huevos con vino

“Dude, you’ll never guess who is getting a shoe shine!”

“Who?”

“Ron freakin’ Jeremy!”

“No way!  I gotta go check that out!”

As I waited for my flight out of Oklahoma City yesterday, which proved a lot more challenging than you might expect for a 30-minute trip betweem OKC and Dallas, I heard this exchange of dialogue several feet away.  Apparently, Ron Jeremy was indeed getting his shoes shined at Will Rogers World Airport yesterday morning.  I have no idea where he was going, but I realized that if I had received a shoe shine when I wanted to go get one, I might have had to wait for Ron Jeremy to finish getting his shoes shined first.  Quite an odd situation.

But before all that, we went out to dinner as a group and I brought along my best bottle of wine: a 2003 Domaine Drouhin Pinot Noir Willamette Valley (also known as Pinot Noir Classique).

We went to a restaurant called Caffe Pranzo, which is conveniently located next to a restaurant called Boca Boca, or “Mouth Mouth” in English.  Caffe Pranzo has a much better name and much cheaper/better food, apparently.  Their selections looked more New York than Oklahoma; baked tortellini and Carnegie Deli NY cheesecake certainly rank highly in my gastronomic book.  Anyway, I had been saving this new bottle of Domaine Drouhin for a slightly special occasion, and this dinner seemed very appropriate. 

It looks like the 2004 release comes out in January, so I’m glad I got to try the 2003 before then.  I took this bottle out of my allocation and brought it all the way to Oklahoma City, where I noticed the Metro Wine Bar & Bistro had it on their wine list!  Exciting.  But on to the brief notes:

• Aroma: Somewhat flinty, with deep red fruit and floral essences.
• Flavor: Strong cherry and raspberry flavors with luscious, lip-smacking depth and tannic structure.  A very complete flavor profile, to be sure.
• General impression: Worth every penny!  I think the 2003 is my favorite Classique release yet.

Everyone (all 6 who tried it) loved this wine.  It’s the kind of wine that automatically lends a semblance of profundity and meaning to a meal, and it’s certainly one that people remember from occasion to occasion (”remember that one bottle we had last Christmas?  Oh, is this the same wine?  Hooray!”).  I certainly recommend this wine, particularly if you can find it at a state liquor store for less than $30/bottle, as I have seen in the past here in Washington State.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 31st, 2006 at 12:08 pm and is filed under wine review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.