Saturday Night - Return of the Spice Weasel!

It was Mick's turn to cook again and my wife was under the weather so I headed over to Mick and Amy's solo.

The plan for the evening was Mick was making Diablo Burgers from the same recipe he made the Diablo Meatballs two weeks ago.

He kicked off the evening with Prosciutto wrapped Curried Shrimp. This recipe is an old favourite. They are time consuming to wrap and skewer but are well worth it.

The Robert Mondavi Riesling works very versus the spice and saltiness of the dish. I'd be surprised if there were that many wines that would work with this dish.

The Mondavi Riesling is another example of what is wrong with the LCBO. I found one lone bottle of it in an LCBO Vintages four years ago on sale for $13.99. We tried it and we really enjoyed it. After that dinner I did a search and there wasn't another bottle left in the whole province. I spent the next couple of years searching for it at the LCBO and not finding it. I did find it in the US and now always pickup a case of it most times when I'm down in the US.

The Mondavi Riesling sells for $7.99 in NY. It is inexpensive and I'm sure that Robert Mondavi makes a shit load of it, so why can't the LCBO carry it?

On to the feature - Diablo Burgers with aged cheddar and grilled back bacon.

I added lettuce and Zippy Sauce to mine. The burgers were very good, with lots of flavour and spice. If anything the patties had too much flavour and spice as I could barely taste the cheddar or the back bacon on them.

The Dashe Cellars 2001 Zinfandel was a wine Mick picked up on our last NY wine run and he was very excited about trying it.

Mick loved it, me not so much - Mick likes subtle Zins, I like big alcohol based 'fruit bombs' in a Zinfandel - if I wanted subtle I'd by a Cabernet Sauvignon.

This big vs. subtle argument is a favourite between Mick and I.

The wine was 15% alcohol so it did have the alcohol but it didn't have the wide 'mouth feel' that I like in a Zinfandel. On the upside, it did pair well with the burgers.

I had talked to Amy earlier in the day and ask her to pickup a non-chocolate based dessert as I had a wine I wanted to try. Amy picked up a Spiced Walnut and Apple cake. The cake was very good, it had a maple cream cheese icing that was to die for.

This dessert was perfect for the wine - D'Arenberg 2006 The Noble (Vintages number 25056, 375mL, $24.95). This is one of the wines I picked up at the Oakville LCBO last Friday. The wine is a Botrytis affected Riesling.

The wine was nice but didn't impress me, the Henry of Pelham Botrytis affected Riesling is $10 more but is the better deal of the two. It lacked the complexity that a Botrytis affected Riesling should have. 'the Noble' did have good acidity and sugar and both Mick and I thought that this would be a good wine to age for five years and see how it develops, but that will have to stay as a theory as I don't think I'm picking another bottle of this up.

The D'Arenberg was fun to try and did go well with the Apple spiced caked so I'm not unhappy with the purchase.

We all missed Kathy at the dinner for her company but more importantly for her being there to take her share of the wine... the three of us were definitely feeling the wine by the end of dinner, but that is what Saturday night is for... to give us Sunday to recover!

Cheers!

Mark.