Weekend indulgence recap.
To most Italian families dinner time is the most important time of the day. Growing up in an Italian family I was exposed to cooking at a very young age. It was happening all around me and all the time. Believe me, it was quite unacceptable for us to toss a TV dinner in a microwave and call it food. Daily dinners were planned early and watched closely. A simple dinner of pasta and meatballs started with crushed tomatoes being stewed in a pot for hours while my grandmother was mixing the meat with herbs and spices before heading down to the basement to fry them partially.
Food and the enjoyment of good food has always been very important to me. Hell, Fine dining is what I'm all about! I'm always down for enjoying a kick-ass meal. Even if it means I'm the one who has to occasionally cook it all up. Lets get this straight, I rarely do cook. I come home way too late to start then and I'm quite lazy during the week anyway. So, when I do cook I try to pull out the stops and go for something big and challenging. This past Saturday, K and I made a very nice meal and drank some damn good wines (and a couple wines that were just..."odd") I'll recap what we had and see how the wines matched up.
We started with a light Fresca Salad - Fresh mozzarella and red tomatoes sliced thick over mixed greens. Topped with pine nuts, black olives, top shelf olive oil and 18yo balsamic vinegar.
This was really good. I based this off a salad I had once down in Tampa. Mmmm, I could live on just fresh mozzarella and that balsamic alone.
With this we drank: Bacchus, Cabernet Sauvignon - Napa - 2006. I've reviewed this wine before. It is a great everyday, all purpose Cab Sav. Easy to drink and won't conflict with most foods. With a price point under $20 it's a no brainer to include this in everyones "go to" wine rack.
The main course of the evening was a surf and turf. Filet Mignon with Blackberries in Red Wine and Grilled half lobster tails with herb butter.
I loved the filet. This was only the 2nd time I prepared this but I feel quite comfortable making this dish. It is a rather simple recipe to execute and as long as you follow the order in which ingredients get cooked. You can not go wrong. A tender cut of meat with a rich and semi sweet blackberry sauce. It's a great take on Beef Filet. If anyone wants the recipe just ask and I'll post it.
The grilled herb lobster tail was very good but not great as I had hoped. I think I can tweak the recipe to make it a bit less "herby" and a bit more "grilled" for next time.
I opened a special wine I found earlier in the week for our main course.
La Poderina Brunello di Montalcino - 2000
Varietal: Sangiovese
Country: Italy
Region: Tuscany
SubRegion: Montalcino
Availability: It can be found at a few places online. Vintages vary.
Price: Between $60 and $80. Depending on where you have to get it from.
I chose this wine to go with the filet mostly. I need something that would hold up but not over power such a tender dish. Plus, I wanted something that would complement the blackberries in the sauce. This Brunello worked perfectly! The first thing you notice is the HUGE bouquet this wine exudes. Blackberry, blackcurrant, vanilla, red flowers, tobacco and anise. All hitting your scent receptors all at once. This is one of the most fragrant of wines I have ever come across. Clear and bright ruby in color with no sediment. The pallet was full-bodied. Currant, blackberry, black cherry with very solid tannins. The finish was nice and long (45 sec) with more of the blackberry lingering. I'm guessing that this would easily hold up quite nicely in a cellar for several more years. I will definitely buy this one again since this bottle went much too fast :-)
During desert I brought out 2 more wines. One was a Rhone red that was a bit young for my tastes.
Domaine Paul Autard Cotes du Rhone - 2006
Varietal: Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre
Country: France
Region: Rhone
Availability: It can be found at several places online.
Price: $12. This wine has potential for a great QPR
Wine Spectator rated this an 88. Several online blogs had it at 89. At first taste I would have rated it an 81 or somewhere around that. The flavors were a bit mixed up and all over. Not to mention it was drinking slightly hot. (Hot=you can taste the alcohol)
Fortunately, It did mellow out a bit after sitting in a decanter for an hour or so and it paired very well with semi-bitter dark chocolate squares but not so much with the medium brie and cherries. For fairness I'll review from the later glasses that had time to decant.
This was another fragrant wine. Dark plum, cherry, lavender and a bit of leather on the nose. It was showing concentrated dark fruit, leather and spices on the pallet. Medium bodied with a short-ish finish. I will be trying this again with longer decanting and not having it follow a more delicate and higher classed wine. I want to give it a fair showing since this falls well below the normal price range of this type of wine.
Another wine that fell even more short of expectations was a NJ wine that I had for a few years.
Alba Vineyard Heritage - 2003
It was a red blend I picked up at a wine tasting festival a few years back. I guess it didn't age quite right, because there would be no way I'd purchase this knowing this outcome. Everything seemed to be confused as to what to become. While there was nothing "flawed" about the wine itself the tannins felt off and fruit was a bit too light, oak was a bit too forward. The consensus was that this wasn't "Bad" or anything but it was just "Odd" and "Different". Sorry, for $25 a bottle I expect much better then "Odd" Needless to say it didn't get finished.
To end the evening we had a awesome little desert wine.
La Sera Red Ambrosia - NV $9
I know very little about this French semi sweet red sparkler. We came across it Saturday morning at the wine shop where there was a small tasting stand. This was a fun little wine and I'm glad I picked it up. More red then pink with a small layer of bubbly foam. Somewhat sweet and lightly fruity without going overboard. The sparkly bubbles cleaned the pallet quite nicely. Would make a fine appertiff or to pair it with your favorite dessert. Light cheeses did well with this one. I would recommend this for what it is, a fizzy, sweet after dinner finisher but nothing I'd drink as a main beverage of the evening.