Special notes for everybody
BBQ chicken and peppers with pickles, rice, and tomato salad. The wine is an inexpensive Spanish red. Dried fruit front, raisin, Cherry, then tannins, and a tart pucker. A little funk, tastes sophisticated. Wonderful with the grill as well as the tomato basil flavor. I would definitely buy it again and before the meal was up, I schemed about how to get hold of a case. Hope I’ll see it again.
The Wine Club, $6
Wine and kebab. We made kebab with yogurt and parley. The tomato salad is with basil and olive oil. The tomato salad and wine were excellent together.
Garofoli Monte Reale Sangiovese Marche IGT 2012. The Wine Club, $11.
The first tomato salad of the season, made of just sliced tomatoes and salt. We made it austere because it was the first, next time we’ll add oil and basil, maybe even cheese. The tomato was grown by a Hmong farmer from Fresno named John who comes to the James Lick Farmer’s Market on Sundays. After this we had grilled eggplant and zucchini over rice with ponzu sauce. And some pickled radish greens. The tomatoes tasted great with the wine but missed fat. The wine was tannic and could have used it. Beautiful color. A good match for the tomatoes. I’d buy another if I came across it, and have it with a burger. The Wine Club, $12.