Chocolate and Wine at Wein Hauck

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Wasn’t long ago if you’d mentioned wine and chocolate, I’d be thinking Mars bars and Mogen David?  Are you out of your mind?  Turns out I was out of mine.

Pairings don’t always work.  Spaghetti and caramel sauce.  Teenagers and cars. Conversations and narcissists.   Angela, the high school cheerleader and …but anyway, you see my point.

Couple of weeks ago, I got an invite to an evening of chocolates and wines.  I’ve come a long way since the Hersey days.  Much more of a sophisticate, conjuring up images of Nutella slathered on pale skin, wine delicately poured into navels.  Should have known, in my world, dreams and reality live two turbulent oceans, and a mountain range apart.

You mean actually eating chocolate and drinking wine?  Well, knock me down!  Why that’s like pairing maple waffles and hamburgers….wait a sec, a popular fast food chain already tried that.  Ok.  It’s like pairing scotch and root beer.  Damn, one of my friends drinks that all the time.  Well, hell!

Got it!  That would be like pairing me with a fat woman with bad breath!  Uh oh.  I remember one time in my misspent youth….hate to change the subject, but let’s wander back onto firmer footing:  chocolate and wine.

Ever heard of Wein Hauck?  Small place in an off street near the old market in Kaiserslautern, Germany.  http://www.wein-hauck.de

If you get the chance, drop in between 2 and 6:30 p.m., weekdays except Monday.  Don’t take a chance.  Go to the web site for exact times.

Often Wein Hauck offers off the beaten vineyard events.  Music and wine.  And in this case, chocolate and wine.

Even if there’s no special event, the small shop intrigues me and tingles my taste buds.  I picture wine tasting as a blind date, except you don’t have to buy dinner, and you can move on to something more attractive and still call yourself a gentleman.

I thrive on small shops, especially when it comes to wine.  Hole in the wall bodegas in Spain.  Gordon’s Wine Bar in London.  (http://stroudallover.blogspot.de/2015/02/gordons-oldest-wine-bar-in-london.html)

If you’re carefully selective, you'll find small shops are friendlier and their survival rests on every single bottle they sell. Wein Hauck is a prime example.  The owners search for wines themselves, wander the vineyards, chat with the vintners, and only sell the best they can find.  French and German bottles dominate Hauck’s cellar, but they also offer a few Spanish delights, as well as some very interesting spirits. Picked up a few bottles of a bubbly and satisfying Crémant from Alsace, just a couple of weeks ago.  A jewel.

For the pairing on this evening, we tread both Italian and French vineyards.  Here’s a glance at what our hosts served:

Prosecco (Maschio dei Cavalieri), with 60% Chocolate, flavored with caramel and Fleur de Sel.

2014 Côte de Gascogne, with another 60% chocolate, this one with ginger.

Our molars coated with chocolate, our palates already well-graped, we moved on to the red wines:

2011 Cabardes, with 60% chocolate and mildly spicy red peppers.

2011 Vacqueyras, with 70% chocolate from Sao Tomé.

2011 Côtes de Bourg, with 85% chocolate from Ghana.

You want to know the bottomline, right ?  All the wine pairing worked supremely well, but none except for the Prosecco, would I choose to drink without the chocolate.  Sounds like the wines were not up to snuff.  Nothing farther from the in vino veritas.  These wines paired exactly correctly with the accompanying chocolates.  That, my friends, is difficult.

That’s also the magic of pairing that goes beyond red for red meat and white for chicken and seafood.  Start talking chocolate and wine and the red and white rules take a nose dive.  Same goes for wines and cheeses.

In my own late night excursions into  the wonders of the grape, I’ve found sturdy white wines, especially some of the Spanish drys, stand up well to the heavy flavor of beef.  Similarly, I’ve tasted reds just perfect for a particular cheese.

All in all, Friday night at Wein Hauck  led to a solid evening of tasting and chatting, but standing around sipping wine and eating chocolate….how bad could it be ?  Our cordial hosts took us on a tasting tour that opened my eyes and brightened my evening.  The  Wein Hauck selections paired remarkably well, but had I sipped them without chocolate I would have moved on.  Neither my palate nor my mind had made the adjustment to chocolate.  Just another point in favor of a small, quality wine shop that knows how to blend flavors and select the best wines for each occassion.

Wein Hauck is adept at  specializing rather than trying to blanket the planet. This small shop is a wonderful place to ferret out good wines at reasonable prices.  They also offer their remarkable expertise in leading the novice to experience some out of the way stops on the wine road.

Want to know a bit more about unusual pairings?  Here's a great place to start.  Check out this blog from my good friend, Laura.  http://laurauncorked.com

Look for upcoming wine events and in the meantime, stop into Wein Hauck.  Tell them the guy with the broad grin and the chocolate moustache sent you. 

FC Kaiserslautern - Futbol!

A red sea of the faithful

 

Got invited to see the local professional soccer team play.  It was my first pro soccer game in Germany.  FC Kaiserslautern is in the second tier of German leagues, but the soccer was good, the stadium huge, and the crowd boisterous.  Futbol Club Kaiserslautern is usually abbreviated FCK, which confuses English speakers who buy tickets thinking its a dating service.

This was a VIP who honored me with the invite.  What does it mean to be a VIP in this situation?

It means you park your car in a protected area in the very shadow of an immaculate 50,000 seat stadium.  Every security guard at every checkpoint stares at your creds then bows to kiss your ring, all the while apologizing for a leaf on the road that could possibly ruin your driving experience.  Smiles shine like the Rhine on a summer’s day.

After the car parking ceremony, you walk ten feet and ascend near heaven in a polished elevator. When you step out, a bevy of dewy-eyed flowers of young womanhood welcome you to the VIP suite with white-toothed, winsome smiles. They wrap your wrist in color-coded ribbon to let everyone know not to screw with you as you make merry with casual abandon. 

In this stadium, a suite means a luxury box slightly smaller than an aircraft carrier and every bit as well equipped.  The glass and steel tables stand glistening and ready, laden with silverware, and bottled water in its own chilled casing.  The glassware sparkles. A beauty, dressed in a tastefully black, form-fitting outfit, waits breathlessly at tableside to seat you and take your order for beer, wine, coffee, etc.  The etc is extensive.  So extensive it made my mind wander. Prefer champagne?  No prob.  Drinks appear in a flash, along with more winsome smiles.

In this lavish room, there are almost as many buffet lines as buffeters (my own word for glutton), plus several bars, in the off chance you want to wander, meet and greet.  Hundreds of people mingle, slake their thirst, and nibble. This was no ordinary buffet affair.  Slabs of smoked salmon.  Paper thin layers of smoked ham.  Chicken cordon bleu.  Stuffed pork loin. Oven baked green beans with bacon.   I could go on and on, without mentioning the string of German desserts and made to order crepes.   You big on salads?  Try twelve or fifteen exotics, and an array of various lettuces, no doubt picked by virgins that very morning.

The routine was this:  You eat and drink and ogle the drink-maids; you go outside to shade-side, upholstered seats, watch a half of soccer, go back inside to eat and drink, go back outside to watch the second half, then go back inside to….ta-da!  Eat and drink.  By this time you’ve become proficient at eating and drinking, but talking is beginning to be a problem.

Flat screen TVs of heroic size line the walls and in case you missed the game entirely, the usual shellac-haired drivel spouters stare from the screens, idling in their studios, breathless for the interview with the winning coach, which in this case was Kaiserslautern.  For that I was very thankful, as I was counting on a ride home.

I only wish the coach would have answered the sportscasters lame questions with more panache. Something like this:

Q:  In the past you’ve been concerned with your defense and especially the interaction of the mid-fielders on the crossover passes that have sometimes left the advancing side in an unbalanced position.  Did that concern you today?

A:  I need a beer.

Q: How about your goalie and his gimpy walk after the leg amputation?

A:  I like beer.

Q:  Were you pleased with the way your offense controlled the ball on scoring opportunities that some would say walked the edge of satisfactory ball handling?

A:  I will go home with your wife.  I hear she has pleasant nipples.

Q:  How are you preparing for your next game against the Brukenbach Bone Snatchers?

A:  I think I’ll let our goalie pull down his pants and answer that question.

Q:  Overall, how would you describe the game?

A.  We scored two goals.  They scored one.

Memories and the Kaiserslautern Market

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Worthy of a Monet or van Gogh!

I’m a fan of the city of Kaiserslautern.  Lots of good restaurants, broad pedestrian shopping areas, pubs that brew their own beer, and always something going on.  Saturday morning is market day.

In Europe, as in the U.S., there are supermarkets of a pretty fair size, but I prefer the farmers’ markets.  Usually the vegetables and fruits are those in season.  They’re mostly local and haven’t been picked early and shipped for hundreds of miles, losing flavor, vitamins, and texture with every bump in the road.

Plus, there’s something special about chatting with the folks who picked the produce they’re selling.  Makes you feel a little closer to the earth, like the morning-after when you woke up on the front lawn, and wife and kids weren’t even a budding idea.

Plus, there’s always a grand supply and variety of meats and cheeses, plants, cut flowers, and herbs, again depending on what’s in season.  You get to taste the cheeses and smoked meats, and the flowers last longer in your favorite vase.

Another thing that whets my appetite is the variety.  I always see fruits and veggies I’ve never seen before.  This trip I ran into Mirabella plums, golden, sweet and succulent.  In Germany and across the used-to-be border in Alsace, they juice these plums to make delicious dessert wines and distinctive brandies.

I also saw some Romanesco broccoli, or Roman cauliflower, as it’s sometimes called.  You prepare it just as you would normal cauliflower, but it’s flavor is milder and you have to beware of overcooking because greenish-yellow curls are more tender than the white variety you’re used to.

Ever seen flowering Greek oregano?  Me either.  Picked up one of those, along with a curry plant with frilly leaves.  The only kind of curry I’d seen before had straight leaves.

Yes, they have farmers’ markets in the states, but few are on a year around, regular schedule, and the ones I’ve been to in the States don’t offer the same array, variety, or things like smoked meats, and fresh baked breads.

But, no matter where you live, it’s worth checking out the local produce.  Tomato sandwiches and stuffed zucchini taste fabulously different when they’re straight from the vine.  And, the scents alone will bring back fleeting memories of the good ‘ol, free wheeling days of yore, when you slept on the lawn, dusted yourself off, and sped to work with the top down.

Greek oregano in front, curry behind

Dogs are welcome almost everywhere.

Fresh and smoked meats

Romanesco Broccoli

Farmers Markets in Germany

Some of the things I like best about the springtime in Germany are the farmers markets.  To be sure, there are farmers markets all year long, but they seem to be tired and withdrawn in the cold of winter.  The warm weather appears, with its fragrant rains, turning to sunny skies and suddenly the market places spring up like mushrooms.  Seemingly every village throws up banners, smiles break out like rainbows, and the culinary world comes out of hibernation.

Every market I go to is new, even if I’ve been there before.  Cheeses I haven’t tasted.  Spicy wursts I haven’t smelled.  The aroma of roasting nuts.  And, most of all, bursts of red, yellow, deep purples, and bright greens covering every stand and every cart.  For someone who likes to cook, the possibilities overwhelm the imagination.  “Let’s see, I can make tomato chutney with those, some grilled eggplants might be nice.  OH, check out those yellow squash and the zucchinis!”  I effortlessly plan stews and salads, desserts and grilled vegetables.  I grab several bunches of cut flowers to decorate the house. 

Then my wife stomps into my reverie with her high-heeled jackboots.  “That makes 16 meals so far.  You that hungry or do you plan on feeding the French Army?”

“I’d never invite the French. They’d eat all the food and criticize my technique.”  However, she has drawn my attention to the five shopping bags I’m lugging, all brimming with plump loaves of crusty bread, redolent fruits, fragrant cheeses, and vegetables in every available style and color.  Well, it is kinda hard to know when to stop.  Money in my pocket.  Time on my hands.  Mind in the kitchen.

My wife nods.  “The boys will probably help you make a dent in the provisions.”

Boys indeed.  They’re now men, with the kind of rapacious appetites that cause a school of piranhas to stare in awestruck wonder.  Whole families of swine are known to wail in terror when one of my sons mentions barbeque.

Well, it is a match made in culinary heaven.  I like to cook.  I have people to cook for.  With that bit of comfort, I stroll on, stopping to admire some tree ripened apricots and shiny skinned nectarines.  I do have another empty shopping bag.

A few recommendations: 

Kaiserslautern : farmers market, Tues and Sat, Stiffsplatz

Saarbrücken farmers market Sat  0900-1600, St Johanner Markt

Homburg, farmers market, Tues and Fri morning, Marktplatz