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November 20, 2020

Farm to Table, Caspar Estate & The French Laundry

The French Laundry by Thomas Keller is known for surpassing expectations with their excellent and amazing food, impeccable service. Everything is done to perfection including their stunning gardens across the street. The organic gardens are an inspiration and attracting visitors to see the beautifully manicured herbs, vegetables and fruit.

Up the hill and further up the Napa Valley sits Caspar Estate. We are blessed with syrpentine soil and the ability to abundantly grow heirloom tomatoes, pumpkins, squash, carrots, beets, peppers, kale, brocolini, onions, cucumbers, lemon verbena, persimmons, pomegranates, melons and many herbs. The raspberries, blackberries, table grapes and figs are so delicious straight off the vine.There are some vegetables that require more coaxing and attention. While our organically grown vegetables are modeled after the French Laundry gardens we more casual and relaxed.

Vegetable garden

Tomatoes on the vineHerbs

PomegranateTomatoes

Persimmon

We are proud to announce that our 2019 Caspar Estate Sauvignon Blanc is now being served at The French Laundry. Be sure to order it the next time you enjoy a meal there! Cheers!

Tiff Wang

photo courtesy of TiffWang

Cheers!

November 17, 2020

The Perfect Brisket (And Wine) For a Perfect Chanukah

 

The perfect Chanukah brisket with a bottle of wine and challah

Holiday gatherings this year are going to be a little different especially depending on where you live. We’re in San Francisco, and since March 2020 we’ve been sheltering in place. With a vaccine for COVID-19 still under development, we’ll be celebrating Chanukah with just our immediate family. And we’ll be enjoying a mouthwatering brisket that’s perfectly sized for our family of 3.

There are tons of recipes for entertaining hordes on the Internet. Few explain how one might make a brisket for themselves and their partner. This recipe is for an intimate Chanukah dinner—a couple, two roommates, a parent and a teen, a parent and two littles.

This recipe is the result of years of research, experimentation, and troubleshooting. So, rather than simply modifying another recipe – a hit or miss proposition at best – give this stress-free recipe a try.

Four Tips for a Mouthwatering Brisket

I’ve found there are four things that increase your odds of serving a mouthwatering meal your family will reminisce fondly about for years to come…and none of them involve browning your brisket before tossing it into the slow cooker. Browning your brisket won’t save your meal if you make one of the following rookie errors:

1. Don’t even proceed with this recipe if your well-meaning butcher trims the fat off your brisket. (It won’t work so don’t even try it; make a lovey beef stew instead.

2. If you can’t find brisket, don’t blindly toss a different cut of meat into your slow cooker. Brisket is the toughest of cuts, so the length of time in the slow cooker is too long for other more expensive cuts like Prime Rib.

3. Cooking on HIGH for half the time will not save you from poor time management skills or lack of planning. Wake up early if you want to eat it the same day you make it; start it the night before to rest when you rise and finish in the oven later; or just make it the day before, let it rest overnight, and finish in the morning.

4. Make sure you have the same size brisket as the recipe. Your liquid-to-meat ratio as well as cooking time won’t be the same if you’re using more or less than 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds of beef brisket. Also, you need one cut that’s 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds. If your portion is less than a pound, chop up and make beef stew.

And now…the recipe!

Bottle of wine and vegetables

The Ultimate Brisket

This slow cooker recipe doesn’t require you to use your oven or stovetop. You’ll chop your vegetables and toss them, the brisket, and sauces into your slow cooker and basically forget it for a few hours.

Note: Because you’ll flip the brisket halfway through the cooking process, this isn’t a good recipe to start before you go to bed. If you’re planning on eating Chanukah dinner earlier in the day, you can leave it to cook overnight, just flip the brisket in the morning and cook on slow for an additional hour.

Before you start assembling ingredients, we need to chat about cooking with wine. To save money you may be tempted to select a bottle of “cooking wine” from your grocery aisle. Don’t do that. My cousin, a chef, chastised me for doing this years ago. “If you wouldn’t drink a wine, you shouldn’t cook with it.”

Now, this doesn’t mean if you’re serving an expensive bottle that you need to use it for cooking. He recommends choosing the same varietal of wine or in a pinch same color. We enjoyed our brisket with 2016 Cultivar Cabernet Sauvignon Leaky Lake Vineyard ($98) and added Merlot to our brisket in the slow cooker.

Ingredients (Serves 2):

3 yellow gold potatoes, quartered
A bunch of baby carrots, cut in thirds
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pound beef brisket, flat cut
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 Tablespoon soy or tamari sauce
1 1/2 cups beef or mushroom broth
1/2 cup Merlot, Pinot Noir, or Cabernet Sauvignon (if you don’t have wine, substitute with broth)
3 cloves garlic, minced
Pepper
Salt
1 large yellow or red onion, sliced in half moons
1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced

Instructions (cooking time: 8-9 hours)

  • Add your potatoes and carrots to your 6.5 Quart Slow Cooker first.
  • Next place your brisket, fat side up, on top of your potatoes and carrots.
  • Pour Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, broth, and wine into your slow cooker.
  • Sprinkle your garlic, pepper, and salt on top of your brisket.
  • Arrange your onions to the side of your brisket.
  • Add your mushrooms on top of everything and close the lid of your slow cooker.
  • Cook on LOW for 8 hours, flipping halfway through cooking time. If you need to cook overnight, flip the brisket when you wake up and cook on LOW for one more hour.
  • Using two turners (tongs will shred your meat), transfer the brisket and vegetables to a 9×13” baking dish, cover tightly with foil, and refrigerate overnight.
  • Transfer the broth to a quart container and refrigerate.
  • About an hour before dinner, preheat oven to 300 degrees.
  • Let baking dish with brisket and vegetables come to room temperature. Pour 1/2 pint of reserved broth over the brisket and vegetables.
  • Reheat for 30 to 40 minutes at 300 before serving.

The perfect Chanukah brisket dinner

Wine Pairing

Red wine lovers will rejoice when you bring out this brisket. Because of the subtle flavors in this dish, you can easily serve it with Pinot Noir, a well-balanced Cabernet Sauvignon, or even a Merlot.

What’s your favorite: Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, or Merlot?

Which of the three reds you pair your Chanukah brisket with will come down to personal tastes (and your side dishes). For me, mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy screams Pinot Noir. My husband is partial to Cabernets with beef, so I swapped the mashed potatoes with latkes and delicata squash. We chose the 2016 Cultivar Cabernet Sauvignon Leaky Lake Vineyard over the 2018 Cultivar Cabernet Sauvignon Napa County to avoid having tannins overwhelm the apple sauce and squash. Don’t fret: the 2018 Cultivar Cabernet Sauvignon Napa County had its moment in the spotlight when we served our Vegetarian Harvest meal (coming to the blog soon).

The perfect Chanukah brisket with a bottle of wine and challah

Eden Hensley Silverstein is a third-generation Californian, who has been feeding her family, friends, and soon-to-be friends around her kitchen table since she was in third grade. Along with her husband, 8.5 year old daughter, and Maine Coon/Ragamuffin rescue cat, she makes 849 sq ft a welcoming home in The Mission. They share recipes and misadventures on The Road to the Good Life.

November 13, 2020

Julien Fayard and The Art of Casper Estate Cabernet Sauvignon

What does it take to produce a truly world class Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon? First of all, it takes fruit: grapes grown in that special region that winds around only 2% of the earth’s surface and includes the Napa Valley. But just as important, it takes the expert touch of a master winemaker, someone who can combine artistry, chemistry and a little bit of magic into their craft. For Caspar Estate, that winemaker is Julien Fayard.

Julien is a firm believer that the wine is made in the vineyard. He frequently walks the vineyards and checking on the fruit. Our vineyards have several microclimates because of the row layout and the pockets of the hills and valleys. Julien is very selective, starting with the fruit that is ripe – it can be mid row but often it starts at the end of the row on the western side since it gets the most late afternoon sunlight.

On September 23rd, 2020, Julien supervised the harvest of several tons of our estate cabernet sauvignon, grown on slopes located above the Rutherford Bench in Napa. It was a gorgeous day, producing equally gorgeous fruit.

Hand holding a cluster of grapes

The fruit was quickly transported to Fayard Winemaking, Julien’s custom winemaking facility at the south end of the valley. This is where the first, critical steps of the process will occur, though as Julien says, it’s not the most important part: “Winemaking begins in the vineyard.” Julien’s wines are a pure expression of Caspar Estate terroir, highlighting the characteristics of the fruit, vineyard management, soil and climate.

 

Man driving a forklift

Each bin of cabernet grapes Is then weighed. If the grapes are heaped high, each bin holds about a thousand pounds of grapes, meaning each one of these bins will result in about 31 cases of wine. Interestingly, cabernet grapes weigh about half as much as table grapes, as they have far less water content.

Bin of grapes

Next, the fruit is moved inside and stacked in front of the sorter. Julien’s winemaking team supervises all this work, making sure the fruit is moved as quickly as possible through the process. Consistency is key for Fayard, as it is another way of ensuring that winemaking doesn’t “get in the way” of the grape’s expression, but amplifies it instead.

Moving grapes from containers into the sorter

The fruit is then unloaded into the sorter, then heads up the conveyor belt and into the tank where it will have a preliminary crush. On the way up the conveyor belt, Fayard’s team inspects the fruit to make sure extraneous leaves, branches or other vineyard material don’t make their way into the tank. This extra bit of quality control also ensures true varietal expression.

Woman standing next to wine fermenter

Yes, we admit it – we love to be there when the fruit comes in! It’s like seeing your children graduate from school!

Gingy and Deborah pose for a selfie with Julien's winemaking team

With the juice now flowing to the tanks, Gingy and Deborah take a moment to pose for a selfie with Julien’s winemaking team. These men and women are the backbone of the operation, and an instrumental part in fulfilling our vision for Caspar Estate Cabernet Sauvignon.

100% new French Oak barrels

Eventually, our cabernet will wind up here, in 100% new French oaks barrels. Julien prefers the tight grain – as well as the tradition – of French oak. It was a tradition he was introduced to during his years with Chateau Lafite Rothschild, a First-Growth Bordeaux house. Our Caspar Estate Cabernet Sauvignon pays homage to the Bordeaux tradition, while still maintaining its Napa pedigree, thanks to great fruit, a great team, and the expertise of Julien Fayard.

November 9, 2020

Thanksgiving

We are looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving this year. As we think about this year we are reflecting on years past and how we can make it special.

We like to serve our Thanksgiving meal around 3pm especially when we celebrate as a big family in the Napa Valley at Caspar Estate. We seem to skip lunch and just nibble on our cheese and charcuterie board. Katie of @CatchingRadiance made this cheese and charcuterie board – including drizzling Caspar Estate wildflower honey on the burrata. We walk the dogs through the vineyard once the turkey is in the oven.

Cheeseboard

To keep the meal slightly healthy we make a salad with pomegranate and persimmon – both of which we grow at Caspar Estate. We love this recipe from Half Baked Harvest and it has avacodo and candied walnuts. This salad just look amazing with all the flavors of the season.

Pomegranate Avocado Salad with Candied Walnuts

We always go by the Model Bakery to get our breakfast English muffins (they are amazing and even Oprah loves them!), crossiants and of course pumpkin pie.

With all that is going on this year, many of us are having to rethink our travel plans and then of course our Thanksgiving menu as well. More than ever, comfort food is what we’re looking for, whether it comes from traditional family recipes or a modern twist on an old favorite.

Nothing is more traditional than a turkey dinner. Our family method was to put garlic, basil, lemon zest and other fresh herbs under the skin of the turkey. We used to use butter, but then with food allergies, we switched to using Caspar Olive Oil in the blender instead. Years ago, I read the Anthony Blue cookbook about Thanksgiving and I love cooking the bird upside down for the 1st 2/3 of cooking so the moisture stays in the breast. Turning over the hot bird is a challenge when you cook a big turkey and requires 2 people. Need to defrost a turkey – this is the fastest way to do it.

Thinking of going smaller? You can just get a turkey breast – and still prepare it the same way. The advantage is that you get all the flavor and less time cooking! My other tried and true trick is to put chicken broth and Cultivar Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay in the base of the pan. I use it to baste the bird and it keeps the meat very moist. Serve that Cultivar Sauvignon Blanc or Oak Knoll Chardonnay you used to baste your turkey, but don’t be afraid to pair red wines with this rich bird, such as our Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir.

Another option is to roast a chicken. You can use the same rub (or brine, if you like that method) and then place a cut lemon inside the chicken to keep it moist.

Roasted chicken

Brussel Sprouts are another favorite. We typically roast them in the oven but if the turkey is taking up too much space, we quickly sautee them using our Caspar Estate olive oil and Malden salt. The briney quality of Brussel Sprouts (especially with bacon!) pairs perfectly with our Cabernet Franc. Give it a try!

Brussel Sprouts on Thanksgiving

A classic comfort food that is perfect for Thanksgiving is mac & cheese. We like to start with a roux using the 4/4/2 method: 4 tablespoons butter, 4 tablespoons flour and two cups milk. Then just go crazy with the cheese. Gruyere and Cowgirl Creamery Wagon Wheel are family favorites, but this is where you bring the “comfort” to your comfort food. Regardless of how you make it, we think that nothing cuts through the rich gooeyness of cheese quite like our 2019 Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc. 

Mac n Cheese

No matter where you celebrate, what you eat or who you celebrate with, we hope you’re able to give thanks for the love, peace and happiness in your life. At Cultivar Wine, we are certainly thankful for the trust you’ve put in us, and for the honor of including our wine at your family table!

Pumpkin Pie

Photo by Lori Rice