Friday is the new Saturday...

As Amy's Christmas Party was scheduled for this Saturday, we got together on Friday instead. We also had some extra guests as my wife's parents, sister and friend joined us. I'll summarize the first three courses as the wines with each of these courses have already been featured in the blog before.

http://zippysauce.blogspot.com/2007/11/20-favourites.html

http://zippysauce.blogspot.com/2007/11/saturday-night-4-bottles-2-drunk.html

The first course was Carrot Soup with Fire-roasted Chilies and it was paired with a Rosenblum Zinfandel. The second course was Smoked Salmon with Cream Cheese, Bagel Crisps, Capers, Onion, Cucumber and Lemon and it was paired with the Kendall Jackson Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay. The main course was Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad and it was paired with the Louis Jadot "Bourgogne" Chardonnay.

As I mentioned in the "4 Bottles = 2 Drunk" article, both Mick and myself figured that the Louis Jadot would be awesome with a Caesar Salad - I'm happy to say that was the case, it was exceptional with Caesar.

"The Dessert Wine"

I was looking forward to trying this as French Sauternes and Tokaji from Hungary seem to be the standard to which a number of dessert wines are judged. I have never tried a Tokaji before, so this would be my first.

As you can see by the picture, the wine is a rich amber colour; it could almost be mistaken for a Tawny Port. Upon uncorking of the Tokaji, I was surprised to find it had an almost medicinal smell to it and began to worry about how it would taste.

After my first sip my worries completely disappeared - it was very good. It had the sweetness of a Canadian Icewine, but enough acidity and bite to cut the sweet so it didn't seem as syrupy as an Icewine.

The two desserts we had on tap for the evening were Butterscotch Crunch Cake and Chocolate Pecan Pie. The Tokaji paired very well with the Crunch Cake, and OK with the Chocolate Pecan Pie. The Chocolate Pecan Pie was too heavy on the Chocolate side and way too light on the Pecan side and the heavy Chocolate was throwing the Tokaji pairing.

I picked this wine up on my last trip down to the Premier Group in NY but I couldn't find it listed on there website. I found my receipt and the price is listed as $79.99 US and was discounted down to $72 US (so with duty and exchange about $118 CDN).

The price is where this wine doesn't make the grade. There are Canadian dessert wines for less than half the price that are as good. Due to this I probably won't be picking up another bottle of this exact wine, but the wine was good enough to peak my curiousity enough that I will be trying another brand/type of Tokaji.

Cheers!

Mark