Food, Wine & Friends Page 85
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Gerald Whips Up Dinner After A
Tasting of Pinot Noirs
April 2005 |
With the nibbles to start as we get things cooking, we opened
a bottle of Billecart-Salmon Brut Champagne.
This showed a lovely elegance...mildly yeasty and quite dry. Very fine!
We then grilled some seafood sausages and plated them on a bed of corn and
pepper "confetti."
We tried a couple of young Spanish whites with this plate...I embellished the
sausage with some rock shrimp.
The main plate was duck...
A lentil pilaf and some golden beets accompanied the grilled duck.
We opened a Bargetto red wine from California along with Pojer e Sandri's
marvelous 2001 Rosso Faye.
The Bargetto is a 1999 vintage featuring Italian varietals. It was
certainly towards the end of its life span and an interesting red with some
orange peel spice notes.
The Rosso Faye is a magnificent Trentino blend featuring Bordeaux varieties
laced with some Lagrein.
For dessert we had a sponge cake "cup" filled with vanilla ice cream
and topped with fresh raspberries. I poured a late harvest Tokaji.
The estate is Kiralyudvar and their 1999 is somewhat acidic and a bit
astringent. It's not terribly sweet, so I probably should have paired that
with something like foie gras and not a sweet dessert.
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BOB'S POST CABERNET DINNER
May 2005 |
We had a spectacular bottle of Palmer 1996 Blanc de Blanc Champagne following
our 2001 Cabernet tasting in May of 2005.
The Champagne was actually a shade too cold, but as it warmed slightly, this
blossomed most handsomely.
Nibbles.
Meanwhile, Chef Bob was preparing the Dover Sole.
This is cooked in a mixture of butter and olive oil after flouring.
Bob plated the sole alongside some salad greens.
We opened two "research" bottles of California Chardonnays.
One is La Tour Vineyards, a Napa Valley white with tons of tutti-frutti and
sweet vanillin notes...very commercial. It's supposed to sell for $35 or
so.
Also on the table was a wine called Ambullneo. This is a bigger, richer
wine. It's a $50 retail bottle, having, apparently, a significant scarcity
tax associated with it. Nice wine, but we can think of many wines we'd
prefer to have which carry more honest price tags.
Bob had a pork roast in the oven.
Voila!
We opened two bottles of 1993 Bordeaux:
Cos d'Estournel was typically tobacco-like and still a bit severe and
tannic. It's closing in on maturity, but has a fair bit of tannin to shed
yet.
The Pichon Baron was a bit more herbal and a shade smoother. Nice wine,
but not grand.
Dessert was a superb fruit bowl with Château La Colline's outstanding sweet
Bergerac wine. This is superior to many Sauternes.
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