Food, Wine & Friends Page 189
Having enjoyed Bob's Truffled Chicken this past weekend, we scored some more
Summer Truffles and gathered a few friends to help eat and drink.
Jonathan brought some of his home-brew and a Munchner beer radish...
And he and Lucy brought a tray of fresh pasta they'd made
incorporating duck eggs...
And they also brought a Peach Galette for dessert.
Once everyone arrived, Jonathan offered one and all a pour of
his homebrew.
We had some assorted nibbles, Macadamia nuts, pate, edamame
and a little bit of cheese to have with the Gratien Rose Champagne.
Meanwhile, the escargot were in the oven...
We enjoyed the Gratien Brut Rose...nice and dry...mildly
fruity...faintly yeasty.
Then "tout le monde a table" and Kareasa resisted the tempting to
offer hand signals or curious gestures, fearing they might wind up posted on the
internet.
Two peas in a pod...
Connie and Mark brought back a nice bottle of Michel Gros' 2008 Hautes Cotes de
Nuits and we paired it with the escargots.
This is a mildly toasty Chardonnay...medium-bodied, nice fruit and quite
enjoyable.
Jonathan's bread was fantastic, as usual, and perfect to soak
up the garlic/parsley butter from the snails.
Back into the kitchen to cook the pasta!
And we had a nice little mushroom "sauce" to pair
with the pasta...
Lucy shows off bowls of "Tolmaccheroni" pasta!
Then we sliced the truffles on top of the pasta....
You don't see this man "shave" very often.
But here he is...
Michel Niellon's 2004 simple Chassagne-Montrachet was a delight...dry, toasty,
smoky...very fine.
One happy Pasta Eatin' Machine!
We then had a little palate-cleansing ice...
Then we had a Mixed Grill for the main plate...All sorts of
goodies...
Lamb chops...
Grilled Asparagus which had been anointed with a bit of truffle oil...
Roasted Taters.
Grilled Duck Breast, Wild Boar Sausages, Toulouse Sausages...
Grilled Treviso Radicchio.
We tried two red wines from Bolgheri...both of the 2007 vintage.
The 2007 Sassicaia was fairly dark in color and with nice fragrances of cassis
and dark fruits. It's moderately acidic and seems to have less intensity
and less grandeur than the wines we recall from the 1980s and through, say,
1990. It seems to have become more of a trophy bottle and less of a grand
vin (to use a French term).
Perhaps this will blossom with a decade of cellaring and turn into something
magnificent.
More showy at this early stage was the wine from Ornellaia, a wine with less
Cabernet Sauvignon (maybe 55% in this vintage) and sporting more new oak.
It's a full-bodied wine with plenty of charm and layers of complexity. We
found sweet woodsy notes and dark plummy fruit. It's a winner and worthy
of a premium price tag.
The Ornellaia is beautiful in its youth, and its track record suggests this can
be cellared with confidence for a decade, or so.
Jonathan prepared a fabulous Peach Galette for dessert. I put an old
bottle of a late-picked wine from Domaine Weinbach in the 'fridge.
The Weinbach Gewurztraminer was still alive, even at this venerable age.
It had a golden color and was mildly floral, but not overwhelmingly so.
Showing perhaps a waxy fragrance, this was not hugely sweet and it was a nice
touch of history.
Connie "on the move"...
Jonathan did a great job on the galette...really
fresh, fruity peaches. He says it's a combination of peach varieties.
Merci Laurence!
We had another sip as a nightcap before adjourning this meeting...
And Mark was amused by this sign, posted on the door of the
'water closet':
BACK TO THE
FIRST FOOD, WINE & FRIENDS PAGE
BACK
TO THE PREVIOUS PAGE
ON TO THE NEXT PAGE
