Football and Wine. Yes. Football and Wine.

Football is not just for beer anymore! In order to get all our friends together for the Bears games (or your favorite team), we often like to find creative ways to celebrate.

One of our personal football and wine favorites is to match-off wines. For instance, if the Bears were playing the San Francisco 49er’s we would have our Illinois grown Chardonnel versus our American Chardonnay (made with grapes from California). Being that Lynfred has over 50 wines; the match-up’s are endless.

Because football is notorious for manly fare, the menu usually includes chili and subs, therefore we would recommend our Sangiovese or our Fred’s Red.

A football party doesn’t seem complete without burgers and hotdogs and they go perfect with Fred’s Red!

Queso (which is perfect with football) would be enhanced with Sauvignon Blanc or our Riesling.

One of our Chefs, Joe Hetman, was so inspired by the Bear’s big win yesterday; he created a recipe in celebration of it:

Steak Bourbonnais

serves 4

This dish was inspired by our Chicago Bears, and it was named after the team's training camp grounds.

Ingredients:

4-count 8-ounce rib eye steaks, seasoned with kosher salt and coarse black pepper 4-count small Peruvian blue potatoes, thinly sliced 2-count medium sweet potatoes, thinly sliced salt and pepper, to taste olive oil handful fresh herbs, chopped 1 bottle Lynfred Zinfandel-Chambourcin wine, reduced by half.

Assembly:
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Likewise, preheat your grill to the same temperature. Lay out your sliced potatoes onto a baking sheet (you may need 2 baking sheets; the goal here is to crisp, not steam). Drizzle all around with olive oil, sprinkle with a few pinches of salt and pepper. Pop them into the oven, and check after about 20 minutes (sometimes they may only need another 5-10 minutes, sometime 20). Once the potatoes come out of the oven, to sprinkle the chopped fresh herbs all around them


Once your grill is properly heated, lay the steaks down. Brush tops of steaks with your Zin-Chambourcin wine reduction. Flip after about 4-6 minutes, making sure the steaks have a beautiful char on them. Brush the other side with the wine reduction. Cook steaks to your preferred doneness.

To finish, simply place one of your wine-infused rib eye steaks on the plate, as well as a mixture of your baked Peruvian blue and sweet potatoes. Notice how the potato blend just so happens to resemble those good old Chicago Bears colors?

Pour yourself a Sunday's helping of Lynfred's Zinfandel-Chambourcin wine, enjoy the game, and "bear down!!"


Be sure to come into Lynfred to pick up your bottles of Lynfred wine for the football season! Join the wine club and we'll share monthly recipes from our Chefs too!