Blue cheese, bacon, and old vines: A bit more about a place called Juan’s
With so many music options both day and night in New Orleans during JazzFest, the wise Fester rests up in the late afternoon/early evening. Only problem is, you’d better have your dinner sorted out before you nap or you’ll wake up mad hungry without an idea of where to go or, worse, skip dinner and then deal with hunger pangs and limited options at 2 a.m.
One evening I foolishishly skipped my nap and promised to track down wine and cheese for a pre-Black Keys concert snack back at our place on Magazine street later that night. Found a cool wineshop with a great name, the Wine Institute of New Orleans (W.I.N.O.), but when the friendly staff of the Warehouse District wine shop directed me to the cheese shop across town, I misheard the cross streets–Robert and Prytania; I thought they were saying Brittania; nice one, Adrian–and found myself a little flummoxed and, ultimately, cheeseless, since the St. James Cheese Shop was most decidedly closed by the time I pulled up.
In a last-minute grasp to salvage the my role as provider for the evening, I remembered Juan’s Flying Burrito up Magazine Street a bit, and, oh my, was I a rock star that night. This food is not Mexican by any stretch. But it’s damn good; I love it real awful, especially two dishes: Juana’s Pork ‘n’ Slaw Taco and the decadent and well-seasoned Bacon Azul Quesadilla, with bacon, ground beef, blue cheese, jack and cheddar cheese, grilled onions and mushrooms, salsa, and–get this–chipotle ranch sauce on the side for dipping.
I found the perfect pairing for this little slice of NOLA-Mex heaven in a wine I had picked up earlier at W.I.N.O.: Bodegas Ostatu’s juicy and complex 2007 Rioja Blanco, made from 60 to 70 year-old Viura and Malvasia vines, fermented in stainless steel, and imported by André Tamers of DeMaison Selections.
White Riojas in this particular style–stainless steel, early release–are meant to be accessible, quaffable wines–thirst quenching but not necessarily wines to meditate over. Ostatu’s raised the bar for me in this regard, because I found myself lingering over the wine a bit longer than I had expected. Something there was heady but subtle; aromatically expressive but restrained too–all signs of careful viticulture and solid winemaking. And at $14 retail, it’s a real steal.
Coincidentally enough, a few days later I was browsing articles online when I came across a piece in the online version of the San Francisco Chronicle called, “Fresh, lively bottles add intrigue to any spring fling,” which, as it happened, mentioned the very same bottle of wine (but nothing about blue cheese, bacon, or chipotle ranch dipping sauce.)