Cookies and Cline

It is that time of year and time to baking for my cookie swap.  Yes 7 dozen cookies to be made.  I try to find a new recipe every year and this year I made Chocolate Peanut Butter cookies.  What better time to make these cookies than when you are stuck home because it's snowing outside.  That how I found myself a few weeks back and a Saturday at that.

I can't sit in the kitchen and cook without opening up a bottle of wine.  I reached for the 2010 Cline Syrah.

A few notes about these cookies.  The peanut butter inside needs to freeze so it's easy to wrap the dough around it, so I made them the weekend before.  When I went for the peanut butter balls, my husband begins to tell me how good they are.  At this point I flip cause I had just enough for 7 dozen cookies with three to spare.  Well...at the end I was one short.  I didn't think I needed to put a note on the bag that said "HANDS OFF." I guess I do for next time.

When I bake I try not to eat the dough.  Well this time, I found that the chocolate peanut butter dough went great with the Cline Syrah.  So much that a sip of wine required a pinch of dough.  I was short a few peanut butter balls, so what the heck.  In the long run, I had enough dough, the cookies came out great and I enjoyed a bottle of wine while baking.

The 2010 Cline Syrah comes mostly from their Sonoma Coast vineyards with 8% coming from their Contra Costa County vineyard. The wine is aged for 14 months in oak of which 35% is new dark toasted French Oak. The brix at harvest were 22.7 and the alcohol clocked in at 13%.