Saturday Night – A nice, normal Saturday – Part 1

Mick and Amy were hosting this past Saturday night and he had a couple of new dishes lined up for the night as well as three new wines for us to try.

 

The first course was a Seafood Chowder and Mick paired this with a 2009 Pedroncelli Zinfandel.

 

The nose on the wine made me giggle as the first aroma that jumped out at me was Strawberry Twizzlers with some tobacco and nutmeg in the background.  Tasting the wine, a concentrated raspberry flavour hit you first with hints of vanilla on the finish.  The structure to the wine was good as the balance was almost perfect, maybe a touch tannic but not in a bad way.  There was quite a bit of oak on the wine but I liked the vanilla flavour that the oak imparted to the wine.  The sad thing was it was a miss as a pairing with the chowder as it came across very dark and harsh with the soup.   This wine would be a very good pairing with some like Korean BBQ short ribs or any wings/ribs that have more a salty vs. sweet flavour to them.  I really enjoyed this Zinfandel on its own though.

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

Here is the LCBO information on the wine –

PEDRONCELLI BUSHNELL VINEYARD ZINFANDEL 2009
VINTAGES 463026
750 mL bottle
Price $ 22.95
Made in: California, USA
By: J Pedroncelli Winery
Release Date: Aug 4, 2012
Wine, Red Wine
15.2% Alcohol/Vol.
Varietal: Zinfandel
Sugar Content: 4 g/L
Sweetness Descriptor: D - Dry

Tasting Note -  Classic Dry Creek Zin, high in alcohol, brilliant in fruit and spices, and with that curious finish that's both sweet and dry at the same time. Really dazzles with cherries, raspberries, blackberries and all kinds of other wild forest berries. Editor's Choice. Score - 89. (Steve Heimoff, Wine Enthusiast, Nov. 1, 2011)

The seafood chowder was good but too spicy and that was a shame as there were so many wonderful ingredients that if the spice was toned down more, I think it would have really been stunning.  I will give Mick credit as he cut the spice down from what the recipe called for because he thought it would be too much, unfortunately he didn’t go far enough.  Mick really likes printed recipe books whereas I like online recipes.  The wonderful thing about online recipes is the comment section at the end.  Can’t count the number of times I read a new recipe online and thought that it has too much salt, spice or a certain ingredient and then seen a number of people verify that in the comments.  That said I hope Mick attempts this recipe again with less spice as I truly think it will be amazing.

Side note here – As the Zinfandel was a miss as a pairing, I made the comment to Mick that I thought a Sauvignon Blanc would be a good pairing with the soup. He laughed and said the next two courses he was pairing Sauvignon Blanc with them.  Both of them were screw cap so he poured out a small sample to taste with the chowder and both were stellar pairings with the chowder.

Click here for Part 2