Tastemakers: Shrimp Vignoles/ Wyncroft Lake Michigan Shore Pinot Noir

Shrimp vignoles

Cooking with wine often enhances a great meal. When heated, the alcohol and sulfites dissipate, leaving the delicate flavors of the wine behind and resulting in a great base for sauces and sautéing. One myth is that bad-tasting wine may be used for cooking. Wrong. Here is some advice from the great Julia Child: “If you have not a good wine to use, it is far better to omit it, for a poor one can spoil a simple dish and utterly debase a noble one.”
For years I have been using Vignoles (pronounced Vee-NYOLE) from Boskydel on the Leelanau Peninsula for preparing several dishes. This French-hybrid grape is flavorful and has “backbone,” making it a perfect wine to cook with, especially when sautéing seafood and fish or preparing poultry dishes. A favorite when I entertain is Shrimp Vignoles ala Boskydel, and the great thing is that it is simple to prepare. Simply dice an assortment of bell peppers and grape tomatoes and mix together with your favorite olive oil and fresh Italian herbs, along with fresh ground pepper. Select the pasta of your choice and prepare just shy of al dente, strain and mix in a separate bowl with the same mixture used with the vegetables. In a deep fry pan create a mixture of olive oil, Boskydel Vignoles, fresh chopped garlic, chopped green onions and a couple of hits of hot sauce, and sauté large raw shrimp, (do not over cook). Put the pasta on a plate, and then top with vegetable mixture and shrimp, and zap in microwave just to warm the vegetables slightly. If you are not a microwave person, sauté vegetables slightly in the same pan as the shrimp.
Cooking with wine is fun, so enjoy. Pair this dish with a Peninsula Cellars Gewürztraminer, Left Foot Charley Pinot Gris, Good Harbor Reserve Pinot Grigio and yes, Bernie’s Vignoles. Next week we will look at cooking with red wine.



Wyncroft Lake Michigan
Shore Pinot Noir


April is Michigan Wine Month and if you have not tried a state wine lately, use this month to explore what you have been missing. Over the next five weeks “Bottoms Up” will taste its way around the state of Michigan by visiting each viticulture region.
Viticulture regions are federally-designated. The most famous in the U.S. are Napa and Sonoma; now Michigan has entered the world wine list of recognized viticultural regions. The oldest is the Lake Michigan shore in the southwestern corner of the state with its roots dating back to the early 1860s when juice grapes were planted. Today, the Lake Michigan shore boasts 12 residential wineries (a 13th winery, Mackinaw Trail in the U.P., uses grapes grown from the region for their wines). Notable wineries include the well-established St. Julian, Tabor Hill and Warner, along with newbies Contessa, Karma Vista, Round Barn and Wyncroft.
Jim Lester of Wyncroft, located in Buchanan, has taken a different approach than his colleagues. He doesn’t operate a tasting room, and his wines are sold only by the case and primarily to fine restaurants and retailers around Michigan. While Lester is making excellent Chardonnays, Rieslings, and Gewürztraminers, his ultimate goal is to tame the wild stallion of the vineyard: The Pinot Noir. Making a good Pinot Noir requires patience on the part of both the winemaker and the wine drinker. As with most Michigan wines, because of limited production, Wyncroft is forced to make their wines available while they are still quite young.
“I build the reds for the cellar,” said Lester. “I have released the 2004 Pinot and recommend further cellaring as the tannins will turn to butter in about two more years, and the spicy Allier oak integrates and turns into something sublime. But if you open (a bottle) today, the lush Michigan fruit character is definitely there. I just opened a 1991 of mine and it still tasted young.” To learn more about Wyncroft and where to purchase their wines, visit www.wyncroftwines.com. For info on the Lake Michigan Shore appellation, visit www.appellationamerica.com.
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