Power Cuts & Red Wine

Interesting night at T & D’s tonight, we arrived to find the lounge dressed in Candles and a sexy ambiance in the room.  This coupled with the wine on the kitchen counter and spicy canapes and oysters led Sarah & I to think that tonight was going to be rather…adventurous….

But no – just some crappy powercut.  And no oysters, I made that up.  But we did have Wine!, thank god.  It was a good exercise that maybe the civil defence department should consider in future.  Their ad campaigns always focus on having water and canned food in the event of an emergency but I have to say that I felt much more relaxed with salami, blue vein cheese and two bottles of Red Wine..that’ll do me when the big one strikes!

So onto the wines – now, It was definitely an evening of contrasts tonight.  We started with quite possibly the best wine we’ve had so far (well, I still rate the Scarpantoni but everyone else thinks this was numero uno).  The name escapes me – It was ‘climbers ladder’ maybe?, I think it was a cab sav merlot – it was very very good, smooth, tannany (tannany is a word like shirazzy – you know what I mean).  good flavours, lots of berry’s, something green!, I thought I could smell green vegetables, which everyone proceeded to remind me was the line out of Sideways regarding the Asparagus tones.

Wine number two was so forgetful I can’t remember it.  Well, actually I can because it was crap.  It was Chilean I think and smelt like it would ignite at any second next to the candles that were lighting our evening.  Too strong, far too strong for me – I struggled to finish my glass. 

So it was the best of times, it was the worst of times….and in the end the power came back on.  Great.

 

Oh my god!, I’m in!!

Thanks to our I.T dept mucking around with our crap servers I’ve been unable to write a post for about three weeks now.  This is terrible as we’ve drunk some really good quality stuff, but as always I’ve had plenty in between so I’ve probably lost track of a few of them…but here goes!

Following up from Toni’s last post are my thoughts on the wines from that week.  Our first was a Merlot from Irvine in Australia – now, I got a  sneak peak at a tasting at Primo Vino so knew what I was in for.  Funnily enough, I’d tasted another Irvine first, the Irvine Grand Merlot.  I instantly thought – ‘fantastic, this is a gonna be a hit at R-dubdub.  It was fantastic, so many layers of flavour.  I then tried 2 more and enjoyed the 2004 Merlot as well.  It was then that I read the price list and realised that the first one I’d tasted was NZD$98 per bottle…hmmm, that might have to wait for a very special R-dubdub so went with the much more attractively priced $28 Merlot.  The Merlot was very good, If I hadn’t had the Grand Merlot as a comparison I would have raved about this one.  Probably the best of the wines we’d had so far.  I was pleasantly surprised though at just how much better the Grand tasted – I’d always been suspect on the quality of a very expensive wine versus a cheaper bottle, but it was no contest.

Second wine was a Zinfandel by Andrew Harris – never had this style of wine before, very distinctive nose, mocha, vanilla aromas.  Taste wise I guess it was fairly robust, very shirazzy?, but more chocolate tones than spices.

The third wine I can’t rememebr – we weren’t even suppossed to have three that night but it felt like the right thing to do!.  I’ll do two more posts now to seperate out the following evenings.

 

3 Wines Today!

Tonight was a good evening though we didn’t really talk about the wine…  So here is my reflection…

First of all the blue vein goat’s cheese was a highlight.  Warming to blue cheese at the moment, I did enjoy this one.  Early on I did notice that it made my tongue go somewhat… numb for a better word… and people just kind of looked at me and smiled politely.  However, as the evening progressed more people did admit to also sharing the numb sensation!  It was great though.  Very crumbly and quite a different taste to a standard blue.  Good choice guys.

There were three wines on offer this evening.  I only sampled two as I had two glasses of the second bottle!

The first was quite strong – though didn’t have that yucky burning feeling that lots of red wine has.  It had strong flavours and almost a rough but not burning feeling in your mouth.  This was Darren’s favourite.

The second was my favourite.  It was really soft – almost like you had nothing in your mouth.  The smell was really really strong and I didn’t initially like it (the smell not the taste).  It smelled very strong and rich – but didn’t taste at all how it smelled.

A very profound round up of this evening’s tastes… as always … from Toni

 

Sarah Thinks Bogans are HOT!!!

RWW (or R-dub-dub to the cool kids) for another week.

This weeks candidates

Taylors 2006 Clare Valley Shiraz

3/4 enjoyed.The general consensus being that it was a nice ‘thick’ wine. Lots of flavour and body.

and

Sileni 2007 Merlot

1/4 enjoyed (sucks to be them!). Comments varied from “easy drinking, but young” to “disappointing”.

See you next week!

 

RWW

Like the new acronym Stu seems to have come up with … nice … very nice.

So, RWW has been postponed this week due to a certain group member’s absence and just all round poor timing for most of us.

Last week’s wine was good… I really, really don’t know what I am talking about here.  However, I now can tell what people mean when they talk about soft wines.  I could certainly taste that both of last week’s wines but particularly the first one was very soft and felt very light in your mouth.  hmm… I don’t like stuff that makes my mouth feel like it’s burning.  These wines didn’t.  I could drink either all night, but particularly the first.

How profound!

Oh and I loved the salmon, which was delicious with Sarah’s special dip… perhaps she might post the recipe here……..

Another successful evening… here’s to the next!

 

12th March 2008

Scarpantoni 2005 Shiraz

Shiraz night tonight!, not really big drinkers of Shiraz, normally prefer the subtlety and smoothness of Merlot or Cab Savs.  Maybe it’s because we prefer Red’s that we can comfortably drink large quantities of without requiring any form of food to take up valuable room I don’t know.

 Anyway, we kicked off with the Scarpantoni – a McLaren Vale Shiraz, with big wraps from Henry at Primo Vino.  Henry hooked me up with a mix of Reds supposedly to last us the next few RWW’s..sorry Henry, 4 down already!.  Loved the Scarpantoni – Thick looking wine with a really nice aroma and rich flavours although not as spicy or overpowering as I was expecting (not a bad thing in my book).  It went nicely on its own and I’m sure would compliment a nice roast beef or something similar. 

Zontes Footstep 2006 Shiraz Viognier

Our second wine for the evening was a blend of Shiraz & Viognier with the majority being Shiraz and a small amount (6%) Viognier.  The addition of Viognier apparently adds to the depth of colour but also softens the finish of what are typical characteristics of bold Aussie Shiraz.  We decided to compare our straight Shiraz with this blend to see if we could spot the difference!.

Surprised to say we did – not so much a softness of typical Shiraz flavours but almost a sweetness to the finish – was this a good thing?, not so sure about that.  Preference was definitely with the Scarpantoni which surprised us all I think with how smoothly it went down.

 

Tasting, Tasting, 1,2,3

So the first Red Wine Wednesday is part of the annals of history now, I’m sure in decades to come it will be viewed as a critical event in the development of New Zealand as a modern society.

What a great way to start – good wine & food and quality conversation.  For me the Farnese Sangiovese brought back good memories of Italian Reds from our trip there a couple of years ago.  I hadn’t drunk a lot of Mediterranean reds before that trip and most experiences had been negative (too ‘dirty’ or earthy tasting?), but certainly our eyes were opened to the quality of Italian Reds when cruising through Tuscany.  The Farnese was very drinkable and felt quite light and breezy for a red.  I’m sure on other occasions I’d have panned it for not being flavourful enough or rich enough but it was a great drop to have on its own without food (well, a few beautiful slices of salami from Vetro our local Med deli – big ups to Vetro for the best salami in NZ!).  It therefore suited the occasion nicely.

Sarah & I have spent the next 2 days debating what we will supply next Wednesday, Shiraz maybe?, some more Italian..maybe a rose if its a scorcher?..to be revealed….

 

5th March 2008

Farnese 2005 Sangiovese

The Official Line

“A major winemaking achievement from the south of Italy for this price, with clean, ripe berry-redcurrant fruit, leather and marzipan typical of sangiovese without any hint of acetic problems common in this area. It is almost satiny smooth and has an easy-drinking sweetness followed by a dry, sour cherry finish. Not great length but surely good enough at the price. Will grace any casual meal from pizza and pasta to wings, ribs and Mexican fare. It ranked ninth in the Top 25 Killer Values at the International Value Wine Awards. “

Penfolds Koonunga Hill 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon

The Official Line

“Premium Cabernet Sauvignon grapes from some of South Australia’s best vineyards have been selected to maintain this consistent style and quality. The wine has excellent structure and length, and while it is ready for drinking now, will gain further complexity over the next two to four years.”

 

The inaugural meeting…

Well… our first meeting has been and gone…  how reflective…

So… all in attendance… Toni, Darren, Stu, Sarah and Holly.  Congratulations to Paula and Kevin on their new house… see you next week!

So…  What did I think?  Darren has a post of the official * rating…  But my response:

I am really new to this whole red wine game… but I thought that they were ok… I couldn’t really tell the difference – except my teeth felt funny after the second one.

I liked the food.  Although, I think we needed a piece of good blue cheese to go with it.

It seems that more than anything else, Red Wine Wednesday might be an excellent meeting for planning future wine drinking occassions…

Current suggestions… A weekend at Taupo – Scenic Cellars and a cool lounge bar.

A  weekend at Ohakune – beginning the day at around 11am with a ‘cheeky little riesling’.

Sounds good to me!

Other ideas that were sidelined — sloshed Saturdays and Tequilla Tuesdays…

 

A Meeting of Minds

A wee while ago, this man, Stu, had a party. At the party, this man, Kev, met this man, Darren, and together, they came up with ‘Red Wine Wednesdays’.

The first Red Wine Wednesday will be hosted by Darren and Toni. They will provide red wine so that all in attendance can pretend they know what they are talking about. They will also provide nibbles to go with the wine… YUM.

The idea is that every week, one couple hosts ‘Red Wine Wednesday’ and provides the wine – for the other couples to talk shit about…

They can then come to this site and summarise their findings of the wine. People can also talk about other wines that they have had lately or restaurants that they have been to.

Basically it is our eternal search to find good wine and food and have an appropriate place to talk about it!