An “Odisea” into the “Cellar”
As my blog begins to attract more visitors (we’re up to 4 per month, yeehaw!), I really need to start working on the quality of my post titles. This one, for example, is terrible…but at least it conveys my topic: We had some Odisea Tempranillo last night at the Cellar Bistro.
A few friends and my fiance and I went out to the Cellar. I brought one of my three bottles of “Temporary Insanity” (TI) Tempranillo, which I have been carefully storing for the right occasion. All of my friends who went to dinner last night were either from Europe and in town temporarily, or were moving from Europe to Canada and were here temporarily. Therefore, it seemed like a good time to have a bottle of TI.
In addition to my desire to impress my friends, I also wanted to bring a wine that would stand up to, say, saltimbocca and gorgonzola and scallops in white wine (all of which were on the table). That’s quite a mix of tastes, so I left the Domaine Drouhin Pinot Noir at home and brought the TI Tempranillo. I’m extremely glad I did.
From my limited perspective, I think a good tempranillo tastes somewhere between the complex black fruit of a cabernet sauvignon and the hot roasted meat of a shiraz. Odisea makes a tempranillo that fits into the range perfectly: The 2004 TI has a lot of blackberry, cassis, and bramble aromas and flavors, but with an undercurrent of barbecued meat, fire-roasted peppers, and smoke. It’s quite a complicated wine for $25, to be honest. I’d pay $50 for it and it would be well worth it.
In the end, the TI went well with everything the Cellar threw at us. Everyone loved the wine, which impressed me quite a bit as it’s rare that 5 people all really enjoy the same red wine with different entrees. One friend said it was the best wine she had tried while staying in Seattle, and that’s after 3 months with me. So here’s to Odisea: Keep making those great wines!