Saturday Night – Champagne and Sheian – Part 1

This past Saturday night our usual band of four was joined by one more; Sheian joined us for dinner.  Sheian is a friend of ours who is in her twenties and doesn’t mind hanging out with us old folks for an evening of food and wine.

I had three wines on tap for the evening – a bottle of Taittinger Champagne, a bottle of Perrier-Jouët Champagne and a 2004 Beringer’s Napa Valley Chardonnay.

The Champagnes were picked to go with the first course and hopefully everyone would have some left to try with the main course as well.  The Chardonnay was meant to go with the main course.  Unfortunately, the Chardonnay which was lovely a few years ago was past its prime; still drinkable but not anywhere near as good as I remember it being.  I really have to stop saving favourite white wines for special occasions and start drinking them in a more timely matter.  With that said we will just review the Champagnes in this Blog.

The started was shrimp cocktail and oysters and the main course was a Wolfgang Puck Chicken Alfredo recipe. 

I will review the Taittinger first and then in part two review the Perrier-Jouët.

The nose the Taittinger was an interesting mix of lemon, lime, melon, yeast and some vanilla aromas.  Tasting the Champagne you’ll notice a creamy lime flavour to it that is both easy to drink and refreshing at the same time.  The structure on the wine was good as the acidity was fresh without being too tart.  It was a decent pairing with the seafood but really good with the Alfredo.

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

Here is the LCBO information on the wine –

TAITTINGER BRUT RÉSERVE CHAMPAGNE

VINTAGES 814723
750 mL bottle
Price: $ 53.95
Wine, Champagne
12.0% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : XD
Made in: Champagne, France
By: Champagne Taittinger
Release Date: Oct 29, 2011

Tasting Note - A mature, dusty-minerally expression of champagne, with notable autolysis character of yeast and brioche, with bruised apple and dried citrus zest aromas. The palate is fullish and well balanced, though again dominated by mature flavours and mineral expression. A champagne for the table. Score - 90. (John Szabo, M.S., winealign.com, August 2010)

Click here for Part 2