Back when I was living in a shack in Northern Ontario, I met a Québecoise who told me about the wonder of frozen grapes. Simply pop some grapes in the freezer for a few hours or a few weeks (they don't get any MORE frozen...) and enjoy the pleasure of biting into the best mini-popsicle you've ever had. Freezing makes the grapes sweeter, and the joy of finishing a meal with a frozen treat feels gourmet with an effort level of zero...maybe 1, on a very big scale. My frozen grape teacher told me that she had heard about these petite sweets from Josée di Stasio's cooking show "A la di Stasio". So I looked through di Stasio's cookbook of the same name to see if she mentioned them. Nope, but there was a recipe for grapes with port. Fine, I'll be an alcoholic.Since alcohol had played a large part in the meal (the French Nouilly Prat in the artichokes and the Ontario winery Henry of Pelham's Baco Noir) I felt that Quebec's beverage traditions should be represented here as well. Iced ciders? Honey wines? Both would work, but I didn't want apples competing with grapes, and I wanted a full-bodied flavour that honey wines couldn't provide, since the original recipe called for rich Muscat. I debated other fruit liqueurs, like cassis, but those just didn't shout "Quebec". I ended up doing some research for Quebec award-winning dessert wines that had "port-like" in their description. I fell upon "Été Indien". The Wines of Quebec website describes it below:
"
For the porto amateurs, this fortifies wine can be serves as aperitif or often meals. Full rich body, of a opaque red, this wine has presents the qualities of the grand Portos. Discovered the subtil vanilla and almond flavor. Food Pairing: Red fortified wine, perfect as aperitif or served with cheese, chocolats desserts, like our famous "Décadence chocolatée". Praised by The Porto amateurs, and surprising for others."Well, I'm an 'other' who enjoys being surprised. I'm also have much better English grammar than the translator who did this webpage...please hire me. Otherwise I will drink this as a meal, as suggested.
Anyway, the wine description seemed like everything I was hoping for, so I trekked all over Montreal looking for it. Finally a bottle was reserved for me at a liquor store on Ste-Catherine. When, in Toronto, I poured the wine over half my grapes and 5 long, strips of lemon peel in a tightly-sealed bag in the fridge, I hadn't yet actually tasted the wine itself. "Subtle" vanilla and almond. Sounded perfect. Smelled perfect too.
Tasted...like coffee. A surprise, indeed! Not unwelcome, just unexpected. I served a bowl of these after letting them macerate for 8 hours (again, "post-maceration"! Quite a week for me) along with a bowl of simply frozen grapes (for the drivers et al). The port-soaked grapes were a boozy hit of sweetness and the frozen grapes were a refreshing respite from the liqueur. A nibble on a piece of lemon zest also helped break through the sweetness of both. This made a for a long, relaxed dessert. Perfect to digest and appreciate the good company. Nothing heavy after the duck! A communal bowl made the dessert more intimate than serving in individual martini glasses. There was no fixed amount to eat, you could choose which grapes you preferred and have only what you wanted. There were plenty of grapes to go around. The trick was to serve a tiny, tiny, quarter shot glass of the leftover wine with the soaked grapes. The flavour of the fresh wine was sharper than the soaking liquid. So you could taste the original flavour of the wine as well as what the grape flavouring had done to it.
Well, I did it. That ended the Duck Confit dinner. From hors d'oeuvres to dessert...Happy surprises and sweet endings to a successful French meal.
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