Saturday night – Mixed Grill

Mick and Amy were away for the long weekend, so Kathy and I had a Saturday night free. My parents called and invited us to dinner on Saturday so we didn’t end up on our own for Saturday after all. I talked about the dinner with my father and we hashed out a dinner menu for the evening – Caesar salad to start, mixed grill as the main course and a cheese tray for dessert. I offered to pick-up the meat for the mixed grill and bring the wine to go with the courses.

That Friday night, Kathy and I went to a local butcher and picked out the meat for the mixed grill – 3 beef tenderloins, 2 marinated pork center loins, and 2 basil and sundried tomato sausages. Once we got home, I marinated the beef tenderloins in olive oil, balsamic vinegar and Montreal steak spice and stored them in the fridge.

I then hit the wine rack to try and figure out which wines to go with the three courses. I decided to go with old favourites instead of going with something new. I avoided going with a new wine due to Mick and Amy being away (didn’t want them to miss out). I picked a 2006 Louis Jadot Bourgogne to go with the Caesar salad, a 2001 Joseph Phelps “Napa Valley” Merlot to go with the mixed grill and a Yalumba Antique Tawny (Port) to go with the cheese tray.

"Caesar in the making."

Saturday afternoon we packed up the car and headed over to my parents. Dad had everything prepped and ready to go for dinner. We decided to eat sooner than later and soon were sitting down with a nice glass of white Chardonnay and plate of Caesar salad. I have covered this wine 3 times already on this blog so I won’t go into much detail on the wine.

"Table ready!"

The Louis Jadot Bourgogne is $19 a bottle Canadian (LCBO product # 933077). It is a nice crisp, precision driven Chardonnay that is a good pairing for Caesar salad. I would highly recommend picking up a few bottles of it as it is a very good wine at a pretty decent price point.

"A fired-up grill!"

The main course was the 3 beef tenderloins, 2 marinated pork center loins, and 2 basil and sundried tomato sausages plus my father did up green beans and baby potatoes as sides. The beef and the pork were good but the star of the show were the sausages; they were extremely flavourful and I was upset that I didn’t get more of them.

The 2001 Joseph Phelps “Napa Valley” Merlot was its usual excellent self. The wine is an experience unto itself, from the uncorking of the bottle with cork being stained at the bottom with a deep rich dark purple hue, the heady aroma, the full and balanced mouth-feel to the smooth lingering finish of the wine. I love this wine. It is $44 US (about $71 CDN a bottle) and worth every penny. It was a great pairing with all of the different main course items.

In case anyone reading this is thinking, “Man, is this guy being paid by Joseph Phelps to write this stuff?” The answer to that is no, heck I don’t even have any ads on the blog.

In case anyone from Joseph Phelps is reading this Blog – I would happily spend the rest of my days blogging about Joseph Phelps wine and finding food pairings that go with them. Just send me a mixed case on a monthly basis and I will be your Blogging PR pimp for life!

"Say cheese!"

The cheese tray and Yalumba Antique Tawny were a nice way to finish the meal. The Yalumba Antique Tawny is a great port. I have covered pairing before on the Blog, like the two other wines listed, so I won’t go into much detail. All of the previous reviews can be found on the “Wine List” to the right of the page. The Yalumba was bought in the US and I think worked out to around $30 CDN for a 375ml bottle. This price point makes it slightly cheaper than the Taylor Fladgate 20 year old port. In the past when we have compared the two, the Yalumba was the preferred choice.

It was good of my parents to have us over for dinner, especially since we have extremely limit kitchen facilities with the renovations going on. These renovations are certainly crimping our home entertaining style, though I probably could write a whole article on wines that pair well with drywall dust!

Cheers!

Mark