If you love wine, chances are you share an equal love for the great food that goes along with it. A lot of people like hunting mushrooms, but I always had a hard time finding a mushroom after I shot it. I also learned at a young age, you can get full on venison a lot quicker than mushrooms. So the marraige for my 3 favorite hobbies, food, wine and hunting was formed. I was curious if anyone on the board besides me likes to hunt and pair wines with wild game they harvest and if they have certain wines that they find go better with say Elk vs. Deer vs. Bear? 
Hunted a LOT as a child / adolescent and won a few marksman trophies. I’ll never forget my Drill Instructors exclaiming to the Captain “Look sir, the hippie boy can SHOOT!” on the range in Basic at Fort Ord.
Haven’t hunted in a coon’s age but LOVE venison, boar, duck, moose, what have you from friends who do.
Funny, wine lovers probably say the same about me “Look Sir, the hillbilly can taste!” Although I’m not actually a true hillbilly, I have all my own teeth on only wear overalls when I work on the farm. I do however pack a good assortment of tie-dye.
I’ve never had any moose or wild boar to cook with, but It’s got to be good. Most generally guys I know grind up goose for sausage, but I cooked one the other day and it was phenomenal. Paired it with a '98 Ponsot Charmes Chambertin, good acid and fruit to with the game and fattiness of the bird.
I shot the deer and made the loin I talked about in my recent thread on food and wine. I love big OR pinots with both venison and elk. Also enjoy aged CdPs with them. Normally kill an antelope most every year. I say kill as opposed to hunt, in this case. My friend, with a ranch in CO where I often get the deer and elk, has me out every year for the “hunt”. There are hundreds of antelope just standing in his wheat field. You drive up to field, lean over the hood, and shoot. We normally have our antelopes field dressed and back to the house by 8 a.m. More like shooting angus cattle in a field than hunting, but I love the meat! Big pinots and cabs here, depending on the cut. Have hunted moose, with no luck, but have eaten friends kill. My fav with moose is a Bdx blend or a CA cab.
Never actually hunted bear. One of our party would always get a bear tag during elk season, that way if one bothered us, we could shoot it. So the bear steaks I made, from such killed bear, were great with a CA cab and a syrah. I enjoy moose also with CdP. Need something big and bold to cut the natural bear grease. No wimpy wines!
Personally I think all hunters should be required to hunt with Dick Cheney. 
I don’t shoot but am lucky that game is very easy to buy here. There is no finer companion to Burgundy.
The thing that is so great about wild game, it has terroir like any wine does. Blacktail deer doesn’t taste like mule deer in any form and Oregon antelope doesn’t taste remotely close to mule deer even though they run on the same territories often. It’s all about diet. Sage brush and grass flavors a meat far different than a diet of leaves and browse. My goal is to nab a cougar this winter and cook one up, I’ve never had it. I wish we had ample antelope like Colorado, that is just the best meat, I cooked a pile of backstrap two summers ago on the BBQ for my buddy Roger and his wife, all went well.
Glad theres at least two hunters on here Gordon, now I know who to ask for the perfect pairing for butter fried backstrap, that’s always been my big question mark. I need to go shoot a Colorado speed goat some time. I see thousands every time I go hunt elk out there.
John;
Good Luck! Last time I check, you needed to be on the allotment list for about 17-20 years to pick up enough points to get a tag!
Sweet, I’m 34 now, I can apply now and use the tag as a retirement gift to myself. I got a tag for goats twice in 3 years in Oregon and a bighorn on my second try, so I am what’s considered a “lucky bastard” when it comes to draws.
grow it
pick it
catch it
kill it
grill it
I’m a hunter and gatherer for sure. I’m putting in for all the big game tags in CA and elk throughout the west. Hopefully, I can stagger some amazing hunts in the future with my preference points. I’ll be chasing the wapati in ID next year with my dad and possibly a whitetail or mulley too. I’ve often thought about moving back to WA for better deer and elk hunting, but hog hunting all year here is a good substitute, I just need a better connection for land access.
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My brother hunts deer. He does it all by the book, A-Z. I like CDP, he likes Zinfandel. Makes for great eating when we get together. My brother says elk is better than venison. Hard to believe. Store bought meat is so crude in comparison.
I wish I’d started hunting earlier. I do like sitting quietly, motionless in a tree for hours on end. But I’m 60 and I hear its pretty tiring to skin a deer.
The easiest way to load pics is to host the on picasa or photobucket. Each of those sites have a link option that you can copy and paste into the forum. The link has to be surrounded by the [img] brackets.
Can’t wait to post a pick when I get home from AZ. There’s got to be a million possibilities with hog!
Yoikes…now that’s a scary thought. I suppose there must be boards out there on the Web where these hunter-folks discuss ad naseaum
if the terroir of Alaska bear differs much from that of Idaho bear, if the lack of terroir in this boar was because it was shot in a shooting area
too hot for boar, if Eddie’s Wild Game Shop is ever going to deliver on their muskrat futures from last year, if the excess fat on the turtle
they shot was because it was shot/harvested too late in the season, if that 96 awarded the coyote in BadBob’s Wild Game Advocate shouldn’t
really be a 94…and on and on. It boggles the mind.
Tom
Life would be meaningless for me without hunting, gathering, fishing, and good pinot noir.
For the overwhelming – overwhelming – majority of our time here on earth we have been hunter-gatherers. The best and healthiest life is one that attempts as closely as possible to mimic that pattern. Paleolithic diet - Wikipedia" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
And: Michael Eades Blog - Protein Power" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Nope, the ad nauseum discussions tend to surround guns, optics, and what’s the best bullet to use. But you do have your trophy hunters (point chasers) and meat hunters (general wine enthusiasts) for camparison though.
Everyone knows that a Kenny Jarrett built rifle in .300 Jarrett shooting 180 grain Swift A-Frames is the best combo out there.