Saturday Night – Curse you Blackened Scallops! – Part 2

Click here for Part 1

For the second course, Mick did skillet grilled Mussels and Clams with parsley and Chorizo sausage. Mick went with a 2006 Domaine Joseph Voillot Vieilles Vignes Volnay as the pairing for this course.

"Someone forgot to take a picture of the Calms and Mussels before they got eaten *cough* Amy *cough*"

The nose on this Burgundy Pinot was huge strawberry with some pepper and pine needles in the background. The flavour to the wine was a combination of strawberry and cranberry. The wine had lots of acidity but a thin mouth-feel and a short finish. I thought it was OK on its but really like it with the Clams and Mussels as a pairing.

Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 87, Mark - 86, Kathy – 87, Amy – 86, Overall – 86.5.

Here is the LCBO information on the wine -

DOMAINE JOSEPH VOILLOT VIEILLES VIGNES VOLNAY 2007


VINTAGES 91884
750 mL bottle
Price: $ 37.95
Wine, Red Wine
13.0% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : XD
Made in: Burgundy, France
By: Domaine Joseph Voillot
Release Date: Sep 4, 2010


Tasting Note - Better aromatic ripeness and more complexity come at the price of less elegance on the earthier red pinot fruit nose that leads to delicious, rich and relatively full-bodied flavors that are supple and culminate in a youthfully austere finish. In sum, there is just more depth here. Drink [from] 2011+. Score - 88. (Allen Meadows, burghound.com, April 2009)

The clams and mussel dish were a new recipe as well and while it was good and I finished every bit of it, Mick has set the bar pretty damn high for mussel recipes and he has a couple of other recipes that I enjoyed more than this one.

This gets us to Mick’s Blackened Scallops as the next course with the Willy Gisselbrecht Gewürztraminer pairing. The scallops were their usual excellent standard but unfortunately the pairing was not. It was a decent to good pairing but it just was ‘the pairing’; like where you take a sip and smile and go ‘That’s it!’ so the quest continues. Curse you Blackened Scallops! Why must be so excellent yet some darn tricky to pair with. On the upside, Mick will just have to keep making them until we do find that perfect pairing so maybe this isn’t the worst fate out there.

For dessert, Mick picked up a decadent double chocolate cake which looked amazing but I was too full at this point to try. I can add that judging by the three clean plates around me that it must have been pretty good.

Thanks to Mick for his hard work and to both Mick and Amy for hosting.

Cheers!

Mark

Saturday Night – Curse you Blackened Scallops! – Part 1

A few weeks ago Kim had us over for dinner - http://zippysauce.blogspot.com/2011/10/saturday-night-chez-kimmie.html and I did the wine pairings for that meal. One of the courses she did that I wasn’t sure about what to pair with was the Avocado and Cucumber salad, as I have found that Avocado is tricky to pair with. I went with an off-dry Gewürztraminer and it made a great pairing.

Mick has a great recipe for Blackened Scallops with an Avocado and Corn relish served on tortillas but it has been our nemesis for wine pairing as we have tried tons of different white wines and not had much success. The best pairing to date was an off-dry Prosecco and it was decent pairing but not perfect. I believe it is the Avocado that is making this dish tough to pair with. I told Mick at the time, he had to do his Scallop recipe again and I would bring another bottle of this Gewürztraminer to pair with it. As tonight was Mick’s turn to cook, he was nice enough to add the Scallop recipe to the menu so we could try this pairing. Mick however had a couple of courses on tap before we got the Scallops.

The first course was grilled Brie with a tomato and garlic topping. Mick paired this dish with a 2009 Domaine Clos Gaillard Pouilly-Fuissé.

The nose on the wine was aromatic with strong vanilla, lime and white grapefruit notes and with a touch of cinnamon and lilac in the background. Tasting the wine, white grapefruit from the nose carries over to the taste. The wine was a lot oaky than I would have expected from a French Chardonnay. The acidity levels were up there too but that did help offset the oak. I liked this wine on its own but wasn’t a huge fan of it as pairing for the Brie as it got funky at times with the cheese.

Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 86, Mark - 84, Kathy – 86, Amy – 85, Overall – 85.25.

Here is the LCBO information on the wine -

DOMAINE CLOS GAILLARD VIEILLES VIGNES POUILLY-FUISSÉ

VINTAGES 187658
750 mL bottle
Price: $ 27.95
Wine, White Wine
13.4% Alcohol/Vol.
Made in: Burgundy, France
By: Favre Gerald
Release Date: N/A

The grilled Brie was a new dish for Mick and I have to say I liked it. The weather was cool on Saturday and the warm gooey goodness of the Brie and crackers was great comfort food.

Click here for Part 2

 

Saturday Night – Getting Mellow with Merlot

After having the 2003 Beringer’s Napa Valley Merlot at Mick’s house last week -
http://zippysauce.blogspot.com/2011/10/saturday-night-just-four-of-us-part-1.html which was really good but the fruit was fading on it big time, I thought it would a good idea to use my bottle of it up. A few years back I went on a Merlot binge and still have a number of 2001-2004 Merlots that I need to drink soon. I decided to make the evening’s theme ‘Foods that pair well with Merlot’. The first course was an Anti-Pasto and the main course was Lemon Cream Prosciutto Pasta.

Since I was making a couple of dishes that went well with Merlot, I decided we needed a couple of Merlots to go with these dishes so I found a friend to go with Beringer’s – a 2003 Kendall Jackson Grand Reserve Merlot. This would be a nice comparison as both are in that $27-34 price range, both are from California, both are from well-known wineries and both were from 2003 and needed to be drank.

As we reviewed the Beringer’s last week, this Blog will just focus on the KJ Grand Reserve.

The nose on the KJ was very aromatic with plum, allspice, coffee and dark chocolate. What was very cool/freaky is after about 20 minutes the nose on this wine changed dramatically and most of the earlier aromas disappeared and were replaced by a maple/vanilla fudge aroma. Tasting the wine that plum aroma carried over as it was also the main flavour to this wine. As much as loved the nose on the wine, it lost me a bit upon tasting it as it was overly acidic and you got a coffee like bitterness in a mid-palate that I wasn’t a big fan of. The wine got much better with the meat and cheese of the Anti-Pasto as the acidity and bitterness seemed to be neutralized with the food.

Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 87, Mark - 87, Kathy – 86, Amy – 86, Overall – 86.5

There was no LCBO information on this wine as it was purchased years ago but it was in that $27-34 price range.

The KJ and the Beringer’s Merlots were long gone by the time we hit the main course so I cracked a bottle of 2001 Joseph Phelps ‘Napa Valley’ Merlot. I have reviewed this wine before so I won’t go into much detail but I will say I found the Phelps Merlot the best of the three by a wide margin.

For dessert I risked life and limb by going with a non-chocolate dessert as our local supermarket was carrying a couple of desserts from LaRocca’s Fall line. I went with a Salted Caramel Apple Flan as it was something we never had before. I really liked it as it was something different. The Flan was sweet but not overly so and I opened a bottle of 2005 Botrytis Affect Late Harvest Riesling to go with it. This too has been reviewed (see top five dessert, sparkling and port wine to your right) before so I won’t go into detail but I will say it and the Flan were a great pairing.

Three bottles of Merlot and a bottle of dessert wine for four people certainly means we had a good time (which made Sunday a touch rough). As I have more Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon that is getting past their primes, we will be having a few more of these types of nights before the end of the year and I can’t say I’m sorry about that.

Cheers!

Mark

October Wine Club - Gewürztraminer

For our October Wine Club meeting we looked at Gewürztraminer from Alsace. The take home bottle was a 2008 Willy Gisselbrecht Gewürztraminer and it was done in an off-dry style. The comparison bottle was a René Muré and it was done in a dry style.

Here is the LCBO information for both wines -


WILLY GISSELBRECHT TRADITION GEWURZTRAMINER 2008

VINTAGES 928390
750 mL bottle
Price: $ 18.95
Wine, White Wine
13.0% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : MD
Made in: Alsace, France
By: Willy Gisselbrecht & Fils
Release Date: Jul 23, 2011

Tasting Note - Pleasant notes of peach, ginger and lychee greet the nose here. A touch off-dry, well balanced and lovely with citrus, peach and spice tones in the mouth. Ideal for spicy Indian curry dishes featuring chicken or lamb. (VINTAGES panel, Sept. 2010)

RENÉ MURÉ SIGNATURE GEWURZTRAMINER 2009

VINTAGES 61218
750 mL gift
Price: $ 17.95
Wine, White Wine
13.0% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : D
Made in: Alsace, France
By: A. & O. Mure
Release Date: Aug 20, 2011

Description - The Muré family have been growing grapes in Alsace since 1648. Their wines always express the classic characteristics of each grape variety they use. This Gewurztraminer is sourced from 29-year-old vines and displays aromas of intense lychee and rose petals. It's dry, full bodied and spicy. It will delight as an aperitif or pair it with exotic foods like lamb curry.

Gewürztraminer is a variety of grape that I’m not a huge fan of as the wonderful lychee and floral nose always reminds me of dessert wines and then when you taste a dry wine with a slight bitterness to it, I find that is a shock as it wasn’t what I was expecting. That said we have never done Gewürztraminer on its own for Wine Club so I felt it was time.

The Willy Gisselbrecht Gewürztraminer I had tried before a few weeks ago at the dinner Kim hosted - http://zippysauce.blogspot.com/2011/10/saturday-night-chez-kimmie.html so I won’t bother reviewing it again here in much detail and will focus on the René Muré instead.

The nose on the René Muré was stronger than the Willy Gisselbrecht and had nice aromas of lime, lychee, rose and Mandarin orange. Tasting this wine you’ll notice a dry wine with grapefruit and spice flavours. I like the nose more on this wine but thought the flavours on the Willy Gisselbrecht were nicer.

Tracey, a Wine Club member, bought in spicy hummus, spicy Guacamole dip and tortillas to go with the wines. Both wines were a good pairing for the wines but I enjoyed the Willy Gisselbrecht more.

While I’m not a huge fan of Gewürztraminer, I did enjoy both of these ones and I will be forever grateful to the grape for being one of the only wines that pairs with Avocado.

Thanks to Tracey for the yummy food and I’m already looking forward to next month’s meeting.

Cheers!

Mark

Saturday Night – Just the four of us – Part 3

Click here for Part 1

The main course of the evening was a layered Mexican Salad which had just about everything in it; lettuce, tomato, black beans, grilled chicken, sour cream, tortillas, just to name a few ingredients. Mick went with a Dubois Brut Cava as his pairing for this dish.

The nose on the cava was mild with aromas of yeast, strawberry and vanilla to it. Tasting the wine, crisp citrus notes dominated this sparkling wine. There was a bitterness to the wine though which came through at odd moments and really took away from it. It was an OK pairing with the food; sometimes good and sometimes not so good depending on which ingredients you had.

Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 82, Mark - 83, Kathy – 85, Amy – 85, Overall – 83.75.

There was no LCBO listing on this wine, which isn’t a surprise as Mick said this was a wine they brought back from a trip from Cuba. I would guess this wine was in the $10-15 dollar range if it was carried at the LCBO.

For dessert Amy picked up a Chocolate Baco Cake for dessert. I skipped dessert as I was full at this point but judging by the clean plates around the table, I’m sure it was yummy.

Thanks to Mick for all his hard work in doing up three excellent recipes that Kathy and I hadn’t tried before. And thanks to both Mick and Amy for hosting the dinner. It was great to get back to a normal Saturday night.

Cheers!

Mark

Saturday Night – Just the four of us – Part 2

The second course of the evening was Grilled Calms with Serrano ham. These were paired with a 2009 Leopard’s Leap Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa. If you have been reading this Blog for a bit then you know my feelings about South African Sauvignon Blanc, as I feel it is best in the world so I was excited to try another one.

The nose was very aromatic for a Sauvignon Blanc, no glass swirling needed to find the nose here! It was a nice mix of gooseberry, cat’s pee, green apple and a little bit of lychee in the background. The main flavours to the wine were grapefruit, lime and mango. The flavours really popped with the Clams and made a great pairing. I loved the big fruit on the wine but my one complaint with it was it needed a touch more acidity to it. Normally South African Sauvignon Blanc are a nice balance between the steely, crisp French ones and the fruit driven New Zealand styled ones, I found this one leaned too much to the New Zealand style. That said it was a great pairing with the food.

Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 88, Mark - 88, Kathy – 90, Amy – 88, Overall – 88.5

Here is the LCBO information on the wine –

LEOPARD'S LEAP SAUVIGNON BLANC 2009


VINTAGES 203356
750 mL bottle
Price: $ 12.95
Wine, White Wine
13.5% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : D
Made in: Region Not Specified, South Africa
By: Leopards Leap Wines
Release Date: Jan 22, 2011


Description - This fresh and zippy South African Savvy is a great palate refresher, or enjoy it with grilled prawns with a moderately spicy sauce.


Tasting Note - Crunchy summer fruits & lemongrass nuance in '09; elegant & crisply dry. Score - 3 Stars (out of 5). (Christine Rudman, Platter's South African Wine Guide, 2010)

For $13 a bottle this wine is a heck of a value and I would recommend it as a must buy. It had a lot going on for this price point and with its big fruit flavour it should be a good pairing for a number of dishes.

The calms were good. I’d never had Serrano ham before and it looks exactly like Prosciutto. It was nowhere near as salty as Prosciutto is and had more sweetness to it. Mick talk about doing the recipe again and using Prosciutto instead and Kathy told him not to as she liked the sweetness of the ham and its contrast to the saltiness of the clams. I’d say my lovely wife nailed it right on the head with that assessment.

Click here for Part 3

Saturday Night – Just the four of us – Part 1

It seems like it has been forever since just the four of us had a normal Saturday night dinner together so it was nice to get back to normal. Mick and Amy were hosting the evening and Mick had couple of new dishes on tap for the night.

The first course was hickory smoked chicken wings with a 2003 Beringer’s ‘Napa Valley’ Merlot.

The nose on the Merlot was busy with plum, nutmeg, cocoa, black pepper, eucalyptus and cedar. Tasting the wine, you’ll find a blueberry and chocolate flavour to the wine. The structure on the wine was lovely with silky tannins, soft fruit and decent acidity. This was a very easy drinking Merlot. My one concern with it was the fruit was fading and if you have any bottles of this in your cellar, I’d suggest drinking it now as in a year or so this wine will be well past its prime. The pairing of the smoked wings and the Merlot was very complimentary to each other. I enjoyed how the Merlot supercharged the smokiness of the wings.

Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 89, Mark - 89, Kathy – 89, Amy – 88, Overall – 88.75

I joked about Amy’s rating being an 88… it would have been a 89 but it wasn’t a Riesling so she took a point off! :)

The LCBO didn’t have a listing for Beringer’s ‘Napa Valley’ Merlot. When they do have it in stock it usually ranges between $27-34 a bottle. Mick mentioned to me that he bought this in the US years ago for $17.

The Merlot/wing combination was excellent and I enjoyed the wings. I won’t say these are the best wings Mick has ever made, as he has done so many amazing types of chicken wings over the years that he has set the bar pretty damn high, but these were very good.

Click here for Part 2

Vegas Baby! Part 2

Click here for part 1

For our Sunday night, we hit Japonais, the Mirage’s Japanese restaurant. Mick and Amy picked this as their choice and to be perfectly honest I wasn’t excited about going. I found by the end of the night I was eating my words as it was awesome; the food and wine were both terrific. We started with Sushi, then some appetizers from the main kitchen and then more appetizers but from the smoke/fire grill and then an order of ribs and we finished up with dessert.

For the Sushi, we decided to go with some Champagne to start and pick a Perrier-Jouet Grand Brut Champagne. This wine was amazing with the Sushi and we still had some left when the first appetizer showed up. The first appetizer was a thin sliced strip steak in a ginger/soy marinade that you cooked yourself on a super-heated rock which was brought to the table. I figure the ginger/soy combo would mess up the Champagne pairing but was stunned to find that it wasn’t just a good pairing it was an even better pairing than the Sushi one. The bottle was getting low at this point and we still had more food coming. We kicked around different wines on the list briefly but in the end decided to go with another bottle of the same Champagne. It handled the sweet and sour Calamari wonderfully, slammed the Crab Cakes, was stellar with the smoke/fire grilled Sea Bass, Spicy Sliders and even worked with the ribs.

The absolute worst it ever got in a pairing was good and I was beginning to believe there was nothing this wine wouldn’t be awesome with. I wasn’t the only one that loved it as the first thing Amy did when we got back was looked on the LCBO website to see if they carried it as she wanted more and sent me a link -

PERRIER JOUET GRAND BRUT CHAMPAGNE


LCBO 155341
750 mL bottle
Price: $ 64.95
Wine, Champagne
12.0% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : 1
Made in: Champagne, France
By: S.A. Champagne Perrier Jouet

I ordered 3 bottles today (Mick and Amy are taking 1 of the 3). We didn’t review it in the restaurant but if we did, I would be shocked if the overall group rating wouldn’t have been 90+.

That night at Japonias was great, as was the whole trip and I’m already wanting to go back to Vegas and I have only been home a day.

Cheers!

Mark

Vegas Baby! Part 1

Over the Thanksgiving long weekend, Mick, Amy, Kathy and I went to Las Vegas.  We flew direct from Hamilton Airport to Las Vegas via WestJet which was awesome.  We stayed at the Mirage while we were in Vegas and availed ourselves to a couple of their in-house restaurants.  On Saturday night we went to Onda, which is the Mirage's upscale Italian restaurant.  Below are some of Amy's photos for the night

The dinner was excellent and we ate way too much.  For wines we went with a Sauvignon Blanc from Sancerre AOC of the Loire region of France and a Chianti from Italy.  I do not remember the brands for either but we did enjoy both.  Onda was voted best Italian restaurant in Las Vegas and after the meal we had there it was easy to see why.

Click here for Part 2

Saturday Night – Chez Kimmie

Our good friends, Kim and John, hosted a dinner party last Saturday night for Mick, Amy, Kathy and I. I offered to provide the wines for the night and Kim e-mailed me the menu before the dinner so I could figure out the pairings.

Here is the menu :


Baked Crab and Cheese dip with Nachos

Zucchini stuffed with quinoa, cherry tomatoes and garlic

Avocado and cucumber salad with cilantro

Oven roasted Chicken breast with walnuts and quinoa with sides of mash potatoes and baby carrots

Cheesecake

So what wines would you have paired with these dishes?

For the Baked Crab and Cheese dip with Nachos, I went with a 2008 Edgebaston Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa. I like South African Sauvignon Blanc as I find it a nice middle ground between the crisp mineral style of the Loire Valley in France and the lush fruit-forward New Zealand styled ones. It turned out to be a very good pairing. Mick enjoyed the pairing but thought a French Sauvignon Blanc would have been better as its higher acidity would have cut through the richness of the dip better. We have reviewed the Edgebaston before -

http://zippysauce.blogspot.com/2010/05/saturday-night-were-back-part-1.html so I won’t be reviewing it again here.

The second course was the Zucchini stuffed with quinoa, cherry tomatoes and garlic. I went with a 2001 Joseph Phelps ‘Napa Valley’ Merlot as my pairing here as I thought a nice fruit-forward California Merlot would be a good match. This was probably my weakest pairing of the night as age has unfortunately begun to catch up to this wine as the fruit is no longer as dominate as it once. On the upside the wine was still very good and it while it wasn’t a perfect pairing it was still a very good pairing. We have also had this wine before -

http://zippysauce.blogspot.com/2009/06/saturday-night-kim-cooks-up-storm-part_7866.html (strangely enough, it was at Kim and John’s place when we had it before) so we didn’t rate it again.

The third course of the night was the one wine of the night we hadn’t had before so I will review this one. As soon as Kim mentioned Avocado as an ingredient, I started to sweat a bit on this pairing. Mick’s Blackened Scallop recipe that we all love so much uses Avocado as a main ingredient and this is a pairing that Mick and I have struggled to get right. I believe it is the Avocado that throws us the curve ball. As Avocado has a slight sweetness to it, it really messes with a dry wine. So I needed something off dry for my pairing. I remembered that I just picked up a case of Willy Gisselbrecht Gewürztraminer for an upcoming Wine Club and it was made in an off dry style. I decided to roll the dice and go with it as the pairing.

The nose on the wine had the lychee aroma which I was expecting from a Gewürztraminer with some green apple, rose and little vanilla in the background. Tasting the wine before the meal it was a touch syrupy or cloying with mango, lime and honeydew flavours to it. It was interesting mix of flavours that I wasn’t sold on but didn’t mind. With the food however completely different story; it was an amazing pairing. The oiliness and sweetness of the Avocado completely neutralized that cloying element that bothered me earlier and the mango and lime popped out big time as this wine really came to life. Mick mentioned that it may be time to do his Blacked Scallop recipe again and try it with this wine as he liked the pairing as well.


Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 88, Mark - 90, Kathy – 90, Amy – 87, Overall – 88.75

Here is the LCBO Information on the wine –

WILLY GISSELBRECHT TRADITION GEWURZTRAMINER 2008


VINTAGES 928390
750 mL bottle
Price: $ 18.95
Wine, White Wine
13.0% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : MD
Made in: Alsace, France
By: Willy Gisselbrecht & Fils
Release Date: Jul 23, 2011

Tasting Note - Pleasant notes of peach, ginger and lychee greet the nose here. A touch off-dry, well balanced and lovely with citrus, peach and spice tones in the mouth. Ideal for spicy Indian curry dishes featuring chicken or lamb. (VINTAGES panel, Sept. 2010)

The main course of the evening was oven roasted Chicken breast with walnuts and quinoa with sides of mash potatoes and baby carrots. The dish was excellent but by this point I was beginning to fill up. I went with an old favourite as a pairing for this one and had two bottles of 2006 Kendall Jackson Chardonnay on hand. I really like this pairing and wasn’t the only one who did as we had no problem killing both bottles.

Kim had a very tasting Cheesecake on tap for dessert which was amazing but I had to fight a bit to get through it as by this time I was stuffed to the gills. I didn’t bring anything to pair with this course as I figured after five bottles of wine for six people we would have had enough wine for the night.

It was a fun night and words cannot express how truly grateful I am to Kim for all her hard work she put into crafting some truly wonderful dishes. Thanks to Kim and John for hosting the night and hopefully the six of us will get together more often.


Cheers!

Mark