This past Saturday night Mick, Amy, Kathy and I were joined for dinner by Sheian and her new man, Giovanni. Sheian was excited about us meeting Giovanni as we were the first set of friends she was introducing him to. I found out at the dinner that earlier in the day Sheian introduced him to her family for the first time… family and then us, the poor man was certainly being put through his paces on this day.

"Table set and ready for action"

 

"The Menu for this evening"

The menu for the night was a collection of favourite dishes that Mick and I have done before and two or the three wines are ones we have reviewed before so I will only be reviewing the new wine. The first course was Carrot soup with fire roasted chilies and this was paired with a 2006 Seghesio Zinfandel. I did the soup and Mick provided the wine as this pairing usually calls for a Zinfandel and he has a much better selection of Zins than I do. 

"Carrot Soup"

Usually I pair the Carrot soup with the Rosenblum Zinfandel, which is a big giant fruit bomb and wondered how the Seghesio which is more of a smoky/peppery Zinfandel would work with it. It actually was a better pairing with the soap then the Rosenblum was.

"A great Zin!"

"Mick's Most Awesome Chicken Wings"

For the second course, Mick did his barbequed chicken wings with the marmalade and Dijon glaze. This time our Zippy Sauce photographer wasn’t too drunk so we actually got pictures of them. The pairing for the chicken wings is Merlot, so as Mick provided the Zinfandel for my course, I provided the Merlot for this one as I had a wider selection of Merlots to pick from. I went with a 2001 Joseph Phelps "Napa Valley" Merlot. This is easily my favourite Merlot of all time and I wasn’t shocked to find that it made an awesome pairing with the chicken wings.

"Check out the deep colour on the cork"

"All time favourtie Merlot"

For the main course I did Beef Tenderloin with shrimp, lobster, and Béarnaise sauce with sugar snap peas and baby potatoes as the sides. I wanted something special and different to pair with this and picked a 2003 Chateau Margaux "Pavillon Rouge" as my pairing. I hadn’t tried the 2003 before and was looking forward to seeing what it was like.

"Steak and Seafood.. How can you go wrong with this combination?"

The nose was a pleasing mix of green peppers, cassis, smoke, cedar and spice. Tasting the wine before the food, the flavors of raspberry and black cherry were subtly mixed together. The structure on the wine was nice as it wasn’t overly tannic or acidic. Between the structure and the flavours, you had a very nice soft and approachable wine. With the food the fruit came more to the forefront and the tannin disappeared completely. The food softened the wine almost too much as I found myself searching for a bit more tannin and/or acidity at this point. On the upside the six of us had no problem killing the bottle.

"Worth the money?"

Here is the group rating for the wine – Mick - 87, Mark - 89, Kathy – 87, Amy - 87, Overall – 87.5.

I picked this wine up in the US for about $99 US. The LCBO usually has the most current year in when it is released and the price will range from $100 to $200 depending on year and rating. 

"Cupcakes on Parade"

For Dessert, Sheian bought cupcakes for everyone, which both my wife and Amy were very happy about. She also bought a bottle of 2007 InniskillinVidal Ice Wine to go with the cupcakes. We really should have reviewed this wine, as it was very good; high acidity to balance out the sweetness of the wine and was a very easy to drink dessert wine. I didn’t review it for two reasons; one, I don’t like to do this with wines that people bring (Mick and Amy being an exception to this of course) and two, by this time of the night we had already finished 5 or 6 full bottles of wine so things were getting a touch fuzzy.

"A very good Ice Wine"

It was a fun night with plenty of laughs and good food. I’d like to thank Mick for his chicken wings and wine and Sheian for the cupcakes and wine. It was enjoyable getting to know Giovanni better and hopefully there will be many more dinners like this with them.

Cheers!

Mark