The olive oil business engages in many of the same purposefully deceitful practices as the wine industry. It regularly conjures up idyllic, romantic images to gloss over the reality of its production and agricultural practices. At the large scale, both are mainly involved in bottling and marketing. And, much like the wine business, where people doctor wines to get better ratings, the value of olive oil as a commodity encourages fraud.
Tom Mueller writes in an expose in The New Yorker in 2007, “Adulteration is especially common in Italy, the world’s leading importer, consumer, and exporter of olive oil. (For the past ten years, Spain has produced more oil than Italy, but much of it is shipped to Italy for packaging and is sold, legally, as Italian oil.)”

In an interview with NPR, Tom suggests the only way to know whether you are getting the real thing or not is to know the people who produced the olive oil.

Can you tell the difference between real olive oil and the adulterated version? Look at the photo above closely and tell me which one is real extra-virgin.

I try to mostly write about food, sustainability and farming, but in this case I can’t pass up sharing some feedback from a fellow vinaroon. Two of our biggest supporters, Monique and Boris were meeting with Mary of Namaste Publishing about a project.

My friend, Doug Cook of AbleGrape fame, is squatting on a domain that hopefully he’ll turn into Wine Gloat one day. Mary’s comments on her Farmstead Wine experience will be one for the archives. She said to Monique, “And BTW, we have now tried two of the Farmstead wines – one red, one white and have seriously died and gone to heaven. Even the buzz is better. Of all the advice you have shared with us, the wine referral might have been the most valuable piece of information!”

If you have feedback- good or bad- we would love to hear it! Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

The goal of a good food and wine pairing is that both taste better together than alone. While a combination that simply works is acceptable, a sum that is greater than its parts is the ideal pairing. The same principles that apply to cooking a great dish or making a great wine apply. That means balance and complexity without muddling flavours. To achieve that there are a few simple guidelines:
1. Show restraint. This applies both to the cooking and the wine. Often the most important ingredient is the one you decide to leave out of a dish. Don’t pair monster, over-the-top wines with food- leave them for dick swinging competitions.

2. Use bridges. Adjust a dish to account for a specific flavor in a wine. For example, you can change the flavors you use in a sauce for duck depending on whether you are serving Pinot Noir (cherries) or Nebbiolo (orange).

3. Practice. A lot.

The sample menu below is from a dinner I cooked recently that went over very well. Although the menu was an extravagant 5 courses, plus an amuse, each dish was made without butter, cream and is basically low-fat. This style of cooking clean, healthy gourmet food is what we do at Inevitable Table too. Have a food and wine pairing tip? Please share it with a comment below.

sunchoke soup with chanterelle, brioche and truffle

Martin Arndorfer ChNb 2005

roasted pumpkin salad with radicchio, pomegranate, and aged sherry
Marc Tempe Rodelsberg 2004

pappardelle with braised rabbit ragout, tomato, chili and pecorino
Domaine de Courbissac Pandora 2004

pan-roasted sable with beet roesti, arugula and tarragon
Agricola Marrone Langhe Rosso Sancarlo 2001

honeyed panna cotta with pistachio, orange and fennel
Renato Fenocchio Moscato Passito Ito’pass 2006

Renato Fenocchio’s olive oil was featured in The Globe and Mail. The first line says it all, “Every so often, you come across a taste that can elicit nothing other than “wow.’”

Quantity

One bottle $45.00 Two bottles $90.00 3 bottles *10percent off $121.50

Those of you who joined us for Thanksgiving might remember the intermezzo of Olive Oil Gelato with Candied Salmon The salmon was caught and candied thanks to Boris and James. I have finally gotten around to posting the recipe for the gelato and wanted to share it, because it is an interesting use of Renato’s Olive Oil. It is adapted from Mario Batali’s Babbo Cookbook. At A Beautiful Mosiac, onespicymamma has a great demonstration of how to actually make the gelato.

If you decide to make it yourself, please post a link to a picture in the comments below.

6 egg yolks- good ones, fresh, orangey coloured

¾ cup inverted sugar (trimoline)- worth tracking down, makes much creamier, smoother gelato

¾ cup Renato Fenocchio extra virgin olive oil

3 cups whole milk

1 cup heavy cream

Combine egg yolks and trimoline in the bowl of an electric mixer. Whip together on mediumish speed until mixture begins to thicken, forming ribbons. Continue beating and drizzle in the olive oil; beat for 2 more minutes. Add the milk and cream and mix til ingredients are combined. Chill in fridge overnight (or at least a couple of hours). Mix in ice cream machine.

Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Craig Camp was recently lamenting the state of manipulated, industrial wines in North America. He was surprised to find this wine at Whole Foods, but I wasn’t surprised given the way “vineyard management” and “winemaking” are separated in most of the New World. What I did find absolutely shocking was Craig’s response:
“Anthony - you’re right about the dichotomy. It’s interesting that organic winegrowing is in fashion while organic winemaking is not. Certainly this is because you’re hard pressed to find a decent organically made wine. In fact, organically made wine has a deserved bad reputation.”

It is truly disappointing that someone who knows as much about wine as him believes this. Now, Craig might very well just be giving me a hard time, but the myth of all organic wines being shitty wine is still a fairly popular one. Many of the best wines in the world are farmed organically and then made without intensive manipulation, but they are rarely marketed as organic. They are afraid of the stigma too. I can certainly think of quite a few delicious wines that are technically organic, but not marketed as such. (Outside of the wines we import)…Almost anything imported by Joe Dressner makes the cut. Jack and Joanne at Fork and Bottle certainly have a list which includes many tasty treats.

What are your thoughts about “organic wine?” Do you have any favorite wines that just happened to be made organically without a lot of green marketing bullshiitake? Can you name 5?

Remy Charest of The Wine Case was asking about what to do with white beans the other day on twitter. The white bean twitter recipe is “@RemyCharest sweat onion & garlic, add chopped tomato, lightly color, deglaze w wht wine; add beans, and simmer w pork stock, rosemary, salt “

But when he mentioned that he had some sunchokes, I immediately thought of a version of a crostini.

“@RemyCharest cook beans tender, simmer chokes in milk /bay leaf tender; lightly saute shallot/garlic add beans/chokes, salt & evoo, puree” (12:31 PM Dec 6th from twhirl in reply to RemyCharest)

And here is a quick video demo of the recipe.