Season: A Year of Wine Country Food, Farming, Family and Friends

This high-end farmer’s almanac pairs seasonal food with Jackson Family wines. The company boasts over 40 wineries in California and more around the world. After a top-heavy section of introductions and forewords by six people, recipes appear in seasonal order. Winery chefs Wangler and Cenami refer to basing culinary choices on a wine foundation as “reverse engineering,” with a pairing suggested for each dish. For spring, lamb belly is seasoned, rolled into a log, then braised and served with an intense merlot. The autumn harvest is celebrated with oysters with bacon, a persimmon tart, and served with a Kendall-Jackson Grand Reserve Late Harvest Chardonnay. Sidebars dedicated to concepts like edible blossoms and how to create a cheese platter are helpful. Influences are largely Italian, French, and contemporary American, with a few Asian accents via recipes such as Dungeness crab onigiri, paired with a Gran Moraine Yamhill-Carlton Brut Rosé, which brings out the subtle flavors of the crab and rice. Desserts include cheesecake soufflé with a grape gastrique and monkey bread with caramel sauce. Flavors are clean and clear—apt for showcasing wines—and while the many cheery photos of people enjoying themselves sometimes make this feel as much catalogue as cookbook, the entire package is an appealing advertisement for not just wines and food, but for the California wine country lifestyle. (Sept.)