Usually on New Year’s Eve, Mick, Amy, Kathy and myself get together for an elaborate menu of high-end food and wine. This past New Year’s Eve, we were all really beat and decided to put it off until the weekend. We still got together on New Year’s Eve but I just made a huge pot of lemon Prosciutto pasta and paired it with a couple of bottles of decent Merlot.
This past Saturday we got together for our real New Year’s Dinner. The first course was spicy shrimp with mint sauce and I paired this with a 2009 Robert Mondavi “To Kalon” Fume Blanc. The “To Kalon” was highest rated White here on Zippy Sauce in 2012 so it seemed appropriate that we finish of the year with a bottle of it. It lived up to its rating and was a joy to have with Mick’s wonderfully grilled shrimp.
The second course of the night was a chilled seafood platter of shrimp, Alaskan king crab and oysters with homemade seafood sauce. I paired this with a 2002 Moet Chandon Champagne. As 2012 was pretty much the “Year of the Bubbles” here on Zippy Sauce, it seemed very fitting that the last review of year is a new Champagne.
The nose on the Champagne was very powerful and easy to find, probably one of the strongest noses I have ever found on a sparkling wine; mushroom was the dominate aroma with yeast, pear, vanilla and wet stone aromas in the background. Tasting the wine you will find lime and grapefruit flavours running the length of the wine. The wine wasn’t very complex but it was so crisp and clean that you overlooked that pretty quick. The structure on the wine was good as acidity levels were great without being too much. It worked very nicely as a pairing for the seafood dishes and the seafood sauce. All in all a very solid Champagne and one of the better ones in its price point.
Here is the group rating for the wine - Mick – 91, Mark - 89, Kathy – 87, Amy – 89, Overall – 89
Here is the LCBO information on the wine –
MOËT & CHANDON GRAND VINTAGE BRUT CHAMPAGNE 2002
VINTAGES 69773
750 mL bottle
Price $ 81.95
Made in: Champagne, France
By: Moet & Chandon S.A.
Release Date: Oct 27, 2012
Wine, Champagne
12.0% Alcohol/Vol.
Varietal: Blend - Other
Sugar Content: 2 g/L
Sweetness Descriptor: XD - Extra Dry
Tasting Note - In acknowledgement of the superior quality of 2002, Moët has released this wine well after the 2003. The decision is fully justified, for this is still young. It is impressive, intensely concentrated, mineral, showing tight grapefruit and apple flavors. Excellent aging potential. Score - 94. (Roger Voss, Wine Enthusiast, Dec. 2010)
For the main course we had beef tenderloin with green beans and baby potatoes with Béarnaise sauce. I paired this with a 1999 Joseph Phelps “Insignia”. This was my last bottle of it and the 1999 Insignia has the honour of being the highest rated Red wine (94.25 points) ever. I was a little nervous about this wine as 1999 is getting a touch long in the tooth for a California red and I hoped that I hadn’t kept it too long. Uncorking the wine bought a huge smile to my face upon seeing the dark purplish red colour of the cork. More impressive was that not a millimeter of wine had seeped into the cork itself. Even just sitting freshly uncorked in the bottle the nose was still huge. Tasting the wine, it was still as wonderful and amazing as it was the first time I tried it and made a fabulous pairing for the beef tenderloin and even better one for the box of chocolate truffles we finished the night off with. If I come across another bottle of the 1999 Insignia, I will be picking it up as this wine still has a lot of life left in it.
It was fun having two New Year’s Eve dinners and this might be a new tradition for the four us.
Cheers!
Mark
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