A Couple Simple Wines on a Simple Night Out

Hello, fellow wine drinkers. Oh, I'm just so excited! I'm writing this just as the Washington Huskies beat #11 UCLA by nine in a Pac 10 basketball showdown. Now they sit on top of the Pac 10.

So on to what this is supposed to be. Today’s post will include some thoughts about two different wines we drank last night while at dinner at a cute little place near Coeur d’Alene called Kynrede Café. Shelley likened it to a restaurant she absolutely loves in Orange County called The Hobbit.

Shelley ordered a glass of La Palma Sauvignon Blanc from the Cachapoal Valley of Chile. It was a 2007 vintage and estate grown. It was everything a good Sauvignon Blanc should be. Shelley thought it was a somewhat effervescent. I thought it had a very grassy nose and it was very light.

I ordered a 2004 Cambria Chardonnay from their Katherine’s Vineyard. This estate bottle Chardonnay is from the Santa Maria Valley in Santa Barbara County, California. Surprisingly, it had virtually no nose. However, it tasted much better than the nose with light oak, somewhat toasty, very smooth and mellow. Shelley thought had a slightly perfumy nose and had a light butter and oak taste to it. Just a perfect amount of oak in this Chardonnay.

We have visited this winery before and the people there are very nice. Katherine’s Vineyard is named for the owner’s eldest daughter. I remember sneaking out to where all the oak casks were when we visited. We even bought our most very favorite wine opener at the Cambria winery but it recently broke and we’re in the process of finding another one just like it. This opener is flat and has a nifty little foil cutter on one end that opens up when you need to use it and the cork screw on the other end. It’s very small, light, simple and easy to use. But, since it’s made of plastic, it can break when trying to pry a cork out of an older bottle of wine and that’s just what happened.

Shelley ordered Chicken Marcella and realized the Sauvignon Blanc probably wouldn’t pair too well with it. I ordered the Coconut Prawns and I faced a similar dilemma with my Chardonnay. What WOULD we do?

Well, we did just that and pulled the old switcheroo. Her chicken paired very well with the Chardonnay and the Sauvignon Blanc was delicious with my prawns. Of course, we both got to taste the other dish as well. All in all it was a very enjoyable meal, especially when you look at the per glass prices of the wine, $4.25 for the Chilean Sauvignon Blanc and $5.75 for the Chardonnay.

As always, thank you for reading, and now go drink up!

2009 Inauguration Day tasting notes

What a day! President Obama was sworn into office and the whole nation, including ourselves, were fixated on the events as they unfolded. As I looked at their luncheon menu I noticed they chose all California wines to pair with their meal. A 2007 Duckhorn Sauvignon Blanc with the first coarse, a 2005 Goldeneye Pinot Noir to go with the second coarse and a Korbel Natural “Special Inaugural Cuvee” sparkling wine (they errantly called it a California Champagne) for the third, and last, course. Go to http://inaugural.senate.gov/luncheon/ to see what food they paired these wines with or try http://store.nexternal.com/shared/StoreFront/default.asp?CS=duckhorn&StoreType=BtoC&Count1=723919093&Count2=641059517&ProductID=1193&Target=products.asp to buy the first two wines in a wooden gift box and enjoy what all the dignitaries at the luncheon enjoyed.

A side note, Shelley’s all-time favorite Merlot is made by Duckhorn. We have a couple bottles that we laid down some years back, one of them a 25th anniversary bottle. Perhaps we should think about bringing one of those up soon to enjoy, yes?

Tonight we celebrated this historic day by finishing off that wonderful lasagna from Sunday night and we opted to try a blend with it—an unusual blend from Oxford Landing from South Australia called GSM, which stands for Grenache, Shiraz, Mourvedre. I told you it was unusual. Oxford Landing has been around since 1958 and this 2006 GSM was a blend of 47% Grenache, 43% Shiraz and 10% Mourvedre.

Shelley thought she noticed pomegranate in the nose but changed that to, get this, concord grapes. How often do you get anything grape from a wine? Everything BUT grapes, right? I tasted cherries and Shelley added that they were sour cherries, at that. I couldn’t argue. A very smooth, well rounded red wine with virtually no tannins and didn’t taste as young as it should have.

We opened our evening by opening a bottle of Robert Mondavi Chardonnay from 2007. OK, nothing mind blowing here. We both thought the same thing after looking, smelling and tasting: Oak. There was so much oak in this Chardonnay that you couldn’t really taste that it was Chardonnay. That might explain why we each only had a glass and the rest sits in the bottle in the fridge. Perhaps we’ll try and finish it another night. It used to be that you could count on anything from Mondavi to be, at least, good, but not anymore. How sad.

And that’s what I have for you tonight. Until next time, drink up and enjoy!