All Around The World, From Alentejano to Zweigelt

recently consumed

food: austrian goulash, viennese sachertorte
wine: sattler zweigelt 2005

tasting notes

The journey has almost ended. Tom and I are one Portuguese wine/meal away from completing our second journey around the world. And unlike a previous post suggested, I did not make this moment happen before my husband’s 30th birthday.

But still, this will be an epic moment. Since Christmas 2006, I have been treating my husband to (almost) monthly theme dinners. The idea was this… dedicate the night to one country, it’s wine, it’s food, it’s cinema. We have gone from Chilean Cabernet to Australian Shiraz, from Grecian white to Israel red. I’ll save the full wrap up for that fateful night next month where I pop open the wine from Portugal, because tonight was all about Austria.

how to make a good goulash
In just about every goulash recipe I found, there was a key ingredient… patience. Well, patience and paprika, but those actually go hand in hand. The dish is fairly simple to make. Meat, spices, onions, wine, broth, and loads of cooking/stirring/waiting/tasting. Luckily I was also taking this time to bake a cake and clean the kitchen, so I got to see the magic of a 2 hour simmer unfold before my eyes.

Around half an hour in, I actually accidentally burned some of the sauce. I was tempted to start over out of perfectionist sake, but I’m glad I didn’t. The reason why the two hours is needed is because it breaks down the meat, but also because it mellows out the otherwise bitter paprika. The same theory applied to a slightly bitter taste of browned sauce. By an hour in, I started to notice all bitterness going away and turning into a richness. By an hour and a half in, my meat turned from tough leathery stew meat to disintegrating at the touch of my fork. And by two hours, I had goulash.

the necessary evil, chocolate cake
Reading the “true way” to do this dish was again a life saver. A Viennese Sachertorte should not be mistaken for a rich flourless chocolate cake that melts in your mouth. This cake is fairly dry, which is why the Austrians always eat it with a dollop of whipped cream (yum!).

While I created the batter, which involved a lot of fluffing and folding, I had a hard time imagining this would turn into anything but a moist, rich cake. But low and behold when it came out of the oven, it was surprisingly light in flavor and slightly dry in texture… not stale dry, just “fluffy”. It is a great contrast to the rich ganache topping and the sweet apricot jam filling, which could otherwise create for a combo that is just too rich.

drinking a varietal that starts with “z”
Finally, although the Sattler Zweigelt 2005 is hard to find, the flavors weren’t terribly exotic. It smells of white pepper, shoe polish, and blackberry. The taste was dark and rich, with great fruit and a crisp dry finish. The loads of pepper help it cut through the rich meat of the goulash, but there was still enough fruit in the wine to pair fairly well (not ideal) with the cake.

According to Appellation America, the best and only place to get cartoon characters of varietals, the Zweigelt is virtually unknown in North America as vintners don’t want to take a chance on a wine with a funny name. But those in cold climates, who already gamble quite a bit, have started taking a risk on the grape. Which is interesting, because the only other place I have seen a Zweigelt before was from the Pelee Island Winery in Ontario. I seem to remember it tasting very peppery as well, but quite good for the price. Maybe we’ll start seeing more in the future!