Saturday Night – Amy, in the Kitchen, with the Wine Bottle – Part 2

Click here for Part 1

For the main course Mick did a mix grill of steak and sausage with grilled veggies and baked potatoes. He paired this with a 2008 Concha y Toro "Terrunyo" Carmenere.

 

As I mentioned earlier, the bottle was impressive due to its weight but it was also nicely wrapped in branded tissue paper, the cork was also a higher quality one so I have to give bonus point here for great presentation.  The nose was big and easy to find with aromas of hot chocolate with marshmallows, green pepper and a touch of nutmeg.  Tasting the wine, cocoa is the dominate flavour with blackberry, green pepper and some earthiness in the background.  Structure-wise is where this wine breaks down a bit as the tannin levels were much higher than the acidity levels which made the wine comes across very dry.  Thankfully with the steak and the sausage the tannin was neutralized quite a bit so it made a pretty good pairing with the food.

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

There was no LCBO information on the wine, but a quick web search put the wine in the $24-44 range with the average price closer to $34.  For a $34 dollar wine this is a pretty good value as you usually don’t find the branded tissue paper, heavy bottle and high quality cork in a sub $60 wine that often, so from a gift giving perspective this wine would give you a lot of bang for your buck.  This is also a wine that cellaring for five more years or so will cause the tannin to soften some more and it will be that much better due to this.

 

I want to add that the steak Mick did was cooked and marinated to perfection.  Mick grabbed the marinade recipe from a fajita recipe.  The marinade had cilantro, garlic, orange juice and spices and it really made the steak flavourful and tender; probably one of the better steaks I have had in a while.

 

For dessert Amy picked up a dark chocolate based cake.  The cake was an even better pairing with the wine than the main course was (for those of us who still had some left!). 

 

Thanks to Mick and Amy for hosting and Mick for all his hard work in making three wonderful courses.

 

Cheers!

 

Mark