Toogood winery in Eldorado County CA. is a fun place to visit. Located near the town of Fair Play where there are many wineries, Toogood is one of the bigger wineries so they have a wide selection of wines and the wine makers seem to purposely make a wide selection of flavors, including more than one dessert wine.
One of my wife’s coworkers (who lucky for us doesn’t drink wine) won a radio contest and gave us the prize, which was two tickets to Toogood Winery for “Tuscan Biscuit Making and Wine tasting”. We had been to Toogood before and looked forward to going again. My wife had called as requested and chose one of the open time slots. Our Tuscan Biscuit making class included three other students and Chef Bill. The tasting room has a commercial kitchen off to the side and chef Bill had already prepared part of the recipe for our arrival. There was a mound of flower, sugar and baking powder for each of us. We were to take our index finger, place it directly in the center of the mound and move our finger in a circular motion until a crater was formed in the mound. We each cracked an egg into the crater and proceeded to mix the ingredients together, first with just our index finger until the egg was incorporated, then kneeing with our hands until the dough formed. Each of our mixes required a sprinkle of water to get them to form a stiff dough. We shaped the dough into 1″ high by about 3″ wide by about 7″ long – nothing formal, chef Bill also provided almonds for us to push into the biscuit log. All of our biscuits were placed on a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper that chef Bill had written our names on. He was to bake them, cut them, if you liked and he’d deliver them to us while we were wine tasting.
We started in the tasting room with a few wines that they had there, then proceeded to the Wine Cave to complete our tasting tour. The cave is built into the side of a hill, it’s lined with stucco and has some very generous dimensions. As you enter, the walls are lined left and right with wine barrels. As you walk down the hall, to the left is the main tasting hall. They offer a rather large variety of wines for the Red, White and Dessert wine drinkers. They offer a nice variety of blends as well as specific varietal wines and several ports. The wines do cover a wide spectrum of flavors and you’re bound to find several to your liking. It wasn’t very crowded that day and we pretty much had the full attention of our pourer. Our pourer was very accommodating and knowledgeable, about wine, the local area and how the wine maker approaches his craft. Chef Bill appeared out of nowhere with our biscuits – still warm – in a bag along with the recipe. As we shared our biscuits with our pourer, he promptly pulled what I believe was an orange muscat desert wine which paired perfectly with the biscuit’s toasted almond and caramel undertones.
We were also privileged to a barrel tasting of a soon to be released Tawney Port and a Zinfandel for which you can buy futures. For the dessert wine drinker Toogood Winery offers several Ports. They even have a club specifically for ports. One unique thing I’ve never seen anywhere else, is a small table-top barrel that holds a gallon sized bladder. You can buy Toogood port in the bladder, then just open the barrel and put the bladder in and you have a decorative yet functional dispenser for your port wine.
Their 2012 Petite Sirah was absolutely delicious but at $100 per bottle, was a little rich for my budget. Now is your chance to taste a $100 bottle of wine! Other note worthies were the 2011 Estate Pimitivo and the 2012 Herbert Syrah.
We purchased 4 bottles each of:
ZinChic – a full flavored blend of Zinfandel wines
Bomb Diggity – a lighter blend that has a nice range of flavor
Trapizoid 11 – the 11th rendition of this blend has a big bold flavor, a good sipping wine.
If you like the flavor of Almond Biscotti but not the hard crunchy texture – you’ll love this soft chewy version.
Tuscan Biscuit Recipe: I believe Chef Bill may have gotten it here Cantuccini di prato
1 Cup ’00’ fine Flower
3/4 Cup Sugar
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 Egg
1 Cup Almonds
Remember the fresher the ingredients the better the flavor. Mix Ingredients together, if it too dry to come together, add a few drops of water or milk. Form into a bar about 1″ high 2-3″ wide and what ever length. Place on cookie sheet lined with parchment. Bake in 350 degree oven for 15 minutes until a wonderful golden color with a darker brown rim. Slice the resulting loaf into 1″ strips – a serrated knife works best.
Such a simple recipe yielded a very flavorful biscuit that paired well with the desert wine. The sugar slightly caramelized and the toasted almonds go wonderfully with a sweet desert wine.
Good wine, good food, good company, that’s #NorCalWineLife