For the main course I did a Corn, Tomato and Steak dish which for me is the dish that signifies that summer is really here. This dish has steak, fresh corn shaved from the cob, pan fired baby potatoes, cherry tomatoes, arugula, celery, shallots, olive oil, butter and salt and pepper. As there is not much seasoning (other than salt and pepper) for this dish, it the natural flavours of this dish that make it so good. It is also important to find fresh ingredients as there is no sauce or seasoning to hide behind either.
I paired this with a Merlot and as we hadn’t done Merlot for a bit, I want something a little special and picked a 2001 Merryvale Napa Valley Reserve Merlot
The nose on the Merryvale was amazing with rich notes of plum, cigar box, eucalyptus, and leather. Tasting the wine Black Licorice, Blueberry and Cassis were the dominate flavours. I was concerned after trying the wine that the Black Licorice flavour wouldn’t work with the dish and it was a touch tannic as well. Trying the wine the food, raspberry notes became the main flavour to the wine and the tannin soften big time and this wine became a truly excellent pairing with the food.
Here is the group rating for the wine – Mick - 90, Mark - 91, Kathy – 90, Amy – 90, Overall – 90.25.
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| "Check out the colouring on the cork from the Merryvale Merlot" |
There was no listing for the Merryvale Merlot on the LCBO’s website which is not surprising as I bought this in the US a number of years ago. I believe the price point on it was $39 US so around $55-60 CDN a bottle. The 90.25 rating means this wine comes up just short by a quarter of a point on making the Zippy Sauce Top Ten Red list but I will say I haven’t enjoy a bottle of wine as much as this one in a long time.
For dessert I picked up a La Rocca Key lime crunch cake and it was a fine ending to our ‘summer’ themed meal.
Cheers!
Mark
Mark
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