Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Wine Sisterhood Healthy Recipe: Tilapia with Sweet 100 Tomatoes and Basil
 We posted a photo on FB last night, and are happy to report that this dish was delish! Kind of like a healthy version of a Pizza Margarita, believe it or not. Obviously, sans bread and cheese, but the simple, fresh flavors of the sweet tomatoes and earthy basil struck that flavor note. We recommend pairing with any light white such as Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay (crisp style; little oak), Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling or a White Blend. Tilapia with Sweet 100 Tomatoes and Basil
Serves Four
4 Tablespoons olive oil
4 Tilapia fillets (about 1lb) - Or other flaky white fish of your choice
1 cup Sweet 100 and/or Tiny Pear tomatoes, sliced in half
4 Tablespoons fresh Basil, chiffonade*
� cup dry white wine, such as Cocca di Pappa Pinot Grigio. Plus a glass for the chef.
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Pour yourself a glass of Pinot Grigio (or white wine of your choice).
Heat olive oil in a saut� pan until very hot but not smoking. Season Tilapia fillets with salt and pepper and place in pan. Cook on one side two to three minutes, then turn and cook two minutes until done. If you are NOT using a non-stick pan, take care to loosen fillets by carefully working the spatula underneath them before turning. Tilapia fillets are delicate!
Hold fillets on warmed platter .
Splash � cup of dry white wine into saut� pan and reduce for three minutes using whisk, scraping up any browned bits from bottom of  pan. As sauce starts to reduce, add tomatoes and cook two to three more minutes, until tomatoes start to soften and sauce gets thicker (coats a spoon). Add basil, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour over warm Tilapia fillets and serve with oven-roasted red potatoes and green beans. AND a glass or two of Pinot Grigio!
*To chiffonade basil, pick large basil leaves and place one on top of the other. Roll into a little cigar, then chop with a sharp knife from one end to the other, leaving long, thin strips.
Posted on 08/31/2010 2:11 PM by Mary Ann Vangrin
Thursday, 19 August 2010
Wine Sisterhood Foodies Tour of the Lower East Side
As some of you may know, the Napa Wine Sisters were in NYC for BlogHer 10. We sat in on some great panels, met lots of dynamic women, sent wine to some special room parties and, all in all, had the time of our lives bonding with the dynamic, creative women of the blogosphere.
But when Sunday rolled around, we had time to take a breath. Although we wanted to sleep in, we were promised a food tour of the Lower East Side, once the world's lar gest Jewish neighborhood community. One of its denizens (actually a junior wine sister who is an art student at Parson’s School of Design and lives with her art school roommates in a “colorful” apartment on Henry Street) promised to show us her favorite places in exchange for a bagel breakfast and shopping in Soho. Who could resist—even if it was a 9:30 wake-up call. We are pleased therefore to present a Wine Sisterhood foodies tour of the Lower East Side--with wine pairings just to stay on topic.
Our tour began with lox and bagels. Destination: Russ & Daughters, a Lower East Side institution. This is a tiny shop, but if you have a craving for real New York bagels and super-excellent Nova, you’ve come to the right place. An amazing selection of schmears (we picked traditional, goat cheese and a fantastic Veggie Tofu spread) and smoked salmon of many varieties. The dill-cured Gravlax was enticing, but we had to go for the traditional, beautiful Nova, hand-sliced. In addition to lox and bagels, there were latkes, herring like no other, smoked fish, caviar, dried fruits, specialty chocolates and candies of all varieties. (That’s a three-course meal, right?) We picked up a dozen bagels with some expertly sliced Nova, some fresh-squeezed OJ for re-hydration, and headed south to The Pickle Guys for accoutrements.   
The Pickle Guys have an even tinier store front. The shop basically consists of a bunch of pickle barrels. And yes, they sell pickles—half sour, medium sour, really sour depending on how long the cukes have sat in the brine. But they also sell an amazing variety of other pickled veggies, including okra, giardiniera, tomatillos, sauerkraut, mushrooms and more. We spied a barrel of pink-colored things and asked what they were. Pickled turnips. Having never tasted these, we ordered up a half-pint along with a quart of medium-sour pickles.
 On to the famous Donut Plant, where the homemade cake or raised donuts, some filled with house-made jam, are made on the premises. When the donuts are gone, the shop closes. By the time we got there, the Crème Brulee donuts were sold out, but we settled for a raspberry-jam-filled raised glaze to be eaten as an appetizer as we walked to art student’s apartment to set out our bagel spread. The obvious wine pairing for a bagel brunch is Mimosas made with fresh-squeezed OJ. We didn’t have any Champagne (New York is rough like that at 9:30 on a Sunday morning) but If we had to pick a Wine Sisterhood wine, we’d go for a light, fresh white such as Middle Sister Drama Queen Pinot Grigio or PromisQous White. After unlocking a front door, a vestibule door, plus the door to the apartment, we set out bagels, lox and cream cheese for the art kids in their glamorous apartment dining room slash living room slash kitchen. Along with the pickles and the amazing pickled pink turnips for a savory accompaniment, it was a genuine NYC LES spread.  Next, we set off west to Chinatown. The Art Student wanted to take me to Quickly, a famousJapanese Asian Fusion cafe franchise featuring an exotic drink called milk tea. What makes Milk Tea different? YIt's has balls. Yes, balls of tapioca. A drink you can chew, and we're not talking chewy tannins. Milk Tea is odd, but interesting. But odd. The drinks are hermetically seal ed with a super-clever machine-foiler-cup capper. Then you get an extra-big straw to punch through the lid so you can suck up the tapioca balls along with the tea. O.K. where's my Mimosa?
Next, we stopped at a Chinatown bakery. The shelves were stocked with very colorful cakes, big bags of buns and savory pastries as well. No idea what’s inside the cakes, or what the icing says, but many, many points for presentation.
We walked past open bins of exotic ingredients such as dried shrimp—used in many Asian recipes (Pad Thai, anybody?) At the Wine Sisterhood, we love to cook, but we would definitely need a chef well-versed in Asian cuisine to explain to us what all these ingredients were and how the heck to use them in a recipe. Here’s a wine pairing note for Asian cuisine. Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Indonesian and other eastern cultures do not have a wine tradition as Westerners know it. This part of the world simply does not have the climate for cultivating vitis vinifera. Although wine is made, it’s most notably from rice or perhaps plum and other fruits. Yeah, alcohol is awesome. You can make it from just about anything. Since Asian cuisine has become so mainstream in America, we still want to enjoy a glass of grape-based wine as we know it with Asian foods. Oak, tannin and alcohol, which tend to be prominent in red wines, will fight the flavors. Think refreshing sparkling, white or blush (rosé) wines, which are fresher, crisper and lower in alcohol. They will complement both the lighter taste and texture of many subtle vegetable-based Asian dishes as well as the hotter, spicier flavors often found in Asian cuisine. Light whites also pair with tastes in Mexican, Caribbean, Central and South American dishes which feature chilies and assertive spices.
Riesling is always a sommelier go-to recommendation for Asian cuisine. We think our new White  Haute Riesling fits the bill and it’s got a cute green shoe on the label. It’s not bone dry—it has a hint of sweetness (technically--“residual sugar”-- the natural grape sugar left in the wine when all the fruit sugar in the grapes is not converted to alcohol blah blah blah). The hint of sweetness becomes seemless and invisible when paired with hot and spicy foods. But that’s another day, another food tour. Buon Appetito!
Posted on 08/19/2010 1:52 PM by Mary Anne Vangrin
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
August Survey: talk to us about the Wine Sisterhood. We're listening.
 The Napa Valley sisters are winging their way to NYC for BlogHer10 but we wanted to let you know our August survey is live! We're calling it the Wine Sisterhood Benchmark Survey because we're turning our focus for the moment to the Wine Sisterhood herself.
If you've been with us awhile, you know in the past we've asked you about label designs, wine names, new varieties--your responses help us create our new wine brands and there's no place else you can do that, can you?
This month, as we celebrate 5,000 Facebook friends, we are going in a slightly different direction and asking you to voice your opinion about the Wine Sisterhood. How did you find out about us? Do you talk about us? What does the Wine Sisterhood mean to you?
Your feedback will help us better understand you--our wine sisters-- and help us continue to make the Wine Sisterhood a place you want to visit frequently, learn and share about wine, help create new wine brands and invite your friends to join in the fun.
It's super-quick this month--we're told it will take about four minutes.  Four minutes--so long for yoga plank--so short for our survey.
Thanks as always for playing, and be sure to check in this week on Facebook and Twitter for up to the minutes posts and photos on our BlogHer week in New York.
Posted on 08/03/2010 2:03 PM by Maryann Vangrin
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After a hot, smelly, colorful tour of Chinatown,