Dinner at a friends place means good food, good times and lots of laughs, and above all, more than one bottle of wine being opened. Tonight, we saw the wine of 4 bottles exposed to the air and the bottom of a glass.
First up was a wine from right here in Ontario, a Cattail Creek 2009 Chardonnay Musque - a great aperitif with plenty of fruit and fun.
Next a bottle of Patrice Rion 2001 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru 'Le Plan des Dames' from Burgundy was served with dinner. A 9-year-old Pinot Noir that stood up pretty well - some smoky, bacony notes with strawberry and hints of earth on the nose. The fruit is red in the mouth, but slightly bitter - tannins had mellowed and there was a pronounced earthy flavour.
After dinner, sitting around shooting the proverbial poo we opened another two bottles: Talon Winery 2006 Kentucky Cabernet Sauvignon, this is a bottle I picked up while driving down to Florida. The scenery we passed to get to this winery was breathtaking (and so were some of the narrow winding roads). The wine proved to be just as tasty in Ontario as it was in Kentucky: smoky, cassis and anise filled the nose while smoky-vanilla-black raspberries loaded the mouth. This wine was aged in Kentucky oak barrels and had the smoothness of good bourbon.
Finally, a bohemoth of a wine: Concha Y Toro 2007 Casillero del Diablo Reserva Privada from Chile; a blend of 85% Cabernet Sauvignon and 15% Syrah from what the label proclaimed as the "Historic Vintage" of 2007. The label didn't stop there, it also told us it was the "best ever" vintage which led someone at the table to remark, "so what happens next year, or the next they have a 'best vintage ever'?" (This reminded me of the Ontario situation with the comparison between 2007 and 2008 - what indeed happens to the next vintage?) The wine was aged 14 months in French oak and had that real telltale sign of Chile: mint, on both the nose and palate. The nose also had blackberries and cocoa while the palate was all blackberries and big tannins - a nice wine opened too young, another 5 years would have done this wine some real justice, but sometimes you just get too excited about trying something new.
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