Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Saturday night – Down Under – Part 2

Click here for Part 1

The main course was sliced NY strips with baby potatoes, corn, tomatoes and arugula paired with a 2003 Yalumba “Barossa” Shiraz/Viognier.

"Seriously dark cork"

I was stunned at how dark the cork was upon opening the black, as it was such a deep purple hue that it was almost black.

"Great dish but never looks great in pictures"

The nose on the wine was described by Mick as “Tim Hortons splattered with blackberries” (No one will ever mistake Mick for being Robert Parker). As funny as that description is, it was also accurate as coffee and blackberry were the two dominate aromas with eucalyptus and black pepper in the background.
"Tim Hortons splattered in blackberries... sigh"

Tasting the wine you got a medium bodied red that was very direct and not too complicated. The acidity of this wine was a touch off and got much more noticeable with the food. I suspect that the sweetness of the fresh corn was causing this sharpness to occur.

"Mmmm...cake!"

Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick - 87, Mark - 85, Kathy – 91, Amy - 87, Overall – 87.5

Here is the LCBO information -

06 YALUMBA BAROSSA SHIRAZ/VIOGNIER

Vintages 524926
750 mL bottle

Price: $ 19.95

Wine, Red Wine,
14.5% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : 1
Made in: South Australia, Australia
By: Negociants International
Release Date: N/A

*Note this LCBO listing is for the 2006 version and not the 2003 version reviewed.

A quick side note about the main course, I really like this dish as the only spice in it is salt and pepper but all the different ingredients really make a great flavour combination.

For dessert we had a Truffle Royale cake but we didn’t pair this with wine.

It was nice getting back to a normal Saturday night, unfortunately next week we all have plans so the Blog might be quiet for a bit.

Cheers!

Mark

1 comment:

Old Fart said...

I love your honest approach to wine, and the way it complements food. There's a few things I have issues with in your writing - yeh, it's all geographical, and you can't help it.
So - a lot of dishes are better served with cider, especially spicy dishes. This side of the pond, you can serve a Vin d'Alsace as an alternative, but your wallet would heave at the extra expense over there (LOL it's bad enough here).
Concha y Toro are selling good Chilean alternatives to those Alsacienne wines - take a look.
But also look at good cider. Would I lie?