Cooking with Crosby Roamann: Sourdough

Every year, as our grapes slowly ripen, we take fruit samples from the vineyard. Sampling begins generally in mid-August for our Sauvignon Blanc, and continue through our last harvest of the vintage, typically mid-October. The practice is simple, but time-consuming. A 100 to 200-berry sample is collected in a sandwich bag from each block being tested by gently harvesting one berry per cluster from roughly every-other vine until we've reached our sample collection target. We then crush the berries in the sample and chill them to 68F. Then we check the sugar content (i.e. Brix) in a refractometer. Sometimes, the juice sample is sent out for professional chemistry including acidity and pH, among other things.

If the weather is just right, the grapes will be the right temperate for testing with our refractometer right there in the field, and then often the jucie samples get left in the car ... and forgotten, and a day or two later, they will begin to ferment.

This year, I decided to put some of these spontaneous grape sample fermentations to good use. Following a recipe from Sylvia Fountain at FeastingAtHome.com, I collected the juice from our berry samples and made a sourdough bread starter with it. The results have been incredible.

I followed the traditional sourdough starter recipe -- 1/2 cup wholewheat flour, and 1 cup water -- but to this I added 1/4 cup of fermenting grape juice. I made this addition two or three times over the course of the first week as the starter got going. When we made our first boule, at the end of that first week getting the starter going, I added an additional 1/4 cup of fermenting grape juice.

 

 

Cooking with Crosby Roamann: Sweet "Hungarian" Paprika

 

It was one of those special days of the year when, over the weekend, Juliana and I harvested a grocery bag's worth of bright red Hungarian-bred sweet red peppers and brought them home to process. The process is relatively easy. We wash and dry the peppers, and then cut them lengthwise by hand and remove most of the ribs and seeds. Next we lay them out on a large rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment pepper. Then we dry them in the oven at the lowest temperature we can get, which in our oven is only 200F (a lower temperature of 140 would be ideal, but it would take longer ... much, much, much longer). The drying process at 200F takes about 5-6 hours, after which we let the dried peppers cool over night. In the morning, we crush them by hand, and process them into a fine powder in our spice grinder (from Cuisinart). Lastly, storage! We keep our sweet "Hungarian" paprika in an air-tight container in the fridge, in which condition it will last all year long, and often longer.

Interested in learning more? Let us know! Visit the "Contact us" page and give us a shout.

Next recipe coming up -- Chicken Paprikas.

 

 

 

 

Vineyard updates:

Things are moving fast these days at the vineyard. The reds are nearing completion of veraison, the Sauvignon Blanc is sugaring up, olives are fleshing out, and the roses are in bloom. Trino and I have been going through the vineyard daily to drop green fruit from the Cabernets and the Merlot, space out the clusters, do a little final leaf pulling on some of the more overgrown vines -- generally just trying to clean things up as much as possible. The weather has been consistent, warm, without any significant wind.

Vineyard updates: Veraison underway in the Merlot

"Wow!" It's the only word to describe the pace of ripening this year. After a seemingly endless string of warm weather throughout July, veraison has started earlier than I think in any year since we started making wine in 2007. The Merlot is already about 40% colored, perhaps more or less in some blocks, with the strongest vines leading the way. It's going to be an exciting harvest!

Fall/Winter 2024 Member Shipments + New Releases

 

Thrilled and elated to share our new releases with you. Without question -- the finest line-up of the membership we have ever released. Premier and Collector Member shipments (and advance orders of new releases) will begin shipping in September, weather permitting. The Crosby's Reserve Club -- our six-bottle wood box featuring the 2021 vintage -- will ship in October.

2021 Crosby's Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley

"The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Crosby's Reserve, tasted as a barrel sample, is deep garnet-purple in color. It offers up expressive scents of blackcurrant jelly, plum preserves, and blueberry pie leading to wafts of rose oil, raspberry coulis, and cinnamon stick with a hint of cardamom. The medium to full-bodied palate shimmers with energetic black and red berry layers, supported by fine-grained tannins and a refreshing backbone, finishing long and perfumed." 96 LPB

2022 Syrah Petaluma Gap

Meaty, musky, and sexy, with a long, tantalizing finish with notes of beef's blood, bacon, leather, orange flower, and soft chalky acid. Our Rowan Vineyard Syrah occupies a hillside on the northern edge of the Petaluma Gap, on a steep, south-facing, rolling hillside with the steepest slopes facing south and southwest. The soil here has a higher percentage of limestone than usual for this area. The grapes are fully destemmed and fermented in stainless steel for 14-21 days, and the wine is aged in 40% new French oak barrels for eighteen months. 93 WE

2022 Chardonnay Napa Valley

We picked our Chardonnay by hand, at dawn. The grapes were whole-cluster pressed and the juice fermented in French oak barrels, then aged 18 months in oak. The 2022 Chardonnay has a lightly green-tinted yellow-gold color, with white-rose floral notes. It is medium bodied, with notes of mellow tar and matchstick on the attack, then tart green apple, fresh pineapple, and a touch of buttery burnt caramel. 92 WA

 

 

Vineyard updates & vegetable boxes, peppers, tomatoes

We installed three large vegetable boxes near our well in the vineyard this year and planted tomatoes and two kinds of peppers, both generally popular in traditional Hungarian cuisine -- sweet paprila peppers (for paprikas) and gypsy peppers, a brilliantly neon green small pepper that can be eaten with dips, stuffed, or used as an accompaniment for paprikash. So far everything has been thriving and we're looking forward to a September harvest for most of the veggies.

Tomatoes and peppers gone wild in the vegetable boxes --

Sugar accumulation has already begun in the Sauvignon Blanc, pictured below. By contrast, the Sauvignon Blanc fruit has set with nicely spaced clusters, and not as much of the bunching as in the Merlot pictured above.

Sauvignon Blanc continued -- pictured here -- Musque clone planted in 1999. This is one of our rare cordon-pruned vines, which generally occupy the end rows in the Sauvignon Blanc block 4.

 

Thoughts on Wine Labels: Part 1 -- the new releases.

 

Thought on Wine labels ... So ... I think we've finally gotten it right. And yet I hesitate to say that, since it's been seventeen years of label evolution. I'm really happy with the labels now, and I finally think we have it dialed in, but it got me thinking. What finally changed? Why did it take so long for me to feel like we'd finally found a match between our brand and our label. And how crazy is it that it took seventeen years for it to evolve to a place where I was finally happy with it, like truly and fundamentally happy with it?

I don't really have the answers to these questions. The Great Diety above must have had some plan for it, but lord if I know. I absolutely wish that we could have shown up on day 1 with our 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon with this label, and never changed or diverged in any way -- I really do -- but Crosby Roamann has been an adventure and a mystery to me in so many respects that just wasn't our path. The good news is, however, I really believe we're finally there. So let's take a look at it -- what we love about them, how we got there, and why.

First off, I'm really happy we dropped the Sean W McBride line of wines. We've gone back to Crosby Roamann for all our branding, and it makes we so happy. I was never really thrilled to have my own name on the labels -- it just felt wrong. sure, I had my reasons for it, and believe me, NONE of them were vanity. They were good reasons, which I won't go into now, but ultimately Crosby Roamann and Sean W. McBride just didn't work as a branding idea. It really started to make sense to me when we went for dinner at a long time restaurant account, and despite the fact that they carried all our wines -- Bon Ton, Crosby Roamann, and Sean W. McBride -- everyone referred to me as "Mr. Crosby." It was at that point that I realized that no matter what I did, or put on the label, most people would still think of me, personally, as "Crosby Roamann." So why not lean into it? And that's what we did.

Second, I love the copper foil tone and the warmth it brings to the brand. And the roses seem to have come out just right in the full-bleed print, rather than the inverse/outline we have been printing since 2016. Third, I love the script on the varietal and the appellation. Fourth, I love the color and the font of the vintage. Fifth, I love the copper border matching the roses. And lastly, it just all WORKS together, aesthetically, it just reads, finally, as what I had imagined, but never been able to visualize conceptually, all those years ago.

If there was one thing I would change (aha! Here I go again ...) I might add a UPC code to the bottom left of the wrap -- I'm sure it would help sales in places like Whole Foods, but aesthetically, I'm happy it's not there. Some things like UPC codes and "romance copy" remind me I'm buying a "product" and not a piece of "art," and I prefer the latter.

Cooking with Crosby Roamann: Linguine with White Clam Sauce

 

Another staple growing up in NY -- linguine with white clam sauce. This was perhaps my family's most ordered pasta dish at traditional Italian American restaurants in the 70s and 80s -- places like Patsy's, Don Pepe's. I developed the basic recipe for this in college, and it is cheap and simple -- a box of linguine, decent olive oil, some butter, half a yellow onion (I prefer shallots now cause I'm fancy pants) and lots and lots of garlic, sliced very thin (or roast whole cloves in olive oil first and use them) a bunch of fresh parsley, and frozen clams. You can get away with just these ingredients in this dish, but if you have a little cheap white wine, it fills out the sauce most succulently. Recently I've taken to garnishing this dish with roughly chopped toasted pistachios for a little crunch.

Linguine with White Clam Sauce

• 1 cup olive oil, divided
• 1 stick butter, cut into tablespoon sizes
• 2 shallots thinly sliced (2mm-3mm)
• 5-6 garlic cloves rough chopped
• ½ tspn garlic powder
• ½ tspn onion powder
• 1 Tbspn kosher salt
• ¼ tspn red pepper flakes
• 3-4 anchovies in olive oil
• 1 cup good and hearty white wine
• 1 pound frozen raw clams in juice or fresh little neck clams or about 3 small cans (6.5 ounces each) of Bar Harbor Chopped Clams—although any good clam will do
• 1 bunch, about 1.5 cups fresh parsley finely chopped (divided)
• ½ tspn fresh cracked black pepper
• 1 Tbspn Maldon salt

Fancy garnish options:

• ¼ cup roasted salted pistachios rough chopped; or
• ¼ cup bread crumbs with seasoning; or Gremolata (see recipe)

Directions

• Combine half cup of olive oil, 2 tablespoons of butter, the shallots and season them with kosher salt and garlic and onion powder and red pepper flakes -- set over medium heat to sweat, 5 minutes
• Add the garlic and sauté them another 2 minutes.
• Make a hot spot in the center of the pot and add the anchovies – allow them to liquify over the next 2 minutes, and then incorporate them to the sauce.
• Add the wine, bring to a boil, then reduce the flame to low and cook off the alcohol -- 7 minutes more.
• Add the clams and clam juice, crack some black pepper over it, and cover to allow them to simmer and steam for about 7 minutes.
• Add half the parsley and stir to combine. At this point the clam sauce is basically done. You may want to adjust the consistency of the sauce with more olive oil, more butter, some pasta cooking water, whatever!
• Meanwhile, boil a pot of salted water and cook the pasta -- about 8 minutes.
• At the conclusion of the pasta, add a cup of boiling pasta water to the sauce.
• Drain the pasta, and add half the butter to the bottom of the pan. Return the pasta to the pan, and add the other half of the butter on top of the pasta. Using tongs, coat the pasta in butter.
• Add the sauce to the pasta, turning to coat it in clams, and bring it back to a boil quickly and briefly, then remove from heat.
• Salt the pasta with Maldon sea salt, garnish with fresh chopped parsley, a thin layer of seasoned breadcrumbs or Gremolata, or toasted pistachios, or all three!

Cooking with Crosby Roamann: Orecchiette with White Bolognese

 

I love the San Francisco Bay, truly and with my whole heart, and I love this city on a hill where we are currently living, but if I'm being honest, I've never really loved the north bay, and I don't know why. I guess a part of me felt that I was "City & Country" but not "suburb" -- and the North Bay felt too suburban to me (the same goes for the south and the east bay, although the east bay less so -- I could sort of see myself in Oakland, it reminding me as it does of Brooklyn). And you know lately that has started to change. For one thing, I am a real sucker for farmers markets, and there is a fantastic one at the Larkspur Landing mall which I have become addicted to. I think I'll have to write a full post on this market and all the great stuff we've found there, but for the time being, getting back to my point this morning, I wanted to highlight one of my favorite new vendors that I found there -- Mill Valley Pasta Co.

"Mill Valley Pasta Co. is a project by Chef Tony Adams in Mill Valley, California. Using local organic ingredients" Tony turns out beauitfully crafted artisan pastas that are becoming my go-to for Sunday Italian night dinners -- and they're made from organic flour, which is great for someone who doesn't tolerate enriched flour like me! Inspired by the White Bolognese at Pearl 6101 -- https://www.pearl6101.com/ -- I put together this little recipe (adapted from Food&Wine Magazine's Nicole Hopper) featuring Orecchiette from Mill Valley Pasta co.

Ingredients--

• 3+ tablespoons olive oil and about the same butter
• 4 ounces pancetta
• 9+ large sage leaves
• One yellow onion finely chopped
• 1 small carrot finely chopped
• 1 half sprig celery finely chopped (eat the rest!)
• 5 garlic cloves sliced very thin
• a bay leaf or two
• 1 teaspoon fresh chopped rosemary (not stalk)
• 1 teaspoon fresh chopped thyme (not stalk)
• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 1 pound ground veal (or substitute pork like my kids request -- Save the baby cows! haha)
• Half a bottle of good dry white wine
• A box of beef stock (or 3 cups of your own homemade bone broth ;)
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• Kosher salt
• Freshly cracked black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• One bag Mill Valley Pasta Co pasta -- we used Orecchiette

Directions--

• First, fry most of your sage leaves (leave two or three depending on their size) in olive oil a little on each side until they're nice and crispy and slighlty browned at the edges and set them aside on paper towels. This is the garnish.
• In the remaining oil, saute the pancetta till crispy.
• Just before it browns, add your butter, and then saute your onion, celery, and carrot to sweat them soft.
• Add garlic, and saute a couple minutes more until it starts to crisp up and the onions and carrots just start to lightly brown.
• And herbs, including two or three chopped sage leaves, and kosher salt to tatse, and stir together, letting these infuse their flavors in the vegetables.
• Add your meats and brown these over medium heat, blending the vegetables slowly in.
• When the meat is no longer pink, slowly stir in your white wine and cook off the alcohol, scraping up the brown bits and bringing everything together in a nice meat base for the sauce.
• Now, add your stock and bring it to a simmer, then reduce the heat to a low gentle simmer -- cover and let it cook for an hour.
• Uncover and continue to cook until the stock has mostly evaporated.
• Remove the bay leaves.
• Gently stir in your cream and bring the sauce all together -- taste and adjust your salt and freshly cracked pepper.
• Now cook your pasta in a large stock pot, and when it has been strained, return the pasta to its stock pot and add your pasta sauce, stirring everything together.
• Plate with the fried sage garnish leaves.

Cooking with Crosby Roamann: Red Wine Braised Brisket with Onions and Leeks

 

Red Wine Braised Brisket with Onions and Leeks for Passover

Adapted from Barefoot Contessa, Cooking for Jeffrey

April 23, 2024

What we did here was adapt our original Brisket recipe and gussy it up a bit with some suggestions from Barefoot Contessa – notably, the addition of red wine and leeks. Some things I kept that I thought were important were the ketchup, vinegar, and brown sugar. We made 10.5 pounds of this lovely dish for Passover this year (2024) and it turned out pretty awesome. The 3.5 hour braise at 350F followed by chilling overnight, slicing the meat when cold, flipping it over for service so the fat was on the bottom side, and then reheating it for 1.5 hours at 350F (30 minutues) 300F (30 minutes) and 180F (30 minutes) yielded a nicely soft brisket that was easy enough for guests to cut with somewhat chintzy plastic forks and knives, but still had some good chew to it.

 

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 full brisket, about 6.5 pounds untrimmed
• 2-3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 yellow onion, sliced sliced into ¼ inch semi circles 
• 2 red onions, sliced into ¼ inch semi circles  
• 2 large leeks, mostly the white parts, with some light green parts sliced into ¼ inch semi circles 
• 6 whole cloves garlic
• 1 cup dry red wine
• 1 jar Ketchup (8 oz?)
• ½ cup water
• ¼ cup light brown sugar
• ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
• 5-7 sprigs fresh whole sprigs of Thyme
• Kosher Salt and freshly cracked black pepper

 

Prep

1. Season the meat all over and wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, then refrigerate it overnight
2. In the morning, unwrap the meat and pat it dry with paper towels
3. Preheat the oven to 350F
4. Prep your vegetables and stir together your wet ingredients in a medium non-reactive bowl (wine, ketchup, water, sugar, and vinegar) – this is your braising marinade.
5. Heat the olive oil in a large cast iron pot over medium high heat – and note, a whole brisket probably won’t fit in a normal cast iron skillet, so it’s entirely ok to cut the brisket in half against the grain and do this in two parts.
6. Sear the brisket fat side down for 2 minutes, flip it and sear another 2 minutes. Then transfer it to a disposable rectangular roasting pan about 16 inches long, fat side up.
7. Gently rub your tomato paste all over the seared brisket, getting into nooks and crannies if possible
8. Add your onions, leeks, and whole garlic to the cast iron pot, and stir to coat in the rendered fat of the brisket. Sprinkle some kosher salt on, maybe a touch of fresh cracked black pepper. Sweat these veggies for a couple minutes on medium high heat, and when they have softened up a bit, transfer them to the sides of the brisket. I like to tuck the veggies in under the meat a little bit, and leave some on top of the meat, with most of them surrounding the meat.
9. Stir in your red wine and ketchup marinade and deglaze the pot, briefly, and when the wine has evaporated off its alcohol, about 3 minutes later, transfer this mixture to the roasting pan.
10. Cover the meat with your fresh thyme and wrap the top of the roasting pan tightly with two long sheets of aluminum foil.
11. Roast at 350F for 3.5 hours, then remove and set aside.
12. When the meat has cooled sufficiently to transfer it with bare hands, find a nice safe place in the fridge for it to sit overnight.
13. 2.5 hours before you are ready to serve it the following day after preparing the brisket, preheat the oven to 350F, and remove the roasting pan from the fridge and let it come to room temp for about an hour.
14. Remove the foil wrap and remove the brisket to a cutting board. Slice the brisket into ½-inch slices against the grain, then place the meat back in the roasting pan, fat side down. Ladle the marinade all over and between the slices of meat. Then recover the roasting pan with aluminum foil, and reheat the brisket in the over at 350F (30 minutues), 300F (30 minutes), and 180F (30 minutes).
15. Remove the meat from the oven and enjoy your seder. The meat will still be nice and warm when you are ready to dine.

 

Happy Pesach!