this.
The most famous four, we'll start withthe first, the Cremant de Bourgogne.
(14:20):
Right.
Burgundy.
Most of the Cremon you'llfind is from Burgundy.
It has the same quality as Burgundy wines.
They tend to be a little bit lighter, theytend to be a little softer and smoother.
It's a very wet, moist, humid region.
So the wine doesn't suffer,the grapes don't suffer.
Not like they do down south.
(14:41):
Which now, let's talk aboutdown south for a second.
There's Cremon.
de Limoux, which is made basicallyin the French Riviera in the
Languedoc Roussillon region.
That's much more to your liking, isn't it?
Well, yeah, because the grapesare going to suffer down there
in Languedoc because it's so dry.
It's basically, if you don't knowthat, uh, southern bits of France,
(15:02):
like near Roussillon and down thatway are kind of the northernmost
outpost of the Saharan ecosystem.
So the grapes are definitelygoing to suffer down there in that
dry and at times bitter bitterclimate, well, bitter wind climate.
Uh, there's also a Cremant that's made inAlsace, which is up by the German border.
And it much more, uh,looks to German wines.
(15:26):
It has that kind of Germanic wine taste.
If you know what that means alittle bit, uh, uh, what do I say?
A little bit sweeter, alittle bit more of sharp.
points in it.
I'm not putting down German wine,but German wine is not as notoriously
rounded as French and Spanish wine.
And so there are crements made inAlsace that kind of look toward Germany.
(15:50):
I know there's a lot ofhistory in what I just said.
They look toward history.
So there, uh, they, youshould check this out.
They're all made with PinotBlanc, not Pinot Noir.
And our favorite one, this is, and Ithink this is probably our favorite
crement, is from Alsace and look for it.
Albrecht Tradition and Albrecht Tradition.
It's 100 percent PinotBlanc, as Mark said.
(16:12):
It's an incredible champagne standin, also for about 25 bucks a bottle.
And we said there were four.
The fourth one is actually rightacross the valley from Burgundy.
It's Cremon de Jura.
And you're going to get verysimilar Cremons there that you
get in the Cremon de Bologna.
Similar, but Slightly, oh man,this is an overgeneralization,
(16:33):
slightly less sophisticated.
Um, It's not Bourgogne.
It's not Burgundy, and the climate, themicroclimates are different, and it's
not quite as layered and sophisticated asBurgundy grapes get, and Burgundy wines
get, and even Clermonts from Burgundy get.
But, listen.
If, if I were spending money, and I didspend money for the holidays, and I did
(16:56):
buy wine, we bought Cava, as you heard,and we went right to Raventos and to
those other wineries selected aroundRaventos that have kind of broken off
from the Spanish bureaucratic system.
You can find them all.
That's where we went.
Yeah, go to Raventos.
com, look them up, Google RaventosWinery, and you will find their whole
list of wineries that have broken fromthe DOC and are producing amazing wine.
(17:20):
Wonderful wines.
Before we get to the last segment of thispodcast, let me say that it would be great
if you could subscribe to this podcastand, more importantly, could you rate it?
Dare I ask for five stars?
If you could rate it, that would be great.
And if you can write a review, evenjust nice podcast or thanks for
the podcast on whatever platformallows you to write ratings.
That helps us because otherwise wehave chosen to remain unsupported
(17:44):
and our support is from you.
So that's the way you canhelp us out with this podcast.
It keeps the podcastfresh in the algorithms.
Thanks for helping us out.
Okay.
As is traditional, the final segment.
of this podcast every week.
What's making us happy in food this week?
Wild pheasant braised with apples.
(18:04):
Oh my gosh.
And juniper berries.
That was something.
Last night we were invited toa friend's house for dinner.
Yeah, Bruce did not make this.
I did not make this.
A friend of ours made it.
Allison made it.
And if you're listeningAllison, that was delicious.
You are a very good cook.
And of course there was somuch food to eat before dinner.
All this smoked salmon.
Cold smoked, hot smoked, there werecheeses, there was shrimp cocktail, and
(18:28):
then she braised these wild pheasantsthat her son had shot in Montana, and
she braised them in wine and cream andbutter with juniper berries and apples
and served them with baked potatoes thatI brought, of all things, a plum chutney
to serve with, and it was spectacular.
I had butter . And salt and pepper on mybaked potato, but okay, uh, that's great.
(18:50):
But I, that's what Ihad on my baked potato.
It was spectacular.
Uh, they were reallymild for wild pheasants.
I mean, you know, I know these things arereleased for, for hunting expeditions,
so they're not game birds per se in theUnited States, but still, nonetheless,
they were nicely, uh, mild and it wasreally beautiful stuff all the way around.
(19:12):
I guess what's making me happy infood is because something beautiful.
Bruce made.
He made, earlier this week, lamb birria.
And he made it in the old fashioned way ofmaking a birria, if you know about this.
It's a Mexican braised dish withlots of chilies and aromatics.
You serve it with tortillas.
He made his own homemadeblue corn tortillas.
(19:32):
Of course I did.
And we had lots of salsa macha togo on top of it and sour cream.
Pickled red onion.
Pickled red onions, and the lamb birriawere on lamb necks from a local farm.
He pulled the meat off after it gottender in the oven after 900 years,
and he pulled the meat off and thencrisped the meat on a griddle and
just brought the griddle to the table.
(19:54):
In bacon fat.
Crisped.
With the crisp lamb meat having beenmade nice and crunchy and bacon fat.
That was really an insane meal.
Um, thank you.
It was delicious.
Always.
Yeah.
That's the podcast for this week.
Thanks for listening.
We appreciate your spending time with us.
us in the giant podcast landscape, as wealways say, and we would love to connect
(20:17):
with you on any social media platform.
And every week we tell youwhat's making us happy in food.
So connect with us on the socialplatform, Facebook in our group,
Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
There, you will findsome videos that we do.
You will see some things we share aboutthe stuff we're eating, and please go
there and tell us what is making youhappy in food this week, because we want
(20:38):
to know on Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
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