Now that the chaos of the holidays is pretty much over, I’m getting back to my normal routine and that means the return of weekly winesdays! For this week’s winesday, I decided to go with a very traditional Burgundian meal: Oeufs en Meurette. Oeufs en Meurette is poached eggs in red wine sauce served over toast. The recipe that I used is pretty long and time-consuming but not at all difficult. As a plus, a lot of the work can be done ahead of time. I was able to get it all done after a short day of work, however, including peeling the baby onions by hand. The eggs are poached in the red wine causing them to turn a creepy gray-purple color. Fortunately, they get covered up by the sauce (which was only a slightly creepy purple color.) As expected, it was quite a rich dish but, what the heck, it’s still the holidays! This is the best time to treat yourself to really yummy, fattening foods.

My matching wine was, of course, a red Burgundy. I went with a bottle of 2004 Domaine du Prieure Pinot Noir. The wine was much lighter than most pinot noirs I’ve tried. In the glass, it looked just like cranberry juice. I’m not sure if it was this particular wine or if all the wines of Burgundy are this light. I guess I’ll have to try another to find out. By the way, all red Burgundy wines are made from pinot noir grapes except for Beaujolais which is made from gamay grapes.

In a really smart move, I decided to skip the rush of Pike Place Market and visit a small wine shop in my neighborhood instead: European Vine Selections. I am in love with this shop! I should have been going there this whole time. It has a really great selection of wines from all over the world packed into a pretty small area. It’s a very low key store. No pretentiousness and no pressure. Wines are stacked irregularly (in some cases, hazardously) in cardboard boxes, many with a decent layer of dust. Descriptions of some of the wines are available, written in barely legible handwriting. I went a little crazy while I was there and bought several other wines including a bottle of Prosecco for New Year’s Eve. If you’re ever up on the north end of Capitol Hill, you should definitely check this store out.