A Casual Feast and Canned Wines: Bo Ssäm + Two Shepherds' 2021 Maxzilla Piquette #WinePW

This month the Wine Pairing Weekend bloggers are talking about summer sippers and tasty bites. Linda of My Full Wine Glass is hosting; read her invitation. If you are reading this early enough, feel free to jump into our chat on Twitter. We are live on Saturday, July 9th at 8am Pacific. Follow the hashtag #WinePW and be sure to add it to anything you tweet so we can see it. Here's the line-up from the writers...

• Camilla’s posting “A Casual Feast and Canned Wines: Bo Ssäm + Two Shepherds' 2021 Maxzilla Piquette” at Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Wendy is “Sipping Rosé and Enjoying Summertime” at A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Terri’s got “Summer Time Canned Sparkling Prosecco and Pepperdew Bites” at Our Good Life
• Gwendolyn’s going with “Orange Wines for Summer Times from Austria, Mexico, Oregon, Paso Robles” at Wine Predator
• Jane offers “Summertime Nibbles with Prosecco” at Always Ravenous
• Andrea is “Sipping Pretty this Summer with Emir and Trail Mix” at The Quirky Cork
• Jeff says “Add Some Pop! to Your Summer of Rosé” at Food Wine Click!  
• Kat insists “Schiava is the Perfect Summer Red Wine for Grilling” at The Corkscrew Concierge
• Nicole has “Summer Memories of Sunshiny Sippers” at The Somm's Table  
• Finally, Linda serves up “Washington Pinot Gris for chilling on a lazy summer afternoon” at My Full Wine Glass  

Canned Wines

When I was trying to decide on my spotlight wine, I thought back to last month's #WinePW event when we focused on canned wines. You can read my post (Easily) Portable Wine for Summer Picnicking. I had just received a package from Two Shepherds Winery with an assortment of their canned offerings. I have long been a fan of their wines since I dove into the Skin-Fermented Pool a couple of years ago. So, I knew that those wines would my choice for this month's theme. And I knew they would be the perfect libation for our casual Fathers' Day feast.

I brought over the 2021 Maxzilla Piquette, 2021 Bucking Luna, and 2021 Natty Pets.

We poured, sipped, and commented. And there was a clear winner for the day. Hands down, all of us loved the Maxzilla. When I read the history of the wine, it was even more apparent that it was the perfect choice for the day. The other two were great, as well, but the Maxzilla was the favorite.

The 2021 Maxzilla Piquette is a sparkling Piquette which actually isn't a grape but a style. Technically, it is not wine because it is not made from fermented grapes; instead, it's made by adding water to grape pomace (the leftover skins, seeds, and stems of the fruit) and fermenting the residual sugars. Winemaker William Allen makes this sparkler from the skins of carbonic Carignan. 

Carignan is a variety whose origins date back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. These grapes are grown organically in Mendocino and the sparkler has a low alcohol percentage which makes it ideal for lingering over a table and sipping for the whole afternoon.

Further reading revealed that Piquette was the beverage of choice for vineyard workers in both France and Italy. In the latter, it goes by different names: acqua pazza, acquarello and vinello. 

While I suspect that most people drink this straight from the cans, I like to look at my wine, so I poured them into stemless, patio-friendly glasses. This poured a bright ruby with rim of gold. And it danced on the tongue, complementing the casual feast I served to celebrate Jake and Mike.

A Casual Feast

 

When Jenn and I were scheming about the menu, the only requirement was that neither of the dads would have to do anything. So, I knew that asking them to grill was off the table. Fine. I landed on Bo Ssäm. I could do the meat ahead of time and we would all just assemble there. 

Note: the meat needs to be prepped and refrigerated overnight. Then it needs to roast for a little more than six hours. So, plan accordingly!

Ingredients serves 8 to 10 people plus leftovers

Bo Ssäm

• one 8 to 10 pound bone-in pork butt
• 1 cup organic granulated sugar
• 1 cup plus coarse salt
• 7 Tablespoons organic dark brown sugar
• Also needed: a roasting pan with a rack

To Serve

• steamed rice
• organic lettuce to make cups (we used butter lettuce)
• ssäm sauce (recipe below)
• pickled veggies (I bought these at our local Korean market)
• kimchi (I used a Napa cabbage kimchi similar to this recipe)

Ssäm Sauce makes 1 cup

• 1 to 2 Tablespoons ssämjang (fermented bean and chile paste), adjust to your palate
• 1 Tablespoon kochujang (chile paste)
• 1/2 cup vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar)
• 1/2 cup oil (I used canola oil)

Procedure

Ssäm Sauce 

Combine all the ingredients in a medium mixing bowl. Stir until well-combined. Ssäm sauce will keep in the fridge for at least a week; I just mixed this up the day before.

Bo Ssäm

Place the pork butt in a medium mixing bowl. Add in the granulated sugar and salt. Massage the mixture into the meat, turning to coat the roast completely. Cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours.

About eight hours before you want to serve, remove the rubbed roast from the refrigerator. Let it sit at room temperature while you preheat the oven.

Heat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove the pork from the mixing bowl and place it on a rack in a roasting pan. Put the pan in the oven and roast for six hours. Baste with the rendered fat and pan juices every hour or so. The pork should be soft and offer almost no resistance to a fork.

At the end of the six hours, remove the pan from the oven and raise the heat to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. As the oven heats to the higher temperature, spoon the brown sugar over the top and smooth it into a nice layer.

Place the roast back in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes. The brown sugar will be melted into a crisp, sweet crust. Let the pork rest for 10 minutes before slicing.

Serve the bo ssäm hot, surrounded with the accompaniments including the rice, kimchi, and pickles. Traditionally this is served with raw oysters, but I'm fifty-fifty on whether I have a reaction to eating them, so I generally avoid.

Diners serve themselves with the tender pork chunks and all the sides.

That's a wrap on this month's #WinePW event. We'll be back in August and I am hosting. We'll be celebrating the summer's bounty with wine pairings that go with foods from farmers' markets or a CSA (community-supported agriculture) share. Stay tuned.