Tag Archives: DAZ in the Kitchen

Not feeling guilty drinking Montrachet after feeding the homeless today!

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I had the privilege of spending time and feeding Sydney’s homeless today.  A few have recently been fortunate to get their own place, but all of them are doing it rough.  My local church, St Philip’s York Street Anglican, puts on a great event to invite those doing it rough onto the church grounds every three months.  The one today was amazing as a special Christmas lunch cooking steaks, salads, veggies and potatoes with ice cream sundaes, brownies, cookies for dessert.

St Philip’s and Senior Rector Justin Moffatt illustrating ‘Let There Be Light’

I originally thought the lunch was scheduled for Christmas day and we were going to be away, but I found out at church today that it was this afternoon.  I had already made some other plans, but when a notice came out over Facebook asking for some immediate help, I walked over to the church to help out.  Over 200 people had shown up!

I have regularly fed the homeless before and am comfortable and excited about the opportunity.  They help me more than I can possibly help them.  I leave the experience feeling blessed, and realizing except for the grace of God and the fortunate life I have had, I am not any different than they are.  This group today was amazing.  First off, there were a lot more woman who attended than in other gatherings I have helped with.  Secondly, they were so appreciative!  This was largely a group of kind spirited and warm hearted people.

I left the gathering to return home and discussed dinner plans with my wife.  She is making her amazing chicken pot pie recipe.  Tomorrow night we will finish off the amazing soup she made last night which is chicken, wild rice, bacon and creamy mushroom.

With two great meals of creamy chicken dishes coming up, it demanded I open a bottle of great Chardonnay and I thought the perfect drop would be the 2009 Bouchard Pere & Fils Puligny Montrachet.  I have blogged about this great wine before and how well it goes with meals like we are having tonight and tomorrow night.  But this bottle of wine cost me $75 and is now worth about $175.  It was such as stark contrast to what the homeless eat on a daily basis.  (Today being a real exception!  Many claimed they have never had a better meal in their life!)

But the guilt did not last long.  First of all, the homeless would not have liked this rich or good of wine (I don’t believe).  They prefer coffee with lots of sugar in it for the drink of choice.  Secondly, the money could be far better spent on other cheaper more nutritious drink and food and that was what today was all about.

I enjoy my wine and am not guilty about drinking good wine, and sharing it with others over good meals and discussion.  I also enjoy serving my Lord and serving those doing it rough.  After all, service is my love language!  And today I was privileged to be able to do both.  What a great day.

Those doing it rough at St Philip’s today felt blessed to be in the company of their peers and helpers from the church and be treated to such a great meal and some love and companionship.  I felt privileged to part of that.  And I feel privileged to now be sipping a most amazing Montrachet waiting for my wife’s great chicken pot pie to cook.  I am blessed with a great job, a great wife, great friends and great opportunities to serve.  Both spending time with those doing it rough, and drinking a great Montrachet make me appreciate that!

Given the tragedy in CT, USA and the grief and sorrow so many are going through coming into this holiday season, take some time to appreciate and enjoy the things that really means something to you!

And now, I just got the call for dinner and that great chicken pot pie!  Bye!

Two very interesting bottles of wine

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The majority of my cellar consist of wines that I have bought, usually by the dozen or more.  I enjoy the opportunity to have a repeatable experience of drinking an excellent wine (I only buy wines by the dozen or more when I have had the opportunity to taste the wine), and I love tasting how a wine develops over multiple years.

Yet, I am often gifted wine or have ended up with the ‘loose’ or odd bottle.  Sometimes these bottles represent excellent wines and I am aware of the wines characteristics and how it will taste.  Sometimes I have ended up with a crap bottle of wine, best used for cooking or to pass onto someone who is looking for the alcohol experience more than the wine tasting experience.  But the most interesting bottles are the ones I know nothing about, but have some indication they may be an interesting wine.

In the past several days, I have pulled out two bottles of wine that I knew nothing about.  The first one was a 2001 Courtney’s Post Pinot Noir from Marlborough, NZ and the second, a 1996 Carindale Chardonnay from the Hunter Valley.  Both fortunately proved to be excellent bottles of wine!

Not knowing anything about these wines, I was uncertain what to expect.  I also had the concern that both wines being past their best drinking periods as Pinot Noir does not last well to a decade or beyond and neither does Chardonnay for the most part.  However, you are often blessed to find a bottle that defies the normal structure of the grape and the aging process.  Both of these wines surpassed my expectations by a far mark.

I knew who had given me the Pinot Noir and I was concerned as I had some nice bottles from him previously that had not been cellared properly and had not stood up well.  But the 2001 Courtney’s Post Pinot Noir was great.  It was sweeter than most Pinot Noirs I have had and still retained a lot of fresh fruit with slight overtones of smoke.  My loved one had cooked up a tremendous pasta, chicken, cheese and broccoli casserole where she refused to follow the recipe and added some hot chile sauce and bacon among other things.  It was unbelievably good!  While I would usually match a younger Chardonnay to go with it, I had the Pinot Noir and it worked fine.  While not a perfect match, the wine and the food were both enjoyable.  I would not consider a Shiraz or even a decent Cabernet Sauvignon with a chicken, cheesy pasta dish, but the Pinot Noir was suitable enough.

The next night, I finished the 2001 Courtney’s Post Pinot Noir with a serve of FAT (Feta, Avocado, Tomato on Toast) and that worked well also even though it was not a perfect match.  I think a lot of white wines would have gone well with the FAT, including Pinot Gris and Semillon.  But again, while not a perfect match, the Pinot Noir worked well enough with FAT.  I then had a sip of the Pinot Noir with mango and that did not work!  (I will be writing a separate post a bit later on what wines to drink with veggies and fruits.)

But the strange thing was that I could not find any references to Courtney Post wines, either through Wine-Searcher Pro or through Google.  They may have gone out of business, but I was expecting to find something about them somewhere.  (I must admit that while I did not try exceptionally hard to find a reference to them, I certainly thought it would be easier than it was!)  This was an exceptional wine for which I can find no history.  This is the reason I do not buy single bottles – I would have liked to repeat this experience, but sadly, it has become a ‘one-nighter!’

Tonight, we are having leftover chicken pasta with cheese, broccoli, bacon and chile and I really wanted a Chardonnay to go with it tonight.  I had to scramble and only found two bottles of Chardonnay in my apartment.  Since one was a 2007 La Belle Voisine Chassagne Montrachet, I decided to go with the other one, that being the 1996 Carindale Chardonnay from the Hunter Valley.  When I checked Google this time, I did find a reference and found out it was a Hunter Valley winery that made aged Chardonnay among other wines.  And they are just down the road from Waverley Estate on Palmers Lane who also specialize in aged Chardonnay and Semillon.

I have no recollection of who gave me this bottle or how I came in contact with it.  But it is delicious! I cannot discern a specific fruit flavor to it – it tastes more like a finely blended fruit cocktail, but less sweet, in fact, a bit minerally.  Yet, the texture is somewhat viscous which I really enjoy in a well-aged white wine, and it has a very long finish.  This is a wine which fills and satisfies the senses!  And look at the color of the wine!  While not as golden and as complex as several of my ‘Top 5 whites ever,’ this is a great wine and still has some way to go.  I expect it will be drinking even more beautifully in 3 – 5 years, and hope I can find a bottle to test my theory out!

Fortunately, they are still in business and just around the corner from our place in the Hunter Valley!  I will be visitng them during my next visit to the Hunter Valley.  While they are sold out of the 1996 (and 1998) Chardonnay, they still appear to have some of the 2000 Chardonnay left and if it is anything like the 2000 Waverley Estate Chardonnay (or their own 1996 Chardonnay), it will be a great drink!

I don’t always strive for the best food and wine match, even though I think it is usually worth the effort.  Sometimes I just want to try a particular bottle of wine and will drink it with a meal.  And while I don’t usually like single bottles of undiscernable heritage, I must admit that I got very lucky with these two bottles and they have provided a great drinking experience over the last few days.  Some times it is worth taking a risk and going on a ‘blind date’ with a bottles.  Even though it may not last a life time, it can still be a great one-nighter!

Grenache was made for Sheperd’s Pie!

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A number of red wines work with Sheperd’s Pie.  I have tried a few as my wife, DAZ in the Kitchen, makes a great Sheperd’s Pie!  I have had Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz with Sheperd’s Pie, and both worked fine.  More recently, I had the 2008 Glandore TPR Tempranillo with Sheperd’s Pie and thought it worked better than either a Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz. Tempranillo is a secondary and less popular red wine grape, but a beautiful drink.

Grenache is another secondary wine grape growing in popularity.  I have been slow to coming to truly like Grenache as a grape, but really enjoying it more recently.  I have been tasting more decent wines from Châteauneuf-du-Pape and have been able to discern the more pleasurable characteristics of Grenache.  We also recently have a tremendous Australian Grenach (the 2006 Cirillo 1850 Grenache) which was wonderful with Korean BBQ.

The characteristics I love about Grenache (and Tempranillo) is that they make hearty, chewable wines that are still elegant and well-refined.  It almost seems to be a contradiction in terms, and that is why some of the cheaper, younger Grenache wines don’t work.  The compexities and balance are not there yet.

I had a single bottle of the 2006 Perrin & Fils Châteauneuf-du-Pape Les Sinards and remembering how good the 2006 Cirillo 1850 Grenache was from a few days before, I thought a Grenache would go very well with Sheperd’s Pie that evening.  It ended up being a perfect match!

The 2006 Cirillo 1850 Grenache was 100% Grenache.  But often the Grenache grape is blended with smaller quantities of other grapes.  The 2006 Perrin & Fils Châteauneuf-du-Pape Les Sinards is such a blend being 70% Grenache, 15% Shiraz, and 15% Mourvedre.  This blending is typical of a wines from Châteauneuf-du-Pape and why there can be such a wide variety of different tasting wines from that region.

Grenache (or a Grenache blend) works well with Sheperd’s Pie because both the texture of the wine and the taste compliment the food beautifully.  This wine is ‘meaty’ on its own and mixes with the juice from the pie in a splendid sensation of flavours.  Additionally, the leaner, elegant characteristics compliment the mash potato used in the pie.

I have not tried a Pinot Noir with Sheperd’s Pie and you may be asking why as it contains lamb mince.  I think most Pinot Noirs would be too light in texture to work with the heartiness of Sheperd’s Pie.

If you have not tried Grenache before, you owe it to yourself to do so.  And if you are going to cook up Sheperd’s Pie, then you definitely should be looking for a bottle of Grenache to go with it (or a bottle of a Tempranillo).  For my palate, a Grenache is a far better match for Sheperd’s Pie than Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz.

Seriously? A 1987 Lindemans Shiraz with pizza tonight?

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I have so many topics queued up to blog about.  I love talking about (and drinking) wine.  Today I was discussing a very interesting new wine education concept with a friend and he called me wine-centric.  I kind of liked that!  And it fit in well with the wine educational concept he is promoting.  The guy I was talking with is Ben Hughes, who has a lifetime of experience in the wine industry as a seller, maker and educator.  Deanna and I have taken a wine tasting class from him previously which was great fun and very educational.  Ben is now starting his new and improved venture The Australian Wine and Beer School (AWBS).  It looks like a great way to teach a wide variety of people on Australian wine and beer.  Most importantly, it takes the mystique and intimidation out of learning about wine and makes it downright fun!

Perfect Cork

Because Ben was coming over and because I knew he would appreciate it, I opened my last bottle of the 1987 Lindemans Shiraz which I happened to come across when checking out the temperature in my Vintec.  Plus I knew I needed to drink it soon as with each passing year, it was at risk of becoming more past due.

I had taken a bottle of this to the Hunter Valley last year, but had about five winter months when it was not stored in optimal conditions.  That was a mistake for a 25 year old (and) fragile wine.  I was excited to have that bottle one day at Bistro Molines, but upon opening and decanting it, I found it was not in great condition and had to pour it down the drain – a real shame!  But the bottle I opened today to drink with Ben was much better.  The cork was perfect (except it was dry on the top and did crumble when trying to open it), and the wine much better preserved and drinkable than the bottle I took to the Hunter and was stored outside of proper cellaring conditions.

Since the cork crumbled into the bottle, I had to filter it to ensure no cork fragments made their way into the wine.  However, I was careful not to aerate it as it would have further harmed an already fragile (but still pretty good) structure. Opening any wine this old requires special care as I discussed in a previous post.  This wine was not brownish (brownish being a sure sign of too much oxidation in the bottle) and clearly lasted better than the bottle I opened last year.  While not having lively fruit flavors, it was still a remarkable wine, perfectly integrated and balanced, and your typical Hunter Shiraz.

Sharing a ‘last bottle’ bestows a great honor for all involved.  As I get down to my remaining few bottles of a particular wine and vintage, I think carefully about who I want to drink that wine with.  And knowing Ben would appreciate it and with a lifetime in the wine industry, he would enjoy this bottle of wine.  That makes it a delight to share with others.  When you have that special bottle and that last bottle, put some thought into who you want to share it with.

And notice the Temperature gauge on the bottle!  This was a birthday present from a friend after reading that I do not use a temperature gauge when checking the temperature of bottles before serving.  More on this in a future post!

And since Ben was driving, we have some wine left over to go with the pizza I am making tonight.  And I am able to share that tonight with the most important person in my life, my wife and soul mate, Deanna, writer of DAZ in the Kitchen.  This will be the most notable wine we have ever had with pizza.  Usually a Chianti or Cabernet Sauvignon does the trick, but tonight it will be a 1987 Lindemans Shiraz!  The spicy, peppery flavors should match up well with the chili and garlic I load onto the pizza.  And if you want the recipe for the pizza, check out DAZ in the Kitchen blog post for our pizza recipe.

I hope the food and wine you have tonight will be as enjoyable as what we are doing!  Enjoy!

A more than very fine red wine

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My wife is making spaghetti tonight for dinner.  It will be tomato-based, with mince and chirizo.  And it will have lots of garlic, onions and other spices.  Therefore, I needed to select a wine with strong spice and pepper flavors, yet something delicate enough to go with pasta.  There are very few wines that accomplish both.  While many Cabernet Sauvignon are delicate enough, it would be missing the spice.  Some Shiraz’ certainly have the spice, but are often so thick with granular tannins that you can chew the wine on its own!  Very few wines are delicate and spicy at the same time.

One great exception to that is the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz.  This is one of the best Australian reds ever made in my opinion.  For my 58th birthday, I served up this wine just before the 2001 Yalumba Octavius following that wine with the 1981 Penfolds Grange (which is a great wine!), and people seemed a bit ‘let down’ with the Octavius and Grange!  While both are tremendous wines in their own right, the finish on the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz lasted ‘almost forever’ and had a more delicate sensuous texture than the heavier and grittier Octavius and Grange.

Some of you may think that such a fine wine is an overkill for spaghetti, but my wife, “DAZ in the Kitchen” makes a truly wonderful spaghetti well deserving of this wine!  And it has been a surreal week at work and when I arrived home, I just wanted to embrace the very best bottle of wine I could.  I knew we were having spaghetti, and wanted a wine to go well with it, but I also wanted a special treat to drink on its own as I write this blog post.  (I am well into my second glass now, so expect my creativity to continue to increase!)

The 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 was the second to last vintage of Vat 9 that Andrew Thomas made while the chief red wine maker at Tyrrell’s and I remember him telling me it was one of his favorite vintages.  This is certainly one of my all-time favorite wines.  I was very fortunate to buy all remaining stock of this vintage from Tyrrell’s several years ago (21 bottles) and have about 9 bottles left for special occasions and sharing with great friends.  But tonight, I needed a special bottle to treat myself and something worthy of matching up well with my wife’s most amazing spaghetti!

And that bottle of very fine red of choice for tonight was the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz.  Always feel free to treat yourself when you need it!  I did.

Made a mistake with the wine tonight!

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For a long time now, I have been craving blackened swordfish and black bean soup.  It is difficult to find black beans in Australia and nobody serves Cajun style fish in restaurants here.  Therefore, I went to the Internet and got some recipes for both and for once, I did the cooking tonight instead of my famous (to me anyway!) chef partner, DAZ from Daz in the Kitchen fame!

Surprisingly, the meal turned out really well.  All day, I was pretty certain I would be serving up a Hunter Valley Semillon to go with it, and had decided on the 2005 Tyrrell’s Vat 1 as a slightly better match than the truly outstanding 1999 Meerea Park Alexander Munro Semillon.  The 2005 Vat 1 would have been a little crisper and set off the Cajun spices better than the smoother Museum release 1999 Meerea Park.

However, for some reason just before starting to cook, I asked my lovely bride if she would prefer a Riesling instead of a Semillon.  I had been staring at a bottle of the 2008 Grosset Polish Hill and decided to raise the question.  Well, she ALWAYS prefers a Riesling so said she would prefer that.  I was going to have a glass while blogging before I started cooking and as soon as I took my first sip, I realized we had made a mistake.

The 2008 Grosset Polish Hill is a beautiful wine and many reviewers rated the 2008 vintage as 99/100.  This is a spectacular wine!  But it was too metallic to match up well and blend with the Cajun spices on the fish.  I could have opened the 2005 Tyrrell’s Vat 1 Semillon in addition, but then I would have two open bottles of white and I knew I was going to be opening a great bottle of red (1992 Lindemans Pyrus) tomorrow, and that is too much wine for the two of us over two days.  Therefore, we ‘suffered’ through drinking a great wine and eating great food, but not having the combination work as well as it should have.

There are just certain times when the right grape with the food makes the wine a much better wine regardless of rating and what you think of the other wine.  I try not to get carried away with wine and food matching, but some foods just demand one grape over the another.  And tonight was one of those meals where that was true.  Even a mediocre Semillon would have worked far better than the best Riesling.

I had a similar experience a few weeks ago when eating at a Lebanese restaurant and trying out both an average Semillon and an excellent Riesling.  The average Semillon won the battle that night also.  No matter how good the wine, if the grape does not match up well with the food, you will not have a great drinking or eating experience.

Chardonnay with chicken one night, Riesling with chicken the next!

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Last night we had some magnificent Chicken Pot Pies for dinner.  My lovely bride has posted the recipe in her blog DAZ in the Kitchen.  Make sure you enjoy these tummy warmers before spring gets truly on top of us (here in Australia – in the US you are now moving into Chicken Pot Pie season!).  These pot pies are easy to make and simply delicious!  Don’t just throw a Swanson frozen pie in the microwave if you are in the US either!  Follow the recipe and provide yourself a real treat!  (And serve Chardonnay with it!)

From my post yesterday, you understand that we choose a beautiful Chardonnay, the 2006 Penfolds Bin 144 Yatarnna to go with the Chicken Pot Pies.  Tonight we are having Orange Chicken for dinner, yet having a Riesling instead of Chardonnay as it will match with the food better.

So, why not just do Chardonnay again?  Yesterday, the food was tasty but mild, had a creamy sauce and a light pastry crust on top.  Not wanting to have either the wine or the food outshine the other, we choose a mellow Chardonnay to go match equally with the food in terms of taste and texture.  However, tonight’s meal is Orange Chicken, which uses a tangy-er orange concentrate, some balsamic vinegar and a few other ingredients.  Therefore, we needed an edgier, sharper wine and therefore it made sense to select a Riesling.

There are a lot of great Australian Rieslings, especially from Clare Valley, SA.  But my favorite Riesling of late comes from Alsace and Hugel.  We are drinking the 2009 vintage and it is a spectacular wine for the money.   We paid $30 per bottle for this.

I have some great Rieslings we paid $15 – $18 per bottle for, including Ladbroke, Leo Buring, Annie’s Lane, and Mamre Brook, but I did not have one of those chilled.  After this bottle of the 2009 Hugel Alsace Riesling, I will need to be more selective as I only have four bottles left and this is a truly spectacular wine.  In fact, this wine is so good, it is part of my second best wine meal ever!  I may need to see if I can source some more.

The 2009 Hugel Alsace Riesling has melon flavors and a long finish.  And dare I say, a slight taste of banana.  (Or maybe the banana impression is coming from the baking of banana bread by my wife today that is sitting on top of the kitchen counter!)

As an aside, the other thing I love about French wines, is the corks!  They still use corks more often than not (I am not sure I would find an Australian Riesling from 2009 with a cork – can anyone help me out here?), and such beautifully labeled corks.  I keep all of my labeled corks in a big basket (which I hope is filled some day!) and the French are helping me out here.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the value and the risk-adverse approach to using screw tops, but there is still an ambient experience of opening a cork, and looking at how it held up that is difficult to beat.  It is just one more small, but nice element to complete a lovely Sunday evening meal.

Bin 144 Yatarnna – Penfolds White Grange

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With the great success of Grange over many years, Penfolds has always been interested in the concept of the creating a ‘White’ Grange.  The Penfolds Bin 144 Yatarnna is as close as they have come and it is commonly referred to as White Grange.  It is made from reserved Chardonnay grapes and usually cost around $130 per bottle.  I was very fortunate to pick up several dozen of the 2006 Yatarnna for a good price when some were found and treated as excess stock by the dealer.

During the 1990’s, Penfolds tried a number of ‘trial bins’ in an attempt to create a White Grange before settling on Yatarnna.  And to be honest, Penfolds was looking for an iconic white wine to match Grange, but never really had to the intent of marketing any wine as White Grange.  This was a moniker of wine writers around Australia.

In 1992, Penfolds started creating a number of trial bins to create an iconic white wine.  I actually have four bottles of the 1995 Penfolds Adelaide Hills Trial Bin Semillon, which I bought in 1997 in a Melbourne bottle shop.  I have not tried one yet, but am now excited to find out if this wine was a mistake or not!  I was only spending between $12 – $18 per bottle then for wines I did not know anything about, but wanted to try.  (In 1997, I did pay $200 per bottle for several bottles of the 1992 Penfolds Grange which were released that year.)  Therefore, I am certain I did not pay more than $18 for the Trial Bin Semillon I picked up.

One of the characteristics of Grange is that is was built to last a very long time, and I expect they wanted to have the same characteristic for an iconic white.  Therefore, Semillon certainly would have been a good choice of grape to experiment with.  In selling off wine recently and thinning my stock, I had the four bottles of the 1995 Penfolds Adelaide Hills Trial Bin Semillon on sale for $10 per bottle!  Fortunately, nobody bought any.  I will be trying a bottle soon to decide if I have an unknown gem here or not.  If so, then I will gladly share the remaining bottles with some great friends, and if not, we will use the remaining bottles for cooking wine!

But back to the Penfolds Bin 144 Yatarnna.  This is one of the finest Chardonnays you will find in Australia.  I still like my Montrachets a bit better, but the Yatarnna is a great Chardonnay.  I am currently sipping a 2006 Yatarnna which is stunning and one of the better vintages.  (The first vintage of Yatarnna was in 1995.)  It has powerful lemon flavors and some peach and grass flavor.  It is mellow but with a slight edge and crispness.  This wine should drink well for another five years or so.

I selected this wine to go with my wife’s homemade chicken pot pie which is in the oven now!  I am looking forward to that combination and am sure she will have an upcoming recipe in her blog “DAZ in the Kitchen.”  This mellow, yet robust wine will match beautifully win the chicken pot pie.

I have been upset at some of the commercial finanglings of TWE with the Penfolds brand, and have sold off most of my Penfolds inventory, but I have a dozen of this great wine left.  My wife has an easy way to tell if a wine is outstanding or not, and that is to ‘not notice’ that the bottle has been emptied so quickly when it it just the two of us drinking it, and that always happens with the 2006 Penfolds Bin 144 Yatarnna!  In fact, my wife just took a sip and stated, “You see, this wine does all the right things.  You sip it, it hits my palate perfectly and goes right down without thinking about it.”

While I find fault in some of TWE’s commerical approaches (TWE owns Penfolds), I cannot fault Penfolds for the passion they have always exhibited in making great wines and the 2006 Bin 144 Yatarnna is one of them!

Pinot Noir with Pork Chops tonight!

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My bride and I have some pork in our diet, usually when having Chinese dumplings or Yum Cha.  Or sometimes we will dice it and stir-fry it for a pork salad or mixed with rice.

However, it has been ages since I have had a man-size pork chop for dinner.  My mom used to make pork chops as regular fair when I was growing up, but I believe it has actually been decades since I have had a pork chop.  We are also having mash potatoes and salad to go with the chops.  I sure my bride will be publishing an upcoming post with the recipe in DAZ in the Kitchen sometime soon!  (in fact, she just posted the recipe and blog entry for great pork chops a bit ago.  Here it is at DAZ in the Kitchen.)

The pork chops are currently slow cooking in the oven for about five hours (and smell great BTW!).  Therefore, I expect them to be juicy and flavorful throughout.  I considered a few options for the wine, include Pinot Noir, a GSM (Grenache, Shiraz, Mourvedre) combination such as a Chateauneuf-Du-Pape Les Sinard, or a true Burgandy Pinot Noir.

A safe choice would have been the Bannockburn Pinot Noir from Victoria, but since this was a new dish and ripe with juices and flavours, I wanted something a little more adventuresome, not an easy, elegant, refined Pinot Noir.  I wanted a big, aged Pinot Noir with complex flavors and big fruit flavors.  A Charteris Pinot Noir from New Zealand could do the trick, but my Pinots from PJ (Chateris) are only three or four years old.  PJ’s Pinot Noirs are big and elegant at the same time and beautifully drinkable now.  However, I like to challenge my Pinot Noirs to age in complexity and show me how good they are in old age!  (Maybe this is a transference to something I am doing as I approach 60!)

I have had some 2003 and 2004 Pinot Noirs from Blueberry Hill in the Hunter Valley.  As you know, I favor the Hunter Valley for my Shiraz, Semillon, and Chardonnay.  I do not really buy Pinot Noir or Cabernet Sauvignon from the Hunter.  However, I there have been two Pinot Noirs I sampled and liked, including a specially blended (2005 and 2008 grapes) Pinot Noir from Sandalyn in Lovedale and the Blueberry Hill’s Pinot Noirs.  I bought four bottles of the 2003 and also several bottles of the 2004 Blueberry Hill Pinot Noir, but for some reason have never drunk them.

I always pick one of the bottles up and admire the beautiful labels used for the Blueberry Hill wines, but for some reason or another, have put it down and selected something else to go with dinner.  I actually cannot explain this, except to say that I am a creature of habit and only having been to the winery twice, I never got into regular tastings year-in, year-out like I have for some of my other Hunter Valley favorites.  Therefore, my beautiful bottles of Blueberry Hill have sat and collected dust!

If you know your Pinot Noir grape at all, you know many good bottles will go off after 10 years.  I have recently had some magnificent Pinot Noirs which have been 10 – 12 years old and really try to push this limit as the wine grows in complexity and elegance.  However, if you wait too long, it loses its flavor unless you like drinking the flavor of vinegar!  Therefore, if I have a dozen or more of one particular vintage of Pinot Noir, I will sample a bottle every couple of years (and enjoy it along the way!) to be able to determine the best time to drink most of the bottles.

Unfortunately, I did not do that with the 2003 Blueberry Hill Pinot Noir.  When I opened the bottle, my immediate reaction was that the wine was dead, and completely flavorless.  However, this was just from the neck of the wine after removing the cork.  When I decanted it, I could tell the color was still good and had not turned brown.  There was only a very slight indication of that.  And after decanting and pouring a glass (of course into my favorite Riedel Vinum Pinot Noir glass), I was able to nose some remaining fruit.  Upon tasting, I enjoyed plum and a bit of leather taste.  The texture was perfect with fully integrated tannins.

The wine is still very drinkable, but should have optimally been drunk in 2007 – 2009, not at the end of 2012.  The wine is somewhat fragile (notice the loose edge between light and dark red color in the glass in the picture above).  Therefore, while still flavorful, the flavor breaks down quickly in your mouth and does not have much finish.

I can tell this was a good bottle of wine, but should have been drunk when five years old, not at nine years of age.  I will need to drink the other bottles quickly and may use some of them for an educational tasting seminar, in terms of comparing a young, aging, mature and past due wine of the same grape and maker.

This wine is certainly good to drink with dinner and will go well with the pork chops and mash, but I did both myself and Blueberry Hill a dis-service to wait this long to drink it. I will need to stop by Blueberry Hill the next time I am in the Hunter Valley and get a couple of bottles of the current release.  They make a nice Hunter Valley Pinot Noir and not many Hunter Valley wineries can say that!  And thanks to Riedel for their Pinot Noir glass which help funnel and save the remaining flavor of this wine!  It’s a good thing my head isn’t smaller, or I might get it caught in the globe since I really do like to stick my nose in there!

Update two hours after opening bottle and with dinner:  This wine improved significantly, with the little bit of brackish taste having worn off.  It was a real treat with the pork chop and mash!  Well done to the cook and the winemaker!

My first wine in three weeks!

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Yesterday, I wrote about being ready to “come off the wagon” and have my first wine in three weeks after an extended period of illness and treatment of antibiotics.  I also mentioned the pressure associated with opening ‘just the right bottle.’  I had pretty much selected the wine (for reasons mentioned in yesterday’s post) as a Cabernet Sauvignon, and I was leaning towards the 2008 Stonefields Vineyard Arbitrage Cabernet Sauvignon from the Wrattonbully region of South Australia.  However, when I was over at my cellar retrieving some wine this morning, I decided to bring back and try either the 1999 Zema Estate Cabernet Sauvignon or the 2006 Coldstream Hills Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon and brought a bottle of each back to the apartment.

The 1999 Zema Estate, however, is one of the truly magnificent Cabernet Sauvignons I have had over the years and I only had three bottles left.  It is a wine to share with great food and great friends.  Having even fonder memories of the 2006 Coldstream Hills Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon than the the 2008 Stonefields Aribtrage, I decided that would be by bottle to “come off the wagon with.” 

The reason I decided to switch to the 2006 Colstream Hills Reserve Cabernet was various, including:

  • It was slightly lower in alcohol (14% versus 14.5%) than the Stonefields Arbitrage.
  • It reminded me of the gracious individual and the “heart and soul” of Lindeman’s for 12 years, Damien Harrison, who sold it to me and is a legend in the wine industry and the great wine times we have had together.
  • I did review with my bride, Deanna Lang, who writes DAZ in the Kitchen, what we were having for dinner tonight which is a minced meat, cheese and elbow pasta casserole dish for which I thought the slightly more complex (but not overly complicated for the casserole) wine would go better with, considering the extra onions, garlic and other spices she tends to add into most recipes, and I am expected she will tonight also!

Therefore I made the switch to the Coldstream Hills Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon and glad I did!  This wine cost about $50 per bottle (even though I was able to get it at a stock clearance for $30 per bottle).  Upon decanting, it appeared slightly flat and a bit tight, but within ten minutes had opened up nicely, became more flavorful, and had a strong taste of blackcurrant, slight taste of black olive tapenade, and a bit of leather which appears to be as much a matter of texture as taste.

I personally love the smell of leather and find a wine to be more enjoyable when it is a bit leathery on the tongue and palate.  (I have only met one person in my life who hated the smell of new leather, but that’s a different story!)  I also surprisingly loved the ritual of decanting and serving the wine and was shocked at how much I missed the ritual and experience during the last three weeks, but that’s the topic for another post.

Now that I have had a glass while writing this blog (and ‘no’, I did not make it to the library to read!), I am going to wait until dinner to have another glass with the mince casserole!  Back to the good times of enjoying great food and great wine!