Sunday, January 22, 2012

Saturday Night – Raising the Bar – Part 2


The main course was Beef Tenderloin braised in red wine with a side of Gorgonzola polenta.  This dish was paired with a 2008 De Marino Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile.

The nose caught me off guard as plum was the main aroma I was detecting with tobacco, blackberry, black pepper and green pepper in the background.  The plum aroma was odd as I usually associate that with Merlot and not Cab.  Tasting the wine you’ll find flavours of black cherry, blackberry and cocoa.  The structure was a bit off for a Cab as the acidity was good but there was very little tannin there which gave the wine a thin mouth-feel.  It was easy drinking and it was a very good pairing with the meal but I kept feeling like this was a Merlot or a Carmenere vs. a Cab.


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

I couldn’t find a LCBO listing for this wine but a quick web search puts this in the $15-20 price point.  This wine is a decent value at that price and if the LCBO brings in the 2009/2010, I would be tempted to pick up a bottle.

The main course was very good, the flavour to the beef tenderloin was exceptional and it was cooked to a perfect medium rare.


For dessert, Jan did a Banoffee pie which is a caramel and banana based cream pie.  I’m not a huge dessert fan but this was very yummy and a nice ending to the night.

I would like to thank Jan and Chris for the amazing food and for hosting the dinner.  I joked at the end of the night that the bar, from their efforts and Mick’s new dishes, is getting set too high and that when I host next time that I will be doing frozen chicken fingers as the starter and Kraft Mac and Cheese as the main course to set the bar back to a much lower standard.

Cheers!

Mark

1 comment:

Jan said...

It might be fun to do a "com-b-q" where each couple is only allowed to spend like $40 or something (including the wine).