Food, Wine & Friends Page 256A

We gathered on a Sunday after to celebrate several birthdays...

Brian opened a bottle of Bruno Paillard Champagne...

...their 2002 Brut "Assemblage."

The Bruno Paillard was a nice, mildly toasty Champagne...

It was over-shadowed, in my opinion, by the Billecart-Salmon Cuvee Sous Bois, a wood-aged cuvee which had exceptionally nice toasty, woodsy notes to it (reminded me a bit of our favorite bottlings from Vilmart).

This wine inspired Kareasa to start singing Broadway Show Tunes which had been the favorites of our late colleague and friend, Bob Gorman.

Since she was soon to be heading to Germany, she sang the tune "Wilkommen" from Cabernet Cabaret.

Ellen was delighted that none of her windows shattered.


Ellen, by the way, is a cat lady.

Connie, meanwhile, talked about holding a seashell up to you ear and hearing the ocean waves...

"...and if you look into a bottle of good Champagne you can see the vineyards!"

Toohey was not so sure about this claim.

Brian opened the two bottles of 2011 French White Burgundies...

We began with a Crab and Romaine Lettuce Salad and two delicious whites from Joseph Drouhin.

The Beaune Clos des Mouches was beautifully toasty, smoky, dry and crisp.  The Meursault Perrières was also in the realm of "Damn-That's-Good!".

Ellen had prepared a Coq au Vin and so we had a couple of Red Burgundies, which did not displease the crowd.

There was a big bowl of fresh pasta to go underneath the Coq au Vin...


Ellen presents the Coq au Vin...

There was a bit pot of Brussels Sprouts to accompany the Coq au Vin.

We enjoyed the 2011 Drouhin reds...
The Clos des Mouches was nicely cherryish and redolent of various red fruits with a mild wood component.
The Beaune Greves was also very appealing:  nicely toasty oak and vanillin gave this a beautiful fragrance and flavor.  The tannins were balanced, so drinking this in its youth was a pleasure!

As we know he's quite busy with school (teaching), beer-making (and beer drinking, come to think of it), baseball, basketball (big A's and Warriors' fan) and so this snapshot of Ralph lighting the candle at both ends somehow made sense.

We then had a few birthday gifts to unwrap!

Jackpot!!!

And with all that unwrapping, we were able to wrap up this most pleasant evening, hosted by Toohey, Brian, Ellen and friends.



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