Saturday night – New foods and Egyptian hieroglyphics – Part 3

Click here for Part 1

The main course of the evening was Grilled Lamb Burgers with Eggplant and Tzaziki and a side of grilled Sweet Potato fries with Chipotle mayo dip. Mick picked a 2008 “A to Z” Pinot Noir from Oregon as the pairing for this dish.

Before I get to reviewing this wine, I have to poke fun at Amy; not only is Amy the official Zippy Sauce photographer (so you have her to thank for all the lovely pictures on this Blog) but she is also nice enough to take notes on the wines for us as well. It is her note taking that I’m about to poke fun at. The first wine/review of the evening is written in a lovely easy to read flowing script but as she has more to drink the quality of the note taking goes dramatically downhill from there. By the third wine/review it gets very dicey. The current notes I’m working off of for this review are so bad I think I need a Rosetta stone to translate it as I’m pretty sure the notes are no longer in English. Under taste I’m pretty sure she has a picture of the Egyptian god Anubis holding a Scarab as her description!

The nose on the A to Z is a pleasing mix of black licorice and cherry aromas. Tasting the wine you will find a colossal Raspberry flavour to it and not much else; I don’t believe Raspberries have this much Raspberry flavour to them but I like Raspberry so this isn’t all bad. Structure on the wine is fairly balanced but once again we have a wine where the acidity is stronger than the tannin. The wine does have a good finish to it that lingers for a while. This Pinot also had a much bigger mouth-feel to it than the first one. I wasn’t crazy about this wine by itself but it made a good pairing for the lamb burgers.

Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 87, Mark - 87, Kathy – 87, Amy – 86, Overall – 86.75.

Here is the LCBO information on the wine –

A TO Z PINOT NOIR 2008

VINTAGES 229781
750 mL bottle
Price: $ 21.95
Wine, Red Wine
13.0% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : XD
Made in: Oregon, USA
By: A to Z Wineworks
Release Date: Jun 25, 2011

Description - This wine ranked # 75 in Wine Spectator's Top 100 Wines of 2010.

Tasting Note - Lively, deftly balanced and refreshing in style, with pretty raspberry and cherry flavors playing against hints of spice and chalk. Finishes with impressive length. Drink now through 2016. Score - 90. (Harvey Steiman, winespectator.com, Dec. 15, 2010)

Amy picked up a Basket and Robbins Chocolate Ice Cream cake for dessert which was yummy.

I’d like to thank Mick for cooking up three new recipes and all were very good. It is impressive to try three new recipes and go three for three like he did. Thanks to Mick and Amy for hosting, as we all had a good time with lots of laughs.

Cheers!

Mark