Happy *sniffle* New Year! Part 2

The main course was a New Year’s favourite – Beef Tenderloin in a port and shallot sauce with mashed potatoes and caramelize onions. I also usually do up some green beans to go with this dish but this year they looked like shit at the store so I went with sugar snap peas instead. I know early I said I wanted to do more new recipes but this is so good its not funny and mixing one old dish and one new isn’t the worst thing I could do. Besides that, I hadn’t done this since New Year’s of 2008 so it had been awhile!

"Amy's favourite picture of the night for some unknown reason"

I downgraded my original wine choice to another old favourite – a 1999 Robert Mondavi Napa Valley Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (not exactly slumming at around $130 CDN a bottle though, just because I wasn’t a 100% didn’t mean I didn’t want everyone else to suffer!). The amusing thing is this is exactly the same pairing I did two years ago for New Years but that was also before we did ratings and I thought this one deserved to be rated.

"Unexpectedly Good!"

I poured out the wine very early in everyone’s glass to let it breathe a bit before we had it with dinner. Mick nosed the wine and smiles and said, “Buddy, if you think this glass it going to make it to dinner you are crazy!” We talked about this and while it would be good on its own, I knew it would really shine with dinner so we both thought a ‘between courses’ wine would be good and wandered down to the basement to take a look at what was kicking around on the rack. Mick said he was in the mood for a Shiraz. After some searching I found a bottle of Graham Beck 2002 Shiraz on the rack from South Africa that I’d forgotten I’d had and we headed back upstairs.

As soon as I opened this bottle as I was like ‘Wow’ as the nose on it was huge, even with a cold and it still being in the bottle I was picking up a big cocoa/truffle aroma. I poured it out for everyone and bought my glass into the kitchen to ‘keep me company’ as I made the main course.

Besides the cocoa/truffle aromas there was also peat, pepper and a hint of coffee on the nose. Tasting the wine, I really like what I found, smooth and well structured with a mix of dark berry and cocoa flavour. Mick shocked me when he said the alcohol content listed was 15%. You wouldn’t have guessed that by the taste as it wasn’t at all hot. The ladies thought since the wine had a lot of cocoa flavour to it, I would be interesting to try with some chocolate truffles that Kathy got for Christmas. There were soon lots of “Oh’s, Ah’s and moans” echoing throughout the room from both of the ladies. I tried one too and must say it was an amazing pairing.

Here is the group rating for the wine – Mick - 87, Mark - 90, Kathy – 88, Amy - 89, Overall – 88.5

As I mention earlier, I’d forgotten about this wine but I’d guess it was probably about $20 a bottle at the LCBO when I picked it up originally.

Click here for Part 3