Saturday Night – Curried Mussels (and some other dishes and wines) – Part 1

Mick and Amy were hosting this past Saturday night’s dinner and Mick had his amazing Curried Mussels on tap for the night.  There were two other courses and three new wines to try to but after hearing ‘Curried Mussels’ I just ignored the rest of it and sat there with a happy glazed look mumbling ‘Curried Mussels yum’.

The first course was a new recipe which was a mixed green salad with smoked salmon with a ginger/grapefruit dressing.  Mick paired this course with a 2008 Donatien Bahuard Les Grand Mortiers Vouvray which was done in an off-dry style. Pronouncing the name of this wine gets easier with the more of it you have to drink!

The nose on the wine was kind of funky as mushroom, petrol and lilac were the main aromas.  Tasting the wine, it started with a dominate lime taste and finished with a peach flavour.  The structure on the wine was OK as the acidity just managed to off-set the sweetness; a touch less acidity and this wine would be cloying.  It was easy to drink but nothing about it jumped out at me that would make me want to go buy another bottle of it.  It was a good pairing with the salad and that is saying something as the salad had a lot of unique flavours to it.

Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 84, Mark - 85, Kathy – 84, Amy – 86, Overall –  84.75.

Here is the LCBO information on the wine -

DONATIEN BAHUAUD LES GRANDS MORTIERS VOUVRAY 2008

VINTAGES 140889
750 mL bottle
Price: $ 15.95
Wine, White Wine
12.0% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : MD
Made in: Loire, France
By: Donatien Bahuaud
Release Date: Oct 1, 2011

Tasting Note - Wine Style: White Dry Medium-bodied. Appearance: medium straw. Nose: high toned, quince, vanilla, honey. Taste: medium-bodied, mouth-filling, dry, quince and pear flavours with lively acidity; good length. Score - 4 Stars (out of 5). (Tony Aspler, tonyaspler.com, Oct. 14, 2010)

The new salad recipe was good but not ‘oh my god you have to make this every Saturday good’.  Mick didn’t think the Smoke Salmon added much to it whereas I liked the Salmon but thought that grapefruit in the dressing as well as grapefruit chunks in the salad over-powered it too much.  It was different and fun to try something new.

Click here for Part 2