huevos con vino

As part of the wedding process, I had a great lunch today with my future in-laws, my mom and stepdad, my father and stepmom, and my fiance and future brother-in-law.  We ate at a place called Piatti, which is a California-based chain Italian of sorts.  It’s much nicer than a typical chain, and this specific location has been an anchor restaurant in the University Village for over 10 years, so it’s nothing like the Olive Garden or anything so gauche.

Anyway, we had two wines with lunch:

• Piatti Locali Chardonnay (NV) - A nice, crisp Chardonnay that was light (12.8% alcohol) and reserved, with a mild dose of acid on the mid-palate.  Very good for the price.
• Mark West Pinot Noir (2005) - A decent Pinot that I didn’t really try too much because I had the Chardonnay; a definite crowd-pleaser, though, especially at this low restaurant price.

Just a quick note to say that the whole thing was great.  More people are arriving now, so it’s time to go drink some more!!

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that I love Domaine Drouhin.  I’m a member of their wine club.  I’ve been to their winery.  I intend to pay them a visit this year for their Thanksgiving celebration.  And in my wine “cellar,” such as it is, I have several bottles of their finest wines spread out over a few vintages (including a magnum of 1998 Laurène).

So last night, I realized the time was right to bring my only bottle of 2000 Laurène to Ray’s Boathouse and our pre-marriage dinner with my new in-laws.  It turned out to be an excellent choice.  Here’s how the wine went down:

• Aroma: Very rich and delicate, with a few layers of ripe red fruit and a delectable earthiness.
• Flavor: Incredibly full-bodied, with a wealth of raspberry and red currant flavors combined with that same rich forest floor intensity.  Slightly juicy but quite refined and lovely.
• General impression: Wow!  A terrific Laurène vintage with enough age to have refined the flavors into a perfectly balanced Pinot Noir.  A major crowd-pleaser.

My future mother-in-law put it this way: She has had three red wines in her life that she enjoyed.  This wine was #3.  #2 happened to be a wine I sent her for Christmas last year (an organic NSA Merlot).  #1 was about 25 years ago and it was a fluke, apparently.

My future father-in-law didn’t know that Oregon had any wineries, but this wine quickly got his attention.  He loved it and had about double the amount of wine he normally drinks.  We’ll see how he feels today….

So there you go!  Lofty company for the 2000 Laurène.  I think I’d like to get another bottle or two and save them for 3-5 more years each.  The 1999 Laurène tasted better to me by a margin of 0.1% or so, which makes me want to age some of the 2000.  The 1998 was quite different from either of these wines: much more earthy and even more delicately balanced, if that’s possible.  The 2001 is terrific but will get even better with age.  The 2002 is the same way.

By the way, after my first sip of this wine, my immediate impulse was to buy a whole lot more Domaine Drouhin Laurène so I could drink it every day.  It’s that good!

One good way to relieve some pre-wedding stress is to get a couple of good friends together and drink some wine.  Tonight, we managed to do just that: drink some wine, finally.  I almost opened the Belle Pente wine that I received recently, but I decided to uncork the McCrea Counoise that I purchased a couple of weeks ago.

The McCrea Counoise is 87% Counoise and 13% Syrah.  But what is “Counoise?”  It’s not a very common varietal, to be sure.  Wikipedia describes it as “hard to find but worth seeking out for its spicy fruit.”  Hmm…I can see where this wine could have some spice to it, but in the half-bottle and at this age it wasn’t the best.  Here are some notes:

• Aroma: Confused at first, eventually settled down a little into a melange of black fruit and red raspberry with some vegetal overtones.
• Flavor: Not all that inspiring.  Lots of acid, particularly at first, but still on the mid-palate after 30-45 minutes of having opened the bottle.  Again, some vegetal/bell pepper notes that I suspect are simply part of this blend.
• General Impression: Probably won’t buy this wine again.  Not well balanced, too acidic, and the flavors weren’t too interesting to me.  On the plus side, I now have an empty half-bottle to use for storing other wines!

Basically, I bought this wine to add another entry in my “100 wine club” spreadsheet, and to get that reusable half-bottle.  Mission accomplished.  As my wine-loving friend said, “I like it, but I wouldn’t buy a bunch of it.”  Indeed.  I’d certainly try the Counoise varietal again, but I’d like one with some age on it, I think.

I had my bachelor party this weekend.  In between eating tons of food and firing German sniper rifles (which I’m apparently quite good at doing), I found time to try a whole bunch of wines.  There were 13 guys at dinner at The Cellar Bistro and they were kind enough to bring a whole mess of wine. 

So, without further exposition, here are the wines we had, in no real order and with no real tasting notes because, hey, it was MY party!

• Everyone liked this wine, even the people who declared themselves as uninterested in Sauvignon Blanc.
• Kept on ice but still a bit too warm perhaps. 
• Nice and fruity and a bit sweet, but with well-balanced acid.  A great way to start out the party.

• Another wine that made a few believers out of the beer drinkers.
• Not decanted.
• Very fruity and lively; great wine, lip-smacking and tasty with the food.

• Very excited about this one; it’s been on my list of wines to try for a while.
• Decanted for about 20-30 minutes.
• Complex, deep, extremely good.  Popular for sure with several of the guys.

• Good red blend; 1,506 cases made.
• Rich and fruity but different from the other red blends in that it had more red fruit than black, perhaps.

• Didn’t really try this one…

• Decanted for 30-60 minutes.
• Big, bold, delicious!  Another major crowd-pleaser.

• Ordered at the restaurant.
• Decanted for a little while.
• Very crowd-pleasing; ripe and fruity; very tasty.

• Ordered at the restaurant.
• Decanted for a little while.

• Outstanding tawny.
• Perhaps not as well finished as the 1966, but still outstanding and well worth it!

• Gift of the restaurant.
• Sweet and quite effervescent, obviously.

I also received two wines as a gift that I managed to keep unopened despite intense peer pressure throughout the evening:

• 2003 Darioush Signature Cabernet Sauvignon
• 2004 Page Cellars Syrah (Columbia Vineyard)

I’ve got both of these bottles in my wine fridge now.  I look forward to opening the Darioush in about 8 years, possibly on my anniversary!

So, that was quite a night as this list reflects.  I honestly don’t have much more to say about it, aside from the fact that I have some great friends.  The wines were very enjoyable, but the stories they inspired my friends to tell were even better (particularly the one about the strip club in Alaska).

Well, tomorrow is the day that men dream about for much of their young lives, and then reminisce about after it passes.  It’s the day when bad behavior is expected of you, when smoking cigars is less of a health hazard than a smelly rite of passage.  It’s the day when all reason is thrown out the window and you wake up the next morning with a horse’s head in your bed but it’s actually the top half of a costume and the bottom half is still in bed next to you.

I’m talking about, of course, my bachelor party.

But this won’t be your typical bachelor party!  I requested an absence of strippers and poor taste in favor of quality food, wine, and a certain touch of class.  It’s the sort of bachelor party you’d expect of a burgeoning wine nerd.

So far, all I know about this party is that we’re having a nice brunch, we’re going to fire German sniper rifles, and we’re heading to The Cellar for dinner.  That’s about all I know, really.  I have heard that many e-mails went back and forth on the subject of this party, so I am a little nervous.  As long as we’ve got some good Amarone flowing at The Cellar, I don’t mind.  Just no strippers…I’d rather spend my friends’ money on Pinot Noir.

With regard to the guns: I think it would be fun to set up some empty wine bottles at an outdoor firing range, and then shatter them from 200 yards out with Teutonic precision.  Very tempting.  I’m not a gun person, I don’t really like guns all that much, but there is something royally satisfying about firing a weapon at an empty bottle from two football fields away.  Or at least, I’d assume there is something satisfying since I’ve never done that.

Anyway, look for an interesting update on Sunday…