I’m posting this late, but I’m happy to keep my streak of posts going.  I don’t know if anyone actually reads them, but I made a commitment to post something every week back in November & it’s good to keep it going another week.

My favorite players the week are…

Jared Goff Lions quarterback

After a string of bad games, Goff & the Lions bounced back in a big way to blow out the Broncos.  Goff had 5 touchdown passes 24 of 34 for 278 yards 134.6 rating.

Baker Mayfield Buccaneers quarterback

Mayfield completed 78.6 percent of his passes for 381 yards & 4 touchdowns.  This was the first time an opposing quarterback has had a perfect 158.3 passing rating at Lambeau Field.

James Cook Bills Running Back

In a game that the Bills really had to win, Cook had 179 rushing yards, 42 reception yards & a touchdown both rushing & receiving.

Aiden O’Connell Raiders quarterback

This game was almost sad.  The Chargers looked like a team that had completely quit.  That doesn’t take away his solid game with 248 yards & 4 touchdowns with a passer rating of 120.7

Christian McCaffrey 49’ers running back

I went with McCaffrey over Brock Purdy who had 4 touchdowns.  I feel like he makes the list all the time anyway.  McCaffrey scored 3 touchdowns, 2 receiving & 1 rushing. He was so wide open on one touchdown catch that he had time to catch it, fall down, get up, & jog into the end zone.  He had 115 yards rushing (6.4 yards per carry!) & 72 yards receiving.

Bradley Chubb Dolphins Linebacker

Chubb was a wrecking ball against the Jets.  He had 3 sacks, forced 2 fumbles, & recovered one of them.  I feel like someone playing against the Jets makes my list every week.  Maybe performances against the Jets this year should be graded on a curve, but that was an impressive game.

Charvarius Ward 49’ers cornerback

Ward had 2 interceptions with one a pick 6. He picked off Kyler Murray on a 4^th & 3 & returned it 66 yards to put San Francisco in the lead for good.

Julian Love Seahawks Safety

Love had 2 clutch interceptions against the Eagles in a game that kept the Seahawks playoff hopes alive.  His 1^st interception came in the end zone with 8:08 to play in the game. The Eagles still had a chance to win until Love intercepted a deep pass to A.J. Brown with 6 seconds left to close out the game.

Kai’mi Fairbairn Texans Kicker

The Texans were playing without starting quarterback C.J. Stroud, without their top receivers, without #3 pick Will Anderson & desperately needed a win to stay in playoff contention.  Fairbairn accounted for 13 of their 19 points hitting 4 of 4 field goals including a 54 yarder to win it in overtime against the Titans.

Raiders defense

The defense as a whole was great with the Chargers not snapping the ball in Chargers territory until the 3^rd quarter. They forced 5 turnovers. The Chargers were playing a backup quarterback & the team seemed to have quit on their coach, who was fired the next day. It was still a dominant performance.

My favorite wine of the week was…

Royal Tokaji, 5 Puttonyos NV $59 for a 500 ml bottle

Furmint, Hárslevelü, Sárga Muskotály 11% ABV

Botrytis wines aren’t as popular in the United States as I think they should be.  They are never cheap, which discourages impulse buys.  They are much more complex than the more popular simple sweet wines.  Worst of all, there are a ton of snooty wine drinkers who won’t try them because they “don’t like sweet wines.”  I haven’t ever really understood that.  I understand how casual drinkers might not like red wines, or white wines, or sweet wines.  Once you are past that though, I think there is a world of wines to be explored.  While someone might prefer white wines because they don’t like tannins, they might still enjoy a low tannin wine like Pinot Noir.  While someone might not like cheap Australian Chardonnay, they can still appreciate a full bodied, creamy Meursault.  Similarly, just because someone doesn’t like a sweet white Zinfandel doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t like a complex botrytis driven wine if they gave it a chance.

I think Tokaji is a great place to start with botrytis wines.  It has the complexity of a botrytis but still has nice purity of fruit.

For those that aren’t familiar with the style, botrytis wines can sound pretty weird.  Botrytis cinerea is a necrotrophic fungus that is usually referred to as grey rot.  As in much of life, timing is everything.  If grapes are infected with botrytis & it continues to rain, the grapes will cause grapes to rot & fall off or just be unusable for wine.  It can ruin a harvest.  However, if the weather dries up quickly, botrytis sucks the water from the grapes causing them to raisinate & creating complex honey & ginger flavors to develop.  It also leaves the grapes with a much higher % of sugar.   At this point it is called “noble rot.”  Since the water is removed from the grape, it takes many more grapes to make a bottle of wine with significant amounts of botrytis.  That means that it is more expensive to produce than traditional wine & tends to be more limited in production.

In Hungary, botrytis infected grapes are referred to as “Aszú berries.”  For this wine, the Aszú berries (primarily Furmint) were macerated for 2 days in already fermenting must (non-infected grapes) prior to pressing.  Pressing requires a harder press than with most wines since you are trying to get juice from a raisin. After a long ferment (botrytis & the high sugar level impede fermentation), the wine was aged in used 200 & 500 liter Hungarian oak casks for over 2 years.  The barrels can be decades old, or they can include some new oak depending on the style the producer wants to achieve.

The result is a delicious wine.  It tastes of green apple, honey, ginger, cinnamon, & other spices with a bit of lime, peach, & apricot.  The apple notes remind me of a green apple that has been cut & left on the counter for a while.  It is a complex wine with a finish that lingers forever without being cloying.  One of the keys to a great wine in this style is that it is extremely, lusciously, decadently sweet without it feeling like you are drinking sugar.  This is achieved by balance.  While the wine has 158 grams per liter of sugar, it is balanced by 7.93 grams per liter of acid.  This makes it somehow crisp despite the complex unctuous flavors.  This is a way that is tremendous on its own, but also pairs extremely well with savory food, particularly pâté.

For those that wonder what 5 Puttonyos means, here’s an overly quick explanation.  Grape pickers in Tokaji carried a 25-liter basket on their backs called a puttony.  The more baskets of puttonys that were dumped into a 136 liter barrel called a Gönci, the sweeter the resulting wine would be.  This was used as an official system for years, but it is now based on residual sugar levels with 120+ g/l qualifying as 5 Puttonyos, while 6 must hit 150+ g/l.  Producers can label with the level they reach, so although this wine is 158 g/l of residual sugar, they still label it as 5 Puttonyos. 

All of this sounds a little complicated.  You don’t need to really understand any of it to enjoy it though.  Just give it a try!