Sunday, March 25, 2012

Saturday Night – It’s your Birthday! – Part 2

The main course was grilled middle loin lamp chops with a side of my special potatoes.  The potatoes I boiled earlier in the day and then pan fried them with onions, corn, cherry tomatoes and arugula.  I paired this with a 2006 Bear Boat Pinot Noir.  Mick was kind enough to grill the lamb for me while I cooked the potatoes.


The lamb and the wine were both special.  The lamb was from Cumbraes in Dundas (http://www.cumbraes.com/).  I’d picked up two of middle loin lamb chops in January and Kathy and I had them for dinner one night; Kathy raved about the lamb for weeks after so I knew I had to go with these as our main course tonight.  The lamb is locally raised and the middle loin cut has to be at least two inches thick so I find it reminds me more of beef tenderloin than lamb due to its size. 


The 2002 Bear Boat Pinot Noir was a favourite of ours -


and after having it I searched for more and couldn’t find it.  Last year I found the 2006 version of this wine and grabbed a couple of bottles of it and was looking forward to seeing how it was compared to the 2002.

The nose on the 2006 Bear Boat was huge strawberry aromas with some raspberry, cigar box and vanilla aromas in the background.  The nose was very aromatic and you certainly didn’t have to swirl your glass to find it.  Tasting the wine, I was caught off guard as half expected that strawberry nose to follow through on the taste but instead found it had a much darker taste than I expected.  Black licorice was the dominate flavour with some black cherry notes in the background.  The structure of the wine was good with nice acidity but it need a little more fruit to make it come alive.  It worked as a pairing for the lamb but it wasn’t the magical 2002 Bear Boat I fell in love with.

Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 88, Mark - 88, Kathy – 87, Amy – 87, Overall – 87.5.

This was picked up in the US for around $20-22 US (so about $33 after duty, exchange, etc.).

Mick did a great job with the lamb and grilled it medium-rare.  The lamb was as good as I remembered it to be.  The potatoes were very good too as I was surprised that Amy went back for more of them as by this time we were all getting quite full.

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