Happy New Year!

Our store hours today, New Year's Eve, are 9:00 am to 8:00 pm.

Limited Availability on North Coast Old Stock Reserve!

Thursdays the BottleBlog will feature an update on various exciting things going on at Joe Canal's: Reports of our travels, special event coverage, and more!

We we able to get our hands on a very limited amount of North Coast Old Stock Reserve! This complex beer is a small batch, limited release that has been aged in oak bourbon barrels. Last release was 5 years ago!

"Like a fine port, Old Stock Ale is intended to be laid down. With an original gravity of over 1.100 and a generous hopping rate, Old Stock Ale is well-designed to round-out and mellow with age. It's brewed with classic Maris Otter malt and Fuggles and East Kent Goldings hops, all imported from England." -North Coast

Just delivered to Woodbridge and Lawrenceville, this beer is geared towards a customers looking for limited, barrel-aged beers. No bottle limit! Come and get yours today!!

Wine 101: The History of the Champagne Toast

Wednesdays on the BottleBlog will feature an education session on wine, beer or spirits. Today, in honor of New Year's Eve, Shannon Spare explores the history of the Champagne toast.

This Friday night, all across our great (albeit snowy) state of New Jersey, people will be pouring bubbly and toasting at midnight. It's a time-honored tradition, we do it without thinking much about it: On New Year's, at weddings, at holiday parties and even "just like that." But where did it come from? Why do we clink our glasses so ceremoniously?

There are a few different legends, and it's hard to pinpoint which one is correct as they've all been passed down from generation to generation with no real basis on actual fact. The best legend I found dates back to medieval times, when water was often polluted so wine was thought to be one of the only "safe" liquids to drink. Interestingly, the primitive winemaking methods introduced large amounts of sediment into the wine, so it was easily poisoned. When hosting an event, to prove to the guests that their wine was not tainted, the host would pour a small amount of the guests' wine into his own glass and take a sip. When the guests and host were more intimate acquaintances, the guests naturally already had trust for the host, so to signify that he could skip the tasting ritual, the guests would simply clink their glass with the host's glass and drink. Thus, the "toast" was born.

People toast across the world. Many countries traditionally toast to "health": The Dutch say "Prost!," the French proclaim "Sante," Russians shout "Vashe zdorovie!" and everyone knows the traditional Irish "Slainte!" In Asia, toasts are celebrated by saying "Ganbei!" in China and "Kanpai!" in Japan, both which mean "Dry your cup!"

Here in America, in addition to our "Cheers!", we generally raise our glasses and make a speech about the occasion. Occasionally you'll hear chants of "Hear hear!" before the toast is made. This is thought to come from the days of the Towne Crier, who shouted "Hear Ye! Hear Ye!" in order to gain everyone's attention before he began with the announcements.

At any rate, pour yourself some bubbles this Friday night or any night, and "drink the stars," as Dom Perignon would say.

Happy New Year, and CHEERS!

Ice Wine Q & A

Tuesdays on the BottleBlog, we'll focus on interesting or exciting industry news from here in New Jersey, to the valleys of California, to the vineyards of New Zealand.

With ice wine, what’s the motivation for having the grapes freeze?

I recently brought some ice wine, which I understand is made from frozen grapes, back from Canada. What’s the motivation for having the grapes freeze?

Ice wine, as you no doubt noticed, is very sweet. That’s where the frozen grapes come in. As water freezes, the ordered pattern of molecules that make up ice tends to push impurities like sugar into the more disorganized liquid part. You may see a similar phenomenon in your ice cube tray; the cubes often look cloudy in the center. This is due to the water freezing at the edges first, pushing the impurities (mostly bits of dissolved air) toward the center.

Incidentally, this basic process is of practical significance. Silicon for the semiconductor industry is purified using this phenomenon; without it there would probably be no affordable consumer electronics.

But back to ice wine. It has caught on recently but is really a rediscovery. Pliny the Elder, who lived between 23 and 79 AD, wrote about grapes that were not harvested until after the first frost. But people lost interest in this kind of wine until 1794 in Germany. Today, Germany and Canada are the largest producers of ice wine.

There is another way to get sweet grape juice to ferment: Let a fungus attack the grapes, turning them into something akin to a raisin. As the grapes dry, water evaporates, but the sugars remain, making the grapes sweeter. The fungus that does this without wrecking the taste of the grapes is botrytis cinerea, often called noble rot. Wine made from such “rotten’’ grapes, called botrytized wine, dates to the late 1500s in Hungary.

This article originally appeared on boston.com's "Ask Dr. Knowledge" segment on December 27, 2010.

Happy Holidays!

Last Minute Gifts at Joe Canal's!

With only TWO SHOPPING DAYS LEFT until Christmas, everyone is in frantic holiday mode! Did you remember a gift for mom? What about your best friend? Oh my goodness... did you forget Uncle Frank?

Don't worry! Joe Canal's has something perfect for all of the adults on your list! We have a wide selection of gift sets - everything from fine wine to imported beer, and all your favorite spirits like Bailey's, Jack Daniels, Grey Goose and Chambord!

If you just can't decide on that perfect gift, we have gift cards available that are the perfect fit for everyone! Available in any denomination, just ask your cashier to load it up with the amount you like, and you're on your way.

Don't get stressed! Last minute shopping is easy at Joe Canal's. Stop in and see us today!

Free at Last!

Tuesdays on the BottleBlog, we'll focus on interesting or exciting industry news from here in New Jersey, to the valleys of California, to the vineyards of New Zealand.

Free at Last! Free at Last!
You should get a divorce from the marriage of food and wine
by: Matt Kramer

Now that the Thanksgiving feast is finally digested, it's a good moment to bring up the miserable matter of marrying food and wine. "Marrying," the preferred term, is itself full of Freudian undercurrents, not the least of which is the subtext of the formulaic "till death do us part."

Few aspects of what might be called the "wine life" are more burdensome and less fulfilling than this business of pairing the just-right wine with the just-so dish. What's more, never in the millennia-old history of wine has the idea of such gustatory calibration been more inappropriate, indeed more futile, than today. Allow me to explain.

This whole fussy issue of choosing the "right" wine for a certain dish came from the French. So if you're looking for someone to blame, they're it. Now, it's not as if the French, in some dastardly fashion, somehow calculated to make the life of the table an unending tribulation wherein the treachery of choosing the "wrong" wine could upset everyone's equilibrium, to say nothing of embarrassing the host or causing prospective business partners to question your powers of judgment.

Instead, the idea came from the extreme fractionalization of France's vast local-food differences allied with—let's be honest here—a certain French exactitude in ritual matters, of which the table is famously their altar.

Keep in mind that for centuries, the French drank only their local wines and ate only their local dishes (and still do, in large part). Knowing this, it doesn't take a lot of imagination to see how, over a lifetime spent eating, say, boeuf bourguignon and washing it down with your local Burgundy wine, you're going to become pretty choosy about which red Burgundy goes best with grand-mère's boeuf bourguignon, especially given the French penchant for delineating and codifying differences. (You didn’t think that the elaborate structure of appellation contrôlée came out of a slapdash culture, did you?)

Inevitably, these considerations about which local wine went best with which local dish congealed into a prescribed absolutism, never mind that folks in Provence wouldn’t have chosen a red Burgundy with their local daube de boeuf on a bet, while the Burgundians probably didn’t even know of the existence of, say, a Bandol, let alone thought to pair one with their version of beef stew.

Fast-forward to the late 20th century. We Americans especially (but by no means exclusively) looked to our culinary betters for guidance and insight in matters of the table. That clearly did not mean the British. And, regrettably, until very recently, it didn’t mean the Italians either, much less any of the great Asian food cultures. It was France, front and center.

That is how we all found ourselves entrapped—that's the only word—in the matchmaking madness of marrying the right wine with the right dish. Let's face it: It worked when you had, say, 25 dishes and a comparably limited number of wines, both of which evolved from an isolated regional culture with an equally isolated and narrowly defined palate.

"Good wines can take care of themselves if seated next to a food partner that's the least bit sociable."

This explains the oft-cited suggestion that you can never go wrong with choosing the local wines for a local dish, e.g., a high-acid Barbera or Nebbiolo with one of Piedmont’s magnificently rich dishes, which welcome those wines' palate-refreshing acidity to knife through their richness.

The haute cuisine level, for its part, was little different, with a small number of "prescribed" great wines (Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, Sauternes, a few select German Rieslings) orbiting around a group of equally luxurious dishes.

So what's a 21st-century wine lover to do? What I'm about to propose may sound radical, even philistine, but I assure you that a) I’m serious and b) what I’m proposing—if you’ll forgive the expression—works.

Here it is (suitable for framing): Good wines can work wonderfully with any food that is remotely plausible for the wine.

That's it. Obviously you don'’t want to serve some massive Napa Valley Cabernet with your Dover sole. But you already knew that. The reality of food and wine today is that there are far too many good wines—I emphasize that because it's critically important—and far too many dishes from too many cuisines to fuss about a just-right pairing.

Good wines can take care of themselves if seated next to a food partner that'’s the least bit sociable. Want proof? Think of the classic pairing in Alsace of that region’s delicious dry Riesling or Pinot Gris with choucroute garnie—sauerkraut with chunks of sausages, pork and potatoes. Now, would you have had the guts to do that pairing yourself? Well, would you? Enough said. It works because the wines are so damned good.

All universal laws—"Good wines can work wonderfully with any food that is remotely plausible for the wine"—admit a corollary. In this case it's that the more extreme the dish or the wine, the less sociable it is.

Gewürztraminer, for example, is a wonderful white, but like a fascinating but oddball dinner guest, you can’t seat it next to just any dish (onions, by the way, tame the wine wonderfully). Sauternes is another example. Famously, it goes well with foie gras, which itself is pretty extreme stuff. So, yes, there are some "marriages" that call for prearranged matchmaking. But sometimes no amount of matchmaking is worthwhile. Sardines, anyone?

And what about all those writers and sommeliers who devise elaborate pairings and rationales, you ask? I'm not unsympathetic. Everybody's got to make a living. Besides, if they can convince you that such precision is essential, well, they're golden, aren’t they? That way you need them. Your insecurity is their meal ticket.

In today's 21st-century food-and-wine free-for-all do you think that all these oh-so-particular pairings are anything other than entertainment? Is this Grüner Veltliner really the "ideal" partner to that hamachi with horseradish velouté? Does it really make a difference? Or is it all just a much of a muchness? You tell me.

This article originally appeared on winespectator.com on December 7, 2010.

Fork and Gobble It: Adapting Julia - Beef Bourguignonne, hurried up a bit!

Fridays on the BottleBlog will feature a food-related article, wine pairing, or travelogue. Today, Wine Manager Mark Ricca channels the ghost of Julia Child.

I see recipes in two categories: those that I read, and those that I actually cook. Some recipes just entertain better than they actually motivate me to prepare them. A lot of it has to do with how complicated something seems as I'm reading through it. I say to myself "yeah, this sounds great, but do I really want to attack that?" Once in a while though, the attraction is irresistible and I have to dive in. That was the case this Sunday as I was discussing what to make for that evening's dinner with my significant other. We both agreed something special was in order. Without knowing why, I went and got my copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume 1 by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck. The recent memory of the movie Julie and Julia, and a craving for beef stew pointed me to the recipe for Beouf Bourguignonne. With a serious cold front approaching and a bottle of Meo-Camuzet Chambolle-Musigny that I've been wanting to drink in the cellar, it was game on.

As we shopped, I began to take liberties with the recipe such as substituting Cippoline onions for Pearl onions.

Shopping/Ingredients List:
-6 oz. Slab bacon cut into lardon
-Olive oil
-3 lb. Beef chuck cubed 1”
-1 lb. Cippoline onions
-3 medium carrots (approx. 1 lb.) peeled and diced large
-2 stalks celery diced large
-Salt (fine sea salt or Kosher)
-Black pepper
-2 1/2 cups full bodied dry red wine
-2-3 cups beef stock
-1 Tablespoon tomato paste
-2 cloves garlic peeled and smashed
-1 Tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
-2 bay leaves
-1 lb. White mushrooms quartered

Cut the slab bacon into lardons or sticks and in an 8 qt. or larger dutch oven, saute them in a couple tablespoons of olive oil.

Cook them slowly, giving them a chance to render out all their fat and become crisp, then remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon and reserve them. While this is going on, heat your oven to 400F. Toss the Cippoline, skins on, in olive oil and Kosher salt. Spread the onions out on a baking sheet and put them into the oven for about 10 – 15 minutes. The onions should just be slightly roasted in order to caramelize them and make them easy to peel. Once they reach this stage remove them from the oven and allow them to cool. This is a definite departure from the recipe. I did this in order make the Cippoline onions easier to peel and start to develop their flavor. When cooled, remove the roasted skin and put the peeled onions aside.

Once the bacon is out of the pan, turn the heat up to medium high and just before it begins to smoke, add enough of the beef to sparsely cover the bottom of the pan. Do not crowd the pan or the meat will not brown, but instead throw its liquid and simply boil. When the meat is well browned on all sides, remove it to a bowl and repeat with the rest of the beef.

The next departure from the Mastering the Art of French Cooking recipe came here. Julia sautes her mushroom separately and near the end of the recipe. As I did with the onions, I push the mushrooms into the middle of the recipe to get the dish finished before midnight and not use every pan in my kitchen. I added the mushroom quarters to the pan after the beef came out. Saute the mushrooms briskly over medium heat until they color slightly and remove them. Add the carrots and celery and cook them in the same manner as the mushrooms.

Now I return to the pan the beef, bacon, mushrooms, along with the vegetables already in there, and saute everything a little more while dusting the contents of the pan with about a Tablespoon and a half of flour. Cook the flour onto the meat and vegetables for a minute and repeat with another 1 ½ Tablespoons of flour. Cook that in and repeat the procedure two more times. Season with salt and pepper. Add the tomato paste and continue to saute for a minute. Add the crushed garlic, thyme leaves, bay leaves and red wine. Bring the wine to a boil, and allow it to boil for about a minute. Add the stock. Add in the peeled onions. Bring the pot to a boil and lower it to a simmer. This is where it will remain for approximately the next two and a half hours.

By this point the sauce will have begun to thicken and the meat will have become very tender. I put up a small pot of water to boil some egg noodles and when they were cooked I tossed them with a little bit of butter and fresh parsley.

Red Burgundy was the obvious choice for wine here, and as I mentioned above I had a bottle of Meo-Camuzet Chambolle-Musigny 2004 all lined up to drink. Alas, it was not to be! The wine was corked and so badly that it was obvious upon opening it. We stuck with red Burgundy as the backup selecting a Frederick Magnien Bourgogne Rouge 2007. Similar flavors were the guidelines here. Earthiness, bright acidity, and subtle fruit in both the sauce and the wine played very well together. The “stew” itself was superb and well worth the effort. I believe the result would have even earned me a special dispensation from Julia herself for the corners that I cut.

Gift Sets Aplenty!

Thursdays the BottleBlog will feature an update on various exciting things going on at Joe Canal's: Reports of our travels, special event coverage, and more!

We now have four value-priced wine gift sets available for those last-minute gifts! Conveniently pre-packaged in attractive gift boxes, these sets are perfect to pick up for Christmas dinner or to give to the wine lover in your life.

Three-bottle gift set contains:

Acacia Carneros Pinot Noir 2007
Ridgeline Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2005
Chronos Chardonnay 2008
Regular: $89.99/BottleClub: $59.99



* * *
Two-bottle gift set contains:

Albola Pinot Grigio 2009
La Maialina Chianti Classico
Regular: $29.99/BottleClub: $25.99







* * *
Two-bottle gift set contains:

Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc 2009
Bleasdale Broadside Shiraz/Cabernet 2006
Regular: $29.99/BottleClub: $25.99







* * *
Two-bottle gift set contains:

Cuvaison Napa Chardonnay 2008
Maxwell Creek Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2008
Regular: $45.99/BottleClub: $34.99







Also stop by and check out our wide selection of spirits and beer gift sets! We have something for all the adults on your list!

Eat Dessert First: Part 2, Sherry

Wednesdays on the BottleBlog will feature an education session on wine, beer or spirits. Today Shannon Spare presents the second in a series of blogs about dessert wines.

While I'm including Sherry in my dessert wine series, it's actually a versatile wine. It can be enjoyed as an aperitif, and it's also a common cooking wine. Like Oporto and Port, and Champagne and... well, Champagne, true European Sherry comes from a region in southwestern Spain that has a unique winegrowing climate. It's a hot, dry region with cooling sea breezes, perfect for growing Palomino grapes, Sherry's main variety.

There are two main types of Sherry: Light and dry, or fino, and Full and dry, or oloroso. After the wines are fermented, they are examined by the winemaker for aroma, color and flavor to decide which of the two sherry styles the wine is to become. For a fino, the wine is fortified to about 15% alcohol. For oloroso, it's fortified to 18%.

The wines are then placed into casks, and a special yeast grows on the fino wines. This yeast protects the wine from oxidation, and contributes an aroma and flavor, and makes it thinner and more delicate. Because the wine doesn't oxidize here, it's susceptible to oxidation rapidly when you open the bottle, so you should consume fino Sherries within a day or two of opening them. This yeast doesn't grow on the oloroso Sherries, so it's unprotected from oxidation. In the dry climate of Spain, this causes some of the water in the olorosos to evaporate, creating a higher alcohol content, sometimes as high as 24%.

Sherry is aged in a really cool way called solera. What happens is that there is a series of casks full of wines of varying ages. When the young wines are ready for aging, some (no more than a third) wine is taken out of the then-youngest cask and moved to the next-youngest. Some of each age of wine is moved into the next, so that by the last, "oldest" cask, the wine is a blend of many, many years of Sherries. As each generation of wine is mingled with the next, and the next, and so on, the qualities are also intermingled so that the Sherries are always consistent in quality and style.

When a fino or oloroso is sweetened (often by adding the juice from other grape varieties), it becomes a sweet Sherry. The very popular Cream Sherry is a Sweet Sherry, which, contrary to its name, is not "creamy" at all, but very rich and are delicious on their own or paired with any dessert you are serving.

Truth be told, I haven't tried my first sip of Sherry yet, but I'm going to pick some up very soon. Are you a Sherry drinker? What would you recommend I try, and pair it with? Leave me a comment below!

Scientists Learn Why Alcohol Can Be Good For You

Tuesdays on the BottleBlog, we'll focus on interesting or exciting industry news from here in New Jersey, to the valleys of California, to the vineyards of New Zealand. Today we share an article about the health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption.

Scientists Learn Why Alcohol Can Be Good For You
Published November 23, 2010 | LiveScience

When you raise a glass to toast with some wine or champagne this Thanksgiving, you are doing your heart a favor, according to a new study.

The results of the study revealed how moderate alcohol consumption can help to prevent heart disease by blocking the signals of molecules linked to plaque build-up in arteries.

The molecules, called "Notch" proteins, are vital to embryonic development, and in adults, they help control the tiny, involuntary muscles that regulate blood flow though arteries. When Notch molecules are stimulated — by high levels of cholesterol, smoking or changes in blood flow — they spur these smooth muscle cells to multiply, which can lead to development of arterial plaques, said study researcher Eileen Redmond, an associate professor in the department of surgery at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

But when these smooth muscle cells are exposed to alcohol, the Notch signaling is blocked, and the cells in the arterial wall don't grow and thicken, Redmond said.

Drinking "small amounts, regularly, is how to get the best effect," she told MyHealthNewsDaily. "It's the people who drink one to two drinks a day who have the best protection" from heart disease.

However, large amounts of alcohol and binge drinking can be harmful to the heart and can lead to stroke, according to the American Heart Association.

The study was published Nov. 18 in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.

Testing the theory

Researchers grew cells from human coronary arteries in dishes, and exposed them to alcohol.

They found that alcohol stopped growth of the arterial cells by putting the brakes on the signaling abilities of Notch, Redmond said.

Then, the researchers tested the effects of alcohol in mice. They gave one group of mice the equivalent of two alcohol drinks a day, and another group no alcohol. Mice given the alcohol had less Notch signaling, and their blood vessels walls were thinner than the mice that didn't drink, according to the study.

The finding demonstrates how alcohol works to benefit the heart — and paves the way for future research for a drug that can mimic alcohol, Redmond said.

"If we can understand the mechanisms mediating the beneficial effects of moderate alcohol consumption, we can develop therapy that can mimic good effects without the intoxicating and deleterious effects of alcohol," she said.

Real-life applications

The finding supports evidence from other studies that modest alcohol consumption is good for heart health. A study presented at an American Heart Association meeting this month found that male heart bypass patients who drank lightly or moderately were less likely to need another heart procedure or suffer a heart attack or stroke than patients who didn't drink.

But what counts as a "healthy" dose of alcohol? The Mayo Clinic recommends healthy women drink no more than three drinks on one occasion, or seven drinks a week, and healthy men ages 65 and younger drink no more than four drinks per occasion, or 14 drinks a week. Healthy men ages 65 and older should drink no more than three drinks per occasion, or seven drinks a week.

A 12-ounce beer, 5-ounce glass of wine or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits counts as one drink, according to the Mayo Clinic.

This article originally Published November 23, 2010 | LiveScience

Fork and Gobble It: In Pursuit of the Perfect Roasted Chicken

Fridays on the BottleBlog will feature a food-related article, wine pairing, or travelogue. Today, Wine Manager Mark Ricca pursues the perfect roasted chicken!

Food and family are inextricably entwined in my house. That means when my Father-in-Law comes for dinner, I'm making roasted chicken. It is a dish I've always loved because I strongly believe if a cook can make a great roasted chicken, there's a pretty good chance they understand food and how to handle it. Properly seasoned, moist inside, crispy outside, it is a food that no one I know doesn't enjoy. It really doesn't require any special equipment other than a reliable oven, a roasting pan, and passion.

The starting point for me is the chicken itself. This is a clear case where you have to start with a great raw product to achieve a great finished dish. If you start with mediocre, waterlogged, mass produced bird, you may be able to make it good, but it will never be great. It should be fresh, never frozen. If it is packaged, it should state that there was no added water. Organic birds are a good way to be sure, but a good brand like Bell and Evans, or a good Kosher bird, can yield excellent results as well. I strongly recommend getting the chicken ready at least 24 hours in advance of cooking. This is another reason for purchasing a very fresh chicken.

Start the preparation by opening the package (if necessary) and removing the giblets, etc.. I separate the contents, freezing the livers in one package and the neck, heart and gizzards in another. Livers will be used for chopped liver or pate, and the rest is roasted and simmered for stock. Remove the wads of excess fat from just inside the cavity and discard or save it to render it. Wash the bird inside and out and blot it dry with paper towels. I season my chicken very simply. Coarse sea salt, fresh ground black pepper, branches of fresh rosemary, crushed cloves of garlic, and wedges of lemon.

Season the chicken inside first. Stuff the cavity with several of the crushed cloves of garlic, two or three of the rosemary branches, and several of the lemon wedges. Then, in order to aid in uniform cooking, I truss the chicken. I fold the wing tips under the bird on each side. I use cotton butcher's twine in cut to a length of about 36”, and starting from the middle of the piece, wrap the twine between the breast and the folded wing. I pull the twine under each leg on either side and cross the ends of the twine in front of the cavity. Then I wrap each side of the twine around the drumstick once and pull the whole thing as tight as you can before knotting it once. These were the three birds I had prepared that day.

Season the outside of birds liberally with the salt and pepper. I pre-mixed my salt and pepper in a small bowl knowing that it would be handier than reaching for a box or mill with dirty hands and that I would discard any that remained after I was done. I them put the chickens into a plastic tub and covered them loosely with wax (or parchment) paper, and refrigerated them for 24 hours. This will allow the garlic, lemon, pepper, and rosemary to begin to permeate the chicken meat, while the salt seasons as well but also draws out water to help make for a crispier skin.

What did I drink while all this hard work was taking place? O'Reilly's Pinot Gris 2009, an Oregon Pinot Gris with a great nose of citrus and melon, crisp but not overpowering acidity, and a great finish.

Next day: The oven gets pre-heated to 400F.

**The method that follows takes into account that I do not own a rack to fit into my roasting pan. If you have one by all means use it. I'd still start the birds breast side down and oil the rack and pre-heat to prevent damaging the skin.**

I put a small amount of olive oil in my roasting pan and put it into the hot oven for about 5 minutes to get the pan hot. The object here is to sear the skin slightly to prevent sticking. I use an old school, steel roasting pan. Getting it hot really prevents sticking and if you're going to work to get a crispy exterior, you don't want to blow it by having it stick to the pan. Put the chicken(s) breast side down in the pan, douse them with a little more oil and pop them back into the oven. This is to insure a crispy breast skin. The bird(s) will get turned about midway into the cooking time. Now let the bird(s) roast for about 15 – 20 minutes to allow some of the chicken fat to render and baste the still breast down bird for the first time. Basting is a big part of this process. I do it every 10 – 15 minutes or so. As more fat accumulates in the pan, I tip the pan to collect it in the side or corner and spoon it over every part of the chicken. Total cooking time is going to be about an hour and twenty minutes or so depending on your oven. After about half that time or about the third time you go to baste the chicken, flip them over breast side up. Continue to roast and baste for the next 45 minutes. I check for doneness the old fashioned way. I pierce the bird at the thickest part of the thigh and if the juice runs clear, it's done. If you are using a meat thermometer, I'd pull the pan out when you get a reading of 155F – 160F. The chicken will continue to cook and will carry up to 165F even though it is out of the oven.

The aroma of the rosemary, garlic and lemon is heavenly. Our sides that night were brussel sprouts which I sauteed in a pan on the stovetop, and in keeping with the Channukah season, a French potato pancake called Pommes Paillason or Straw Mat Potatoes, essentially a giant Latke. We cut it into wedges when finished.

Perfect wine match for (near) perfect roasted chicken? That night we drank Rustenburg John X. Merriman Proprietary red wine from the Stellenbosch region of South Africa. The rules went out the window because the John X. is a Bordeaux style blend that mixes Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and three other Bordeaux grapes. Most people would consider it too heavy for the above dish. As I am very fond of telling customers in the store, drink what you like and don't make yourself crazy looking for a perfect pairing. It's perfectly okay.

Deborah Brenner visits Joe Canal's

Thursdays the BottleBlog will feature an update on various exciting things going on at Joe Canal's: Reports of our travels, special event coverage, and more! Today we report on Deborah Brenner's visits!

On Friday, December 3rd in Woodbridge and Saturday, December 4 in Lawrenceville, Deborah Brenner, author of Women of the Vine stopped by to meet and greet with fans, sign bottles, and pour samples of her wines.

Women of the Vine is touted by Wine Spectator as critcal reading for any wine lover's library. "Deborah Brenner uses this as a hook to present profiles of 20 women in the wine industry. Most are winemakers (Gina Gallo and Heidi Peterson Barrett being two of the more recognizable), but others include teachers, journalists and consultants. Brenner's close access to them comes through in the profiles, which use lots of details and quotes to tell each woman's story."

While writing the book, Deborah Brenner created the first-of-its-kind winery. Featuring hand-crafted, limited production wines, Women of the Vine Cellars unites award winning women winemakers from around the world under one brand. It is the first art gallery of artisan women winemakers designed to showcase their individual styles and nuances of their regions.

We thank Ms. Brenner for taking the time to stop and see us, and hope that all of our friends that came to visit us that day enjoyed talking with her! We have special events and appearances all the time at both our Woodbridge and Lawrenceville locations. To keep up to date on what's going on at your local JC's, make sure to keep our events page @ jcanals.com on your list of favorite pages!

Eat Dessert First: Part 1, Port

Wednesdays on the BottleBlog will feature an education session on wine, beer or spirits. Today Shannon Spare presents the first in a series of blogs about dessert wines.

Port (also called Porto or Oporto, after the Portuguese city where the drink originated) is a fortified dessert wine, which means that it has added alcohol so it packs a whole lot more of a wallop than your standard table wines. It was invented by the British, who were at war with France at the time. Due to wartime regulations, the British had to drink Portuguese wines. To make the wines stable for shipping, a little brandy was added, and Port wine was born.

Like Champagne and other sparklers, for a European wine to be called "Port," it must be made in the city of Oporto. The grapes are grown and fermented in the Douro Valley, and then (most Ports) transported to the suburbs of Oporto where the wines are matured and finished.

There are a few different types of Port, including white Port, but the most common ports are: Vintage, Tawny and Ruby.

Ruby Port is the best-selling type of port, it's simple, fruity and easy to drink.

Tawny Port is sweet and versatile, and can be enjoyed with dessert or as an aperitif. In contrast to Ruby, Tawny has more notes of nuts and caramel, as opposed to fruit.

Vintage Port is the wine from the best grapes of a particular year, bottled after only 2 years of aging in barrels. This leaves an incredibly tannic wine so it needs a tremendous amount of time to age in the bottle before it's drinkable: 20 years or more. Due to the tannins, Vintage ports often have a lot of sediment and benefit highly from aeration.Late Bottled Vintage also is from a specific year, but it's aged for up to 6 years in barrels and is drinkable upon release.

Port should be served at a chilly room temperature, although one source I found said that tawny ports are delicious when chilled during warmer months.

A few years ago, I went through a Port "phase." I fell in love with the sweet red, and I drank a lot of Port over the course of a few months. And when I say that I drank "a lot of Port," I really mean that I drank a lot of Port. So much so that I got sick of it to the point that even the smell of it would make me turn away. Until recently, it had been about 3 years since I'd endulged. But, for the sake of science (read: this blog), I had to move beyond my aversion and dive back into it head-first. I mean, what would a student of wine be worth without at least a little bit of knowledge about this Portuguese pearl?

Luckily, I apparently am over it, and Port is still delicious. I enjoyed a glass of wine with a special dinner with my best friend a few weeks ago, and again with Thanksgiving dessert. When I started to do my research, one of the first things I read is that it's easy to get carried away with dessert wines as a whole, which was exactly what happened to me. Dessert wines, like ice cream or cookies, are designed to be a "treat," an indulgence.

While Ports are classically good with strong cheeses such as Roquefort and Gorgonzola, I am fanatical about a nice glass of port with a rich chocolate dessert. If you've never had Port before, I urge you to pick up a bottle and experiment! Let me know what you think!

What's NEW at Joe Canal's?

Tuesdays on the Bottle Blog is all NEW! Find out what's NEW at Joe Canal's!

Now available at Joe Canal's - Bacardi Rock Coconut Rum!!

Bacardi has announced its latest flavor innovation, Bacardi Rock Coconut. Bacardi is proud to introduce the first coconut rum infused with rock melon and coconut water. The distinct combination of sweet and highly refreshing coconut water paired with the crisp and exotic taste of rock melon create a dynamic spirit, with a rich aroma, and authentic taste. Bacardi Rock Coconut follows the successful launches of Bacardi Dragon Berry and Bacardi Torched Cherry.

Bacardi is the first brand to introduce the unique ingredients rock melon and coconut water to the clear flavored spirits market. Rock melon is a member of the melon family that originates from India and Africa. Rock melon's sweet and crisp taste profile enhance the coconut rum flavor. The rum flavor is intensified with coconut water, the naturally fat-free, clear and refreshing liquid found inside young coconuts. The infusions of rock melon and coconut water give Bacardi Rock Coconut flavored rum a smoother, creamier, coconut taste.

Fork and Gobble It: Peasant Soup and Burgundy

Fridays on the BottleBlog will feature a food-related article, wine pairing, or travelogue. Today, Wine Manager Mark Ricca makes a delicious Peasant Soup!

Every cook I know has a repertoire of soups that they revisit with the coming of each winter. Old favorites and new ideas make their appearance on the stovetop, helping to comfort and warm throughout the cold and dark months ahead. I myself use the Sundays that I have off to batch cook. I produce anywhere from six to eight quarts of soup in the afternoon, have it for dinner that night, and freeze the rest in small quantities to be thawed and consumed at a later time. Not unlike squirrels and acorns, my freezer becomes a food stash to get me through to spring.

Most of the recipes are basic, sprung from peasant cooking based on unpretentious ingredients. You know, comfort food. Remember the old childrens' tale Stone Soup about the stranger who comes into town. He extols the virtues of the soup he makes from nothing more than a magic stone he carries and water. When someone questions how good a soup could be when made from just a stone and water, the clever stranger replies, "Well, if we only had an onion, that might make it a little better." Of course someone spares an onion, and then a carrot, and then a ham bone, and so on and so forth. When the soup is finally done all the villagers marvel at the delicious soup made simply from a stone and water.

The soup I made last week is sort of like that stone soup. It is based loosely on Ribollita, the Italian peasant soup that was born of leftovers.

I start the way I start many of my soups, with a base of mirepoix vegetables. Mirepoix is the French term for onion, celery, and carrot in the following proportion: 40% onion, and 30% each carrot and celery. There will be no exact measurements here, as they are really not required. This is about as informal a soup as can be but it is really hearty, warming and very delicious. I'll list what I put in last time I made it, but feel free to vary ingredients and use your imagination.

-A few cloves of garlic sliced
-A medium sized onion diced
-A few carrots peeled and diced
-A few stalks of celery washed and diced

The cuts should look like the picture to the left.

All the vegetables are cut to the same size. I heat some olive oil in a soup pot and start by cooking the onion and garlic together over a medium/low heat covered with a lid, so that they "sweat." Season with a good quality salt such as Kosher or sea salt, and a small pinch of crushed red pepper. I then add the celery and carrot and let them "sweat" as well. With each successive ingredient I allow them to cook for enough time to develop flavor.

This is a concept that the Italian cooking instructor and cookbook author Marcella Hazan refers to as "insaporire."

What makes this soup so hearty is the addition of canelline beans which I cook from dried. One pound of beans made its way into this recipe. While I was preparing the mirepoix, the beans were cooking in a separate pot. Cooking beans is simply a matter of putting them in a sufficiently large pot and cooking them in four to five times their volume of water. That starchy cooking water then will then be added to the soup to give it body. I don't salt my beans until the last ten minutes or so of cooking time (about 1 – 1 ½ hours) so I can better control the overall seasoning of the soup. If you like, throw a couple of whole, peeled cloves of garlic and any whole herbs you like into the pot with the beans to give them additional flavor.

After the mirepoix is in and cooked I added in the following order:

-A small head of green or Savoy cabbage diced
-A head of cauliflower cut into small florets
-A head of broccoli cut into small florets
-A 28 oz. can of crushed tomatoes
-The cooked beans and their liquid (remove the herbs but leave the garlic)

**I added a quart of chicken stock here. Omit it if you want to keep the soup vegetarian and just use water. The soup won't suffer. I added another quart of water besides the stock, so just use two of water.

Now, here's the "stone," the ingredient that makes it all magical. Parmigiano cheese rinds!!! It's no secret if you are familiar with Italian peasant cooking. Those rinds are worth their weight in gold, well almost. If you buy good quality Parmigiano, save those rinds. I wrapped them in cheesecloth, tied it all up with a long string to hang over the side of the pot, and tossed them in.

Let them simmer in there with the rest of the ingredients, but you'll need to remove them after an hour or so or they will disintegrate into messy blobs. You'll smell it as the soup cooks, the cheese adds a wonderful fragrance and flavor. Once the cheese is out, the soup is done. Check it for seasoning.

Make a green salad, grab a really good loaf of crusty bread and go to town, or village if you will. I grate some additional Parmigiano over the top of the soup, and add a splash of good extra virgin olive oil.

Now when you consider the flavors at play here; vegetables, herbs, acid from tomatoes, earthiness, and richness, what wine would work with that? I went with a village level Burgundy. What does that mean? Well, in a nutshell the Burgundy region of France classifies its wines on three levels: Region (Burgundy), Village (in this case Marsannay), and vineyard. The more specific and finite the area from whence the wine came, the higher the presumption of identity and therefore quality (not to mention $$$). There are some great buys at the village level and my personal favorite is Marsannay. This one was made by Bruno Clair, the vintage was 2006, and it sells for about $32.00, which is pretty reasonable in Burgundy terms. Medium bodied with flavors of bright red fruits like cherries and strawberries (not sweet), earth and mineral, it met perfectly with the similar flavors of the soup.

So get in there and play! If you have questions, comments, or requests, direct them to the website, and come in and see me if you're in the neighborhood!

Trinity Episcopal Church Fundraiser

Thursdays the BottleBlog will feature an update on various exciting things going on at Joe Canal's: Reports of our travels, special event coverage, and more! Today Debbie Miller Nelson reports Trinity Episcopal Church's Fundraiser that was held in our Liquid Learning Center on November 12, 2010.

A few weeks ago, Joe Canal's hosted a fund raiser run by the Trinity Episcopal Church located in Woodbridge in our very own Liquid Learning Center. Amongst the group of almost 40 enthusiasts was local politician, Senator Joe Vitale who enjoyed tasting the reds. The organizers brought in a nice spread of cheese and crackers along with some other tasty nibbles. For 2 hours, the group sipped and socialized and awarded out some fun door prizes at the end of the evening.



Our Liquid Learning Center is available at no cost to host your own 2-hour tasting. We can work with any budget and provide glassware, knowledgeable staffing and most importantly, the wine! Contact us at Joe Canal's to find out how you can host your own event!

Wine 101: Champagne

Wednesdays on the BottleBlog will feature an education session on wine, beer or spirits. Today Shannon Spare shares her experiences as a beginner in the World of Wine.

So, the holidays are upon us, a time for celebration and sharing fun times with our friends and families, a perfect time of the year to enjoy some bubbly.

True Champagne is only made in Champagne, a cold region in Northern France. Champagne is where sparkling wine was born, and where techniques were perfected. In fact, European standards forbid any wine, sparkling or otherwise, not made in the region to be called "champagne" at all. Elsewhere, however, the term "champagne" is used for any sparkling wines, mostly as a marketing tool. This blog is focused on true Champagne.

Most Champagnes are made with three grapes: Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, and Chardonnay. Because Champagne (the region) is so cold, it's very difficult to grow grapes there, and the grapes that are grown are very high in acidity. For regular (still) wine these don't work, but for Champagne they're perfect because of a special fermentation process that makes the bubbly, well... bubbly.

Most Champagnes actually go through two fermentations. The first turns the grape juice into still wine. The second fermentation is where the bubbles happen. The winemaker adds yeasts and sugars to the still wine. When yeasts ferments sugar, carbon dioxide is a natural by-product. When the second fermentation happens in a sealed, pressurized container (can be a tank or a bottle), the CO2 has nowhere to go but in the wine itself, creating bubbles.

You'll probably notice that a great majority of Champagnes have no year, or vintage, on the bottle. This is generally because of the cold climate of the region - it's a rare occurrence that there are enough grapes in one year to make a large enough batch of vintage Champagnes. However, there are some vintage Champagnes... and they're generally more expensive than non-vintage.

Wine Manager Mark Ricca and I were discussing Champagne, and he mentioned that the opinion that Champagne is not as delicate as people may think, and that some younger vintages of Champagne would benefit from aeration. He mentioned that he recently decanted a 2002 Dom Perignon that was spectacular after being aerated. (I also questioned how an eight year-old Champagne could be considered "young," and that's because of the acidity of the wine - due to the acidic nature of the grapes of the region, Champagnes need a longer time to age to become sweet enough to drink.)

On Champagne's sweetness, you can tell how sweet the wine will be based on the label. The terms are misleading, however. See below:
-Extra brut: Very dry
-Brut: Dry
-Extra dry: Medium dry
-Sec: Semi-sweet
-Demi-sec: Fairly sweet
-Doux: Sweet

I mentioned to co-workers recently that I've been in the mood for a nice sparkler, but don't really have anything to celebrate. They all said that you don't have to celebrate anything special to enjoy a nice bottle of bubbles! To quote Madame Lily Bollinger, famous widow Champagne maker, "I only drink Champagne when I'm happy, and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I am not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty."

So pop the cork, and enjoy some Champagne to celebrate, or for no reason at all!

What's NEW at Joe Canal's?

Tuesdays on the Bottle Blog is all NEW! Find out what's NEW at Joe Canal's!

J. Lohr Falcon's Perch Pinot Noir 2009

Falcon’s Perch Pinot Noir is produced from cool climate grapes grown in select vineyards within and surrounding the Arroyo Seco region of central Monterey County. This region has gained a well-deserved reputation for producing world-class Burgundian varietals including Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Over the past decade, the introduction of Dijon clones of Pinot, along with the old standby Pommard clone, has dramatically increased the quality of the varietal here. These newer clones are the backbone of this inaugural release of Falcon’s Perch, named for the bird which has made its home in the lone pine tree among the vines, safeguarding the grapes from insidious predators while also preserving the ecosystem’s natural balance.

Winemaker's Comments
Medium garnet color with aromas of wild strawberry, cherry, rose petal and dried herbs, accompanied by true varietal flavors of sage and cola nut, with a deep, earthy character. The lively acidity and delicate tannins make this a very compatible wine for mealtime or anytime. Serve at 65 to 68° F. -Steve Peck, red winemaker

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Four Roses Small Batch Bourbon

45% alcohol/volume. Marrying, or mingling, multiple Bourbon flavors is an art in itself. Four original and limited Bourbons have been expertly selected by our Master Distiller at the peak of maturation to create a perfectly balanced small batch Bourbon that rewards you with a mellow symphony of rich, spicy flavors along with sweet, fruity aromas and hints of sweet oak and caramel. Finishes soft, smooth and pleasantly long. Best enjoyed straight up, on the rocks, or with a splash. 90 proof.

Nose: Spicy, rich, mellow, fruity, hints of sweet oak & caramel.
Palate: Creamy, mellow, ripened red berries, rich, spicy, well-balanced, moderately sweet.
Finish: Soft, smooth & pleasantly long.

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SCOTCH OF THE WEEK

Murray McDavid Caol Ila 19 Year Old Chateau d'Yquem Cask 1991

Caol Ila 19Year Old Chateau d'Yquem cask Murray McDavid Bottling Single Malt Scotch. Distilled" 1991 306 bottles 51.5% ABV. Limited Edition "A medium heavy body with luminous viscosity and silky oils. Delve into this dram of indulgence to inhale the taste of summer with white peaches, nectarines, melon, and grapefruit notes emerging from the Yquem casks. A little time allows for honeysuckle, orange blossom, and caramel to filter through while a punch of peat is hidden beneath lemon butter and a whiff of pine. The palate is awash with juicy tropical fruit flavors of kiwi, mango, and banana that are soon outdone as the peat smoke transpires triumphantly on the taste buds."

The Distillery
Caol Ila is hidden in a quiet cove near Port Askaig. Many consider this locality to be the wildest and most picturesque of the island. Situated on Loch Nam Ban, the site is ideal thanks to the abundant supply of good water. Caol Ila (Gaelic for 'the Sound of Islay') was built in 1846 by Hector Henderson - a Glasgow businessman with a keen interest in distilling. Like Bunnahabhain and Bruichladdich, the development of Caol Ila created along with it, a community of its own. Without these distilleries, it is likely that there would have been little sustained human interference in these areas at all.

The Distillery Today
In 1857 Henderson went out of business and the distillery was purchased by Bulloch Lade & Co. The Distillers Company Limited took over management in 1927. From this date production continued until 1972, when the entire structure of the distillery was demolished. A larger distillery was built in the same original architectural style, and production resumed in 1974.

Regular Price $129.99
Bottle Club Price $119.99

Very Limited-Only Available While Supplies Last