Sausage & Peppers

This week's wine is a 2010 Columbia Valley Riesling from Washington State, USA. I recently reviewed a bottle of Merlot from the same wine producer -- Chateau Ste. Michelle -- and it was very good so I returned to the brand tonight. I made sausage and peppers for dinner tonight a la The Jersey Shore and thought that sizzling the entire dish in white wine for 10 minutes would make it outrageously delicious. So I ran out and grabbed this Riesling, and here's why:

I grew up in Rochester, NY, just a short drive away from the Finger Lakes region in Upstate NY. The Finger Lakes region is well-known for it's production of high-quality Riesling wines and it was always in my house growing up. But Chateau Ste. Michelle is the worldwide leader in Riesling production with over 600,000 cases/year (Wikipedia) and is produced in the German tradition. So we have a German wine, produced in Washington State, used in an Italian sausage and peppers dish. Interesting.

This is the first wine I have ever used wine to both cook and drink with. Riesling is a rather sweet wine with a mellow taste and goes perfectly with the sweet flavors of Italian sweet sausage, peppers, and onions. This is a super easy dish to make and probably one of my favorites. It is cheap, delicious, filling, (rather) healthy with all the veggies, and worst case scenario you end up drinking a bottle of white wine. 

Cost: $11 
Grade: 9/10