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Tag: truffles

A day in the Napa Valley: Mumm

September 10, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Mumm sparkling wines reminded us of what Napa is all about

Spending the day in the Napa Valley means one thing: wine tasting. And long gone are the days where you’d carelessly go from winery to winery, choosing them at a whim, without having to worry about reservations and tasting fees. Wine tasting in Napa now requires both organization and money; lots and lots of money.

I decided to go to Mumm after our lunch stop at Guidi’s Deli because I knew I’d be wanting some sparkling wine – in my old age, I’m looking for fun wherever I can get it.

I didn’t realize until we arrived for our 12:30 PM reservation that we had actually been there back in 2016, when relatives from Argentina came to visit. We had sat in the patio back then, but it’d been a lovely spring day. On what I knew would be a hot summer one, I figured seating inside would be a better choice – even with COVID being at epidemic levels once again.

It turned out that I was right, not only was it more pleasant inside in terms of temperature, but we had a lovely view of the vineyards. As no one was sitting anywhere near us, and the room was large and airy, we felt pretty safe.

Our experience at Mumm started with a complementary glass of sparkling wine, offered to everyone. That day, it was the Mumm Napa Brut Reserve ($50), an all around crowd pleaser. It’s 60% Pinot Noir and 40% Chardonnay, some of the wine is aged in oak barrels for a years before being blended and allowed to ferment in the bottle for another four years.

It’s a very well balanced sparkling wine, quite effervescent, and not too much bitterness or acidity. It’s a brut, but it had hints of sweetness. It’s just very easy to drink and what I’d call a happy wine. And it is a mature wine, it reminded us of what Napa is all about – and that expensive wines are expensive for a reason. I totally understand why Mumm features it as their all-around wine.

Mumm offers three different tastings, each of three different sparkling wines, costing $40 to $48 per person. In addition, the server chooses a fourth wine after they get to know your preferences. You can also order cheese plates to nibble on, but as we had just come back from lunch we didn’t bother with that.

We chose to share the “club spotlight” tasting ($45). These are wines only available at the winery and for the wine club.

They served us the first two wines together with the recommendation that we drink them cold – and I, perhaps for the first time, realized the importance of an ice bucket. Even though it wasn’t particularly hot inside, the wine did get warm pretty quickly and all the wines lost their magic once they were tepid.

Our first wine flight taste was the 2018 Blanc de Blancs Reserve Extra Brut ($60) from Napa Valley. This was aged for five years in the bottle. I wasn’t as fond of it. Being an extra brut, it was more bitter than the preceding one. It also had smaller bubbles, which is neither here or there. My husband didn’t taste the bitterness but actually found it frutier and easy to drink. He liked it more than I, but we both agreed it was a very well balanced, non-acidic, adult tasting sparkling wine.

Our second wine, the Devaux Ranch Reserve Rosé ($55), wasn’t too different from the previous one. It was mostly pinot noir with a tiny bit of chardonnay, and made into a rosé (for which, if I remember correctly, they use the peels). This was aged 45 months in the bottle. I felt this wine had a bitter core, but circled by fruity flavors. I’m not the sort of person who can ever tell which fruit a wine is supposed to taste like – but then again, at a recent dinner my friends and I thought a blood orange sorbet was actually guava flavored. Mike once again didn’t taste the bitterness and instead found it very easy to drink, very smooth and just “yummy”. He did feel it had a shorter finish than the previous wines, however.

The third wine in the Club Spotlight was the Brut Reserve Extended Tirage ($60). This 60/40 combo of pinot noir and chardonnay was aged in the bottle for 7 years. It led to extremely small and effervescent bubbles, which just tickled your mouth as you drunk it. It was tasty, not too bitter but just so much fun.

Finally, our server chose for us the Eclipse Blanc de Noirs ($55). It was very similar to the one before, well balanced and extremely effervescent, with those fun little bubbles, but it had a great story behind it. It is made from the grapes harvested on August 21st, 2017, the day of the total solar eclipse we experienced in the West Coast – though it wasn’t a total eclipse here in California.

This was, indeed, the perfect wine for us. Mike and I took our girls to Oregon to see the total eclipse, and as we looked for good locations for it, we found ourselves in a beautiful stream in the forest, with only one other person there. We watched it sitting on the rocks, experienced the full sound effects of the birds going quiet, the temperature going chilly and then the magic of the eclipse itself. Earlier this year, we went to Dallas to see another total eclipse – but the 2017 one was the most special that I will always remember. Needless to say, we bought a bottle of this champagne for a special occasion.

As it was Mike’s birthday, the server very nicely brought him a little box of truffles to celebrate. Of course, we shared them. These included a salted caramel truffle and a brut rosé raspberry truffle. They are made by Anette’s Chocolates in the city of Napa, because we all know that colabs are the order of the day.

I loved the salted caramel truffle, which was rich, not overly sweet and just delicious. I didn’t like the other truffle too much, it was just too bitter and intense for my taste – Mike, of course, much preferred it. I think our tastes in chocolate reflect our tastes in romantic partners as well.

And that was our tasting experience at Mumm. Our server was very efficient, a good story teller, a pleasant conversationalist, and gave us a great experience. So much so that I was actually thinking we should join the club to repeat this. We probably won’t, it’s too much money, but it’s the first time I’d ever been tempted to actually join a club. 

Mumm Napa
8445 Silverado Trail
Rutherford, CA 
(800) 686-6272
Daily 10 AM - 4:30 PM

Carando Meatballs + Signature Reserve Pasta Sauce Reviews

October 3, 2021 / / 1 Comment

Won’t buy again

Last time I made ravioli, I paired them with Signature Reserve Tomato, Porcini & Black Truffle Pasta Sauce ($6, on sale for $4 for 21 oz jar at Safeway) and Carando spicy Sicilian meatballs. I suspected the combination wasn’t going to work and it didn’t – but I also tasted each ingredient separately and I was not impressed with either the sauce or the meatballs.

Signature Reserve Pasta Sauce Tomato Porcini & Black Truffle - 21.2 Oz

Signature Reserve appears to be a premium version of Safeway/Albertson’s store brand. They cost more than twice than regular Signature pasta sauces and this one, at least, was imported from Italy and claimed to be made from a “Porchettini family recipe”. I’m not sure who they are, but a recipe needs to come from someone or other.

This particular sauce wasn’t bad, if you really like the flavor of artificial truffle. Basically what you get is a pretty fresh, tomato forward sauce, immediately followed by an intense black truffle flavor that lingers on. Now, I learned last year that the flavors of actual truffles and artificial truffle is quite different, and what most of us understand as black truffle is artificial – so I was expecting this sauce to taste that way. Perhaps not as intensely as it does, however. It’s not bad, but the truffle in the sauce will obfuscate any other flavor that surrounds it.

While I wouldn’t order this particular pasta sauce again, I might try one of the other ones – they have at least five other flavors.

Carando Meatballs Italian Style Sicilian Recipe Hot - 16 Oz

I am a huge fan of meatballs but I don’t make them often enough because if I have ground beef and I’m going to eat it with pasta, I end up making a meat sauce instead and then it feels redundant. I figured that if I buy the meatballs already made, I could would just eat them with pasta and store-bought tomato sauce for a very quick dinner. I have yet to find a good brand of refrigerated or frozen meatballs however and these, despite its fancy packaging, weren’t them.

The main problem is that they are too dense and heavy. Indeed, these meatballs only contain ground pork, cheese and spices. They don’t have bread to make them light and airy. Baking them as per the instructions, doesn’t contribute to making them any lighter.

I wasn’t thrilled by the flavor either, but that’s my fault for buying spicy meatballs. Who knows what prompted me to do that. Still, having tried them their dense consistency is enough of a deterrent to try any other flavors.

Ravioli in Truffle Sauce Recipe

December 28, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Plus what I learned about truffles & are the truffles sold at the Berkeley Bowl any good?

During a very brief stay in Barcelona, my daughter fell in love with a dish of truffle ravioli in a parmesan and truffle oil cream sauce at one of the Sensi tapas restaurants. So when she asked that I include a pasta dish for our Christmas dinner, I immediately thought of that dish – and started researching recipes and truffles.

Truffles, I knew, were very expensive and rare fungi that grows naturally in Italy and France and is only available at exorbitant prices for a few months of the year. What I didn’t know is that it’s extremely hard to preserve them – because it’s their aroma which actually gives dishes the ethereal earthy flavor that we so like. Infusing them in oil doesn’t really work, but food scientists were able to isolate its most prevalent odorant – a compound called 2,4-Dithiapentane – and replicate it. This is what is mixed with olive oil, butters or salt and sold as “truffle” whatever. That is to say, this is what most of us know as truffle flavor. The little pieces of truffle we see in commercial products are apparently there mostly for show.

There seems to be a revolt against truffle oil among some top chefs, who belief its fake flavor confuses diners and stops them from being able to appreciate the subtleties of real truffles. Thinking back to the truffle dishes I’ve had, I think this is likely to be the case. I still dream of Aquerello‘s ridged pasta with foie gras, scented with black truffles, which I believe is topped with real truffle, but most other truffle dishes I recall did seem to be rather one-dimentional. Years ago, my husband gave me expensive botles of black and white truffle oil for Christmas, so I know those flavors quite well. While I didn’t care much for the white truffle oil, the black truffle oil does impart a rather tasty flavor.

I found many recipes online for pasta in a truffle sauce, and at first my decision was on whether to use truffle oil or butter. While researching what was easily available to me, I found that the Berkeley Bowl was actually carrying fresh black truffles for about $160/lb (via instacart). Given that the page offered no information about these truffles, and that French black truffles are currently selling for $95/oz (a regular truffle weighs an ounce or less), I was quite doubtful of these – but I did learn that truffles are also grown in the West Coast – indeed, as close as Napa Valley – so I imagined they were domestic. My daughter suggests, however, that they might just be expired truffles – not fresh enough to retain much of their flavor. She might have been right.

Ultimately, I decided to give them a try – and so far I’ve had mixed results. I first used them the night I got them by shaving them on a dish of plain pasta served with vegan butter. The truffle shavings completely failed to impart any flavor on the dish. It was a total failure.

For my Christmas Eve dish I decided to do something different. I took part of a truffle and chopped it very finely and infused it in good quality melted butter early in the day – so that it was solid by the time I actually made the sauce for this dish. This, by itself, didn’t give the sauce much truffle flavor, but I think it helped it build, so by the time all the ingredients were combined – the truffle ravioli, the sauce and the shaved truffle on top – the results were delicious. The dish had a very earthy flavor, truffly but not as strong as truffle oil.

I was lucky enough that I was able to follow this recipe closely, as I was able to find the called-for taleggio cheese at the Berkeley Bowl as well. The recipe writer suggests that you can substitute this cheese with Fontina, Robiola or Brie, though to me its flavor was closer to camembert. Indeed, I added a couple of ounces of camembert, as I hadn’t gotten as much taleggio as the recipe called for. I’d probably had done better using less cheese, as the sauce was a tad too salty – I’m making this recommended adjustment in the recipe below.

I wanted to make ravioli in the first place, and was happy to find porcini & truffle ravioli from the Pasta Shop at the Berkeley Bowl. These are made with “truffle essence”, that is to say, the artificial aromatic compound. They were tasty by themselves, but they were really elevated by the sauce and the shaved truffle.

To store truffles before using them, dry the surface with a paper towel and then place in a bowl filled with uncooked rice (to help draw moisture away). Store in the fridge or a cool place in your house.

Ravioli in Truffle Sauce Recipe

Ingredients

  • 12 oz fresh or frozen mushroom ravioli
  • 2-3 Tbsp truffle butter
  • 8 oz taleggio cheese, cut into 1/2″ cubes
  • 3/4 cup heavy cream
  • 1 truffle
  • Parmesan cheese to taste

Instructions

Cook the ravioli according to package instructions, drain.

Meanwhile, melt the truffle butter, cheese and cream over medium heat – stirring frequently. Transfer the ravioli to the sauce and coat all over. Transfer to a serving dish or individual plates.

Shave truffle and Parmesan cheese to taste.

Based on Jacqui’s recipe at The Pasta Project.

2020 Christmas Eve Dinner

Marga’s favorite recipes – Marga’s Party & Holiday Recipes

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