Red Risotto

Cabernet Sauvignon is the star of September at Williamson, so naturally our Cork to Fork will feature and highlight its body, depth and character! This week we have a twist on a classic: risotto. But not just any risotto – RED risotto! What’s normally an ivory paradise of carbs turns dark with the addition of our Cabernet and…of all things…beets! Let’s dig in!


Ingredients:

3 cups of beets, skinned and chopped for roasting
3 tbsp olive oil
2 cups arborio rice
1 cup Williamson Cabernet Sauvignon
1.5 quarts of chicken stock
2 cups freshly grated parmesan cheese
1 cup white onion, small dice
3 cloves of garlic, minced
Salt and pepper, to taste
*****

Start by preheating your oven to 400, throw your chopped beats onto a baking sheet, douse in olive oil, salt and pepper, and roast until fork tender – about 30 minutes. After roasting beets, remove from your sheet pan and place into a blender with your stock. Blend until completely smooth and no remnants of beet remain. Your stock will froth up a bit and turn a vibrant magenta color – so fun!

 

In a large skillet or pot, start sweating out your onion in some olive oil with a bit of salt. Once they turn translucent, add in your garlic and wait until it becomes fragrant. Once it does – add in your arborio rice! Let your rice get warm and saucy with the olive oil before adding in your Cabernet.* TIP: if you remember from a few weeks back, risotto requires lots of stirring. Arborio rice is a granule dense with starch, and stirring it helps release that starch which in turn makes it creamy and delicious. When you add liquid to the rice, stir stir stir and just when you think you’re done stirring – you’re going to stir some more. You’ll repeat the stirring process after each addition of liquid until the granule soaks it up.

 

Once your rice has absorbed most of the wine and its looking a little dry – add in your stock/beet puree. Repeat this step until your rice has a nice toothsome to it – not crunchy enough to get stuck in your molars, but not overcooked that it’s mushy and loses its texture. For me, this required about a quart and a half of stock. You’ll need to govern this by tasting along the way. If you need to add more, just add it. If it’s plain chicken or vegetable stock – fret not – your risotto will still be a vibrant red.

 

Once your risotto is cooked, silky smooth, creamy, all that jazz – add in your freshly grated parmesan cheese. This will add a component of salt, so refrain from salting your dish until after adding in the cheese.

 

We served this with some spicy sausage. The spice balanced out the subtle sweetness the beets brought to the dish and wow – it was a winner. You could of course serve this with steak or chicken or roasted vegetables, it’s incredibly diverse and flexible to suit any palette.

 

We hope you enjoy this showstopping red risotto – the perfect dish to ease into fall with! See you next week on Cork to Fork!


close up bottle pouring wine into glassFUN FACT!!
Did you know that it takes 600-800 grapes to make a bottle of wine?
Wine grapes can vary from about 50-100 grapes per cluster. It could take anywhere from 8 to 12 grapes clusters per bottle. Each variety of wine grape can hold anywhere from 30 to 50 clusters, depending on what a winemaker requires.
Thus, the winemaker and the wine grower are entwined in their efforts for the grapes to reach their maximum potential for the wine produced.
We believe that wine is defined by its “terroir” (the characteristic taste and flavor imparted to a wine by the environment in which it is produced) and shaped by the decisions of both the grape growers and winemakers!


Show the grilling guru’s in your life some summer lovin’ with this 

Summer BBQ Gift Pack


The sun is out and the weather is fine. Now is the time for grillin and sippin wine!
At $59.00 (plus tax) per set this gift pack makes a great Father’s Day Gift! Bring this fun gift pack to the next backyard BBQ and impress your host. 

Gift pack includes a bottle of Williamson Vineyard’s wine, a bottle of Bell’s Gourmet Barbecue Sauce and a Smoking Hot Grill Master apron.

Customize your gift pack by choosing your favorite wine from the following wine options:

2020 Harvest Moon Red
2020 Henry’s Red
2020 Syrah

You can also choose between the following Bell’s BBQ Sauce options:

Garlic BBQ Sauce
Cherry BBQ Sauce


Begun in 1998, Open That Bottle Night is a call to open that special bottle with friends and share the experience, instead of letting it continue to sit in the cellar. We’ve decided to get into the spirit by holding a drawing from participants who submitted pictures of their Williamson wines and a short description as to why they decided to Open That Bottle. We received some lovely entries and we put the names into a wine spittoon and drew out the winner,
…Lisa Shaffer!

Lisa wins the wine-rrific gift basket, valued at $140.

Congratulation Lisa! Thank you for this fabulous picture, you can pick up your gift basket prize at the tasting room at your convenience.
Lisa had this to say about her favorite bottle: “We love this bottle of Last Drop and opened it because it is unique and we know they won’t be able to ever make it again the same. Terry and I really enjoyed it and it pairs well with lasagna!  It rates best in a Williamson glass.”

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We were blown away by everyone who entered the contest. Many of the entries truly touched our hearts. We would like to gift a bottle of our delicious 2020 Dry Rosé to our honorable mentions seen below. Cheers!


Richard & Trudy Jackson

Stacy Irwin

Renee & Steve VanAtter

Margie & David Wilkins


We’ve got some tasty wines back on the shelves!

2020 Dry Riesling –  A clear, bright, pale straw colored wine, this is beautiful in the glass. Aromas of minerality and jasmine at first whiff, it completes with sweet notes of pear and lychee. This silky wine has  flavors of pineapple and peach milkshake, and harbors hints of slate on the mid-palate and finishes with floral notes.

2019 Homestead Red (Wine Club Only) – 66% Cabernet, 34% Syrah
A deep opaque garnet with blue undertones, this wine promises a lush mouthful. Dark cherry and baked berry crisp leads on the nose with hints of bramble and wet slate. Plummy cherry preserves explode this big fruity wine onto the palate, and is balanced with bright acid and firm tannins. This is a chewy wine with a long finish.

2019 Petite Sirah (Wine Club Only) – Gorgeous ruby tones and opaque in the glass, the aromas of raspberry, blueberry, prune are balanced with a light dusting of white pepper and earthiness tease the nose. Firm tannins are balanced with a medium astringency creating a soft mouth feel. Flavors of raspberry and cherry jello, are balanced  with hints of pistachio and white pepper on  the palate end with a long finish of earth and blackberry jam and seed.

Click here to for more information and pricing.

Wine club members, please remember to  sign into your account in the webstore to see wine club only wines and receive your special pricing.


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Thanks to all culinary enthusiasts who got
adventurous in the kitchen this past Valentines Day!

If these mouth watering images are inspiring you get a little spicy in the kitchen (the wine helps with this, we promise) then watch for our next Take and Make dinner. We are hoping to host another one of these remote dinners later in the spring. Stay tuned for more info soon!

 

 


We hosted a book club style event featuring a new favorite book for our wine geeky staff. “Cork Dork” by Bianca Bosker is a fun and fascinating look at one person’s transformation from a newbie to a professional sommelier. Join us for a casual chat about this intriguing subject. We can’t promise there won’t be any spoilers!


We took a “deep dive into wine”. We sipped and discussed our Viognier and Sangiovese. Everything from grape growing, aging, flavor profiles and pairings for these delicious Williamson Vineyard wines.
Grab a glass of your favorite wine and check out the conversation with Mike and Beverly Williamson.


Just because it’s winter it doesn’t mean we don’t work. Patrick and Mike have taken advantage of the good weather this week and started to do some pre-pruning. If you would like to see what’s happening in the vineyard without getting your toes cold, check out Patrick’s video. This wonderful machine does the first rough pruning cut, making it easier and more cost effective for the human pruners to get the fine tuning done.


A tasting by Wine Press Northwest of fortified wines from Washington, Oregon and Idaho was held in Summer of 2020. There were 48 Northwest producers that participated in their first large-scale judging of fortifieds since 2015, and they combined for 67 entries. Our delicious Doce rated well with their “outstanding” designation. We’ve attached their tasting notes and linked here to their full article.

Syrah remains a go-to grape for some of the Northwest’s top producers of fortified wines, and the multi-personality red Rhône grape thrives in Idaho, particularly in the hands of Greg Koenig, who crafted the Williamson family’s wines for nearly two decades. The nose of toffee, Saigon cinnamon, dried cherry and plum moves into darker flavors of cola and pomegranate syrup. There’s a pleasing bit of burn from the alcohol that’s smoothed out by the finish of Choward’s Violet candy and milk chocolate. The family of foodies at Williamson enjoy this with Black Forest Cake, blue cheese or walnuts.