Saturday Night – Something French and Dirty – Part 1

The blog has been quiet recently as Mick and Amy were away on vacation for two Saturdays so we weren’t having our usual dinners together. Kathy ask me what I was planning for this Saturday night’s dinner with Mick and Amy and my response was “Big, thick, rare Tenderloins with something French and dirty to go with it!”   I don’t mean dirty in a bad, I find a number of high end French wines have a slight musty/dirty aroma to them which I have grown to really enjoy.

 

I actually took the whole French wine thing to the next level for last night’s menu as every course was paired with a different French wine.

We started with grilled shrimp with two different dipping sauces - a lemon garlic aioli and a horseradish aioli.  I paired this course with a Moet Chandon 2002 Vintage Champagne.  We have reviewed this wine before so I won’t go into much detail other than to say it was very good on its own and worked very nicely with the shrimp and both dipping sauces.

For the main course I did grilled Beef Tenderloin topped with crab, sugar snap peas and Béarnaise and a side of baby potatoes.  I paired this with a 2003 Chateau Haut-Bailey Grand Cru Classé from Pessac-Léognan in Bordeaux.

The nose on the wine was pretty and powerful with aromas of root beer, dried cherry and tobacco.  Tasting the wine, you’ll find raspberry and strawberry flavours with a slight dusty of Cocoa in the background.  The structure on the wine was very good as the wine had a lovely balance to it.  The finish didn’t linger around for too long and had a eucalyptus/menthol flavour to it.  The wine was delicate, feminine and thin which really isn’t my preferred style as I’d prefer a fuller bodied/masculine styled Red.  On the upside, it was very easy to drink and made a great pairing for the main course.

Here is the group rating for the wine - Mick – 92, Mark – 89 Kathy – 88, Amy – 89, Overall – 89.5.

Here is the LCBO information on the wine –

06 CHATEAU HAUT BAILLY PESSAC-LEOG (MEDOCAINE)
VINTAGES 564237
750 mL bottle
Price $ 94.00
Made in: Bordeaux, France
By: Compagnie Medocaine Des Grands Crus
Release Date: N/A
Wine, Red Wine
13.0% Alcohol/Vol.
Varietal: Bordeaux

Please note that this is for the 2006 vintage and not the 2003 reviewed here.

I had the 2003 Chateau Haut-Bailey on the rack for a while and quite frankly had forgotten what I paid for it.  I’m pretty sure I got it down at Premier Group in NY State and thought it was in the $40-50 US price range, so $94 CDN after LCBO mark-up/taxes sounds about right.  The wine was certain good enough to justify that $94 price tag but not good enough that I will be going out and trying to find cases of it.  That said it was very good and I’m certainly glad we tried it.

Click here for part 2