luscious wine find and creamy rosemary scented bean dip

 

I discovered this wine a few weeks ago, on a lazy Saturday afternoon at the Derby Shoppes in Hingham, MA. It's become a bit of a habit lately, meeting a friend for lunch, then wandering through Whole Foods and any other shops that look interesting, and finishing with a quick winetasting at the Derby Street Wine and Spirits. This is a very well run little shop. They do tastings every weekend, and it's almost always wines I've never heard of or tried. At this tasting, I fell in love with this 2002 Cabernet from Honig. At around $32/33 it's more of a special occasion wine for me. But confession here....I just opened it ten minutes ago, because it's been sitting there, taunting me for the past few weeks, and I figured, "what am I waiting for?"

It's just delicious. At the moment, it's my absolute favorite red wine. It tastes the way I always hope a red wine will when I take that first sip. Here's how they describe it, and I quite agree,

Honig Cabernet Sauvignon is deep ruby red in color with complex aromas of ripe black cherry, spicy plum, vanilla bean, and toasty oak. Full-bodied with moderate acidity and rich, supple tannins, the wine offers lush texture and flavors of blackberries, cherries, cocoa and spice. It was aged for 20 months in American oak barrels, 30% new oak. The wine is complex, structured, and beautifully balanced, with soft tannins to cellar 8-10 years. It has a lingering, velvety finish.

If I had to pick one word to sum up this wine, it's LUSH. :)

So, what to have with it? Well, all the usual suspects of course, thick steak, blue cheese, marinated and grilled lamb chops. A nice starter would be this fantastic white bean puree served with crusty bread. The restaurant we went to at the Derby Shoppes, Rustic Kitchen, serves a complimentary dish of a warm bean puree, topped with a drizzle of good olive oil. This was so good, that when I was out to dinner with friends last night, and saw an appetizer of white bean puree scented with garlic and rosemary, I imagined what I had at Rustic Kitchen, only better. What I got was just something different. Good, with a wonderful flavor, but served cold, which would be fine, except that I had such a fond memory of the warm puree at Rustic Kitchen. So, I figured, let's have the best of both worlds....

Warm White Bean Puree scented with Garlic and Fresh Rosemary

Ingredients:

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

3 cloves garlic, pressed or minced

2 sprigs rosemary, leaves finely chopped

2 cups white beans (cannellini) drained

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Country bread, sliced (I  suggest Panera's Mache or baguette)

Combine the olive oil, garlic and rosemary in a medium saute pan and cook over very low heat for 5 minutes. Add the drained beans, salt and pepper and stir. After about ten minutes or so remove from heat and puree.  Add water to thin as needed. Turn into a serving bowl, drizzle a teaspoon or so of olive oil over the top.

Serve warm with sliced bread, and additional oil to taste.

Enjoy!

Pam

*Weight Watchers update....am down 6 pounds.  :)

Comments

[Marley Gibson]

And that bean puree is not high in POINTS at all, either because the beans are soooo low fat and low in calories. It's a great snack and almost a whole meal.

Congrats on the WW progress! = )

[Katie]

I had something like this a few years ago, but it was warm and topped with huge scallops. Mmm ... so good.