I have been a little lax about updating this blog because we re building a new website and I keep hoping we can move all blogs to one location ... But the change over is moving at the speed of IT, and anyone who has worked with an IT department knows exactly what that means. Subsequently I have not posted anything here thinking that I would just have to move it or it would not get swept up in the move ... but since we find ourselves behind schedule I thought I best keep going with my wine finds ... this one goes back to a dinner party we attended in early January - with a friend who is as passionate about wine as she is for making great food, not sure which one comes first in her book:
We kicked things off with a hybrid of our own doing: a Chateau des Charmes Sparkling Brut and a dash of Tawse 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon Icewine, on it's own the Icewine had strawberry, cherry and hints of spice, not too sweet, with nice balancing acidity. Combined they made one hell of an impressive aperitif. There was also another bottle of bubbly on the table that night, but alas I did not take note of what it was.
Our friend is a huge fan of Malbec, and I thought I grab one from the homeland and one from the adopted land (France and Argentina) - both wines had a fair bit of age on them. The Argentinean was a Altos 2002 Las Hormigas, and it was head-snappingly atrocious in both smell and flavour ... granted, maybe it was a little too long in the tooth, but I can't believe that plastic cork helped in any way. The French version was a Chateau de Gaudou 2005 Cahors Tradition, and it showed amazingly well with plum, spice and pepper notes on the nose; palate was well-balanced with black raspberry and a lovely cedar finish ... now it also wasn't all Malbec (80%), it also had some Merlot (15%) and Tannat in there as well (5%).
Final wine of the night was Lillypilly Estate 2002 Noble Blend, I thought it was lovely for its age: caramel, apricot, lemon, baked pineapple, and after a while develops marmalade notes, these all appeared on the nose; palate showed off honey-apricot with some lively acidity, creamy mid, and a floral-vanilla finish ... alas I was the only one who really enjoyed this ... but then sometimes my inner wine-geek takes over.
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