Christmas is almost here and the weather across the country is frightful. I think most of the country is in the deep freeze, even here where the temperatures don’t usually dip down in the teens. Surprise, I woke up to sixteen degrees and couldn’t get enough clothes on to keep out the chill.

So, in order to heat things up a bit, I decided to spice up my cooking. For dinner, I took a couple of slabs of boneless pork ribs and rubbed them down with some hot Jamaican Jerk rub and marinade. Then I roasted them in the oven at 375° for 45 minutes until the ribs were cooked through and quite tender. Since the oven was already on, I roasted a cookie sheet of broccoli florets that I drizzled olive oil on and sprinkled with salt and pepper.

For the wine, I opened a bottle of Meiomi Nouveau, Pinot Noir, vintage 2015 which I was told was an American Beaujolai. But nowhere on the bottle did it reference a Beaujolai, but it listed the grapes as sourced from 3 different areas, 42% Sonoma County, 36% Santa Barbara County and 22% Monterey County. The wine had an alcohol content of 13.7%. The wine was a red color in the glass and fairly transparent, not as opaque as other Pinot Noirs I’ve had. I could smell cherries and alcohol. The wine had a tart bite and was a bit harsh. It had a dark fruit taste and helped kill the burn of the hot spicy ribs.

I prefer the regular Meiomi Pinot Noir, which is much fuller and softer but still full of fruit.