- Gruyère Gougères - To go with the champagne tasting, Megan made some great little appetizers that are delicious cheese puffs. These were light, tasty, and went incredibly well with the champagne. They went over so well, she was asked to just mail out the recipe to all attendees. Brett will definitely be begging for them to be made again (soon). The recipe is here.
- 1997 - Salon Champagne - Brut - Blanc de Blancs - Megan belongs to a women and wine club. They were having a special champagne tasting (okay, there was one sparkling wine from California, the rest were true champagnes), but there weren't going to be enough members attending so men were allowed to come. Brett jumped at the chance to join Megan for the tasting. There were a lot of great champagnes that night, but this was the top of the night. This was also the most expensive wine of the night at $400/bottle. Would we ever buy a bottle for ourselves? Probably not especially when there were many other champagnes that were almost as good but at a significantly lower price. Our review summary: aroma - pear, apricot, bread; taste - sweet, honey notes, not too tart, smooth, creamy and buttery, walnut and almond oil, creamy, almost like brie; this is very very good.
- 2011 - Atlantic Brewing Company - Brother Adams Honey Bragget Ale - It's fairly rare that a beer has a vintage on it, but this one does! We brought this back from our trip to Maine on a whim while we were at the brewery. While this is a bragget (an ale brewed with honey), this was made in the style of a barley wine, meaning big alcohol (almost 12%). After having this, we wish we had brought more home with us. What a great winter drink and one bottle is plenty to share between two or three people. Our review summary: A 2011 bottle consumed in 2013. This was delicious and makes me wish that I’d brought more back from the brewery. Aroma - lemon, honey, toffee, cherry jolly rancher, butterscotch, becomes more raisiny as time passes after opening; taste - sour, tart, warming with bread baking, honey. This has aged amazingly well. If you have some, let it age and see how well this ages. As we noted, the aroma and flavor changes so much from the moment of opening until the last sip, that it drinks more like a wine than any barley wine we've had. This was most excellent.
- 2003 - d'Arenberg - Shiraz - The Dead Arm - As noted above, on the same weekend we were finishing our 1000th taste at Vintage Cellar, we were lucky enough that another customer had brought in this amazing Shiraz to share. Originally this wine when purchased, from Vintage Cellar, was almost too big to drink. After 10 years, it had aged beautifully and maintained all the rich fruit flavors shiraz is known for while mellowing out some of the intenseness that it was originally known for. Our review summary: aroma - cherry, blackberry, black cherry, eucalyptus, fun and happy smelling like jumble berry pie; taste - chewy, round, okay but not overwhelming, dried oak fruits, so many berries, smoky with mineral on the finish, hint of mild tobacco. This was amazingly delicious.
- 1968 - Gaja - Barbaresco - Brian and Teresa Taylor (Brett's brother and sister-in-law) gave this to Brett for his 40th birthday. It's been sitting in the cellar since then, awaiting the "perfect" occasion to open. If we've learned nothing about this project, it's that we should be less worried about when to have a new taste and rather to just have the experience. The event itself can be made special by having that taste. We decided that we would share this with our friends at Vintage Cellar as they have helped us reach the magical kilotaste! This barbaresco is pretty old - most barbarescos are to be consumed in 15 - 20 years, not 45! The cork was moderately decayed and we were worried that with its age and the state of the cork that it could be spoiled. We poured everyone a small glass. Our review went like this: This was 45 years old, but surprisingly delicious. Color - brown, red/black plum juice; pours with some sediment, looks a lot like when you make homemade grape jelly as you boil it before adding gelatin; aroma - a bit of funk on the pop and pour, slate, mineral, caramel, smoke, nutmeg shows up after bottle is opened after an hour or so; taste - cherry, not really chewy, but very complex, plum, bright strawberry and juicy, finish is tart berry followed by olive, leather, tannins, finish is slightly drying; pepperoni/cured meat at the back. With proscuitto, becomes creamer, but smoky at the finish. With bleu cheese, the wine loses its fruitiness. With a sweet cheese, the wine exhibits lots of bright fruit/strawberry flavors. What an unbelievable bottle after 45 years!!! In short the wine was surprisingly excellent and had aged quite well. Everyone was excited to have the opportunity to try, especially us, and it was an excellent choice to be the 1000th taste. Thanks very much to Brian and Teresa for the bottle!
We're thankful for any and all who have followed our progress. We learned a lot, about ourselves and our likes and dislikes. We also learned that Brett can't divide and realize 1000 new tastes is ~ 3/day when he first proposed this. We have gone well over 1000 tastes so we'll post those beyond the kilotaste mark before the end of the year. We'll also post some of our top 10 (maybe top 5) lists, summaries of our tastes by types, and more.
We will continue updating this blog, but we aren't going to actively try to do another 1000 next year as it was a lot of effort and we sometimes sacrificed other activities to complete the 1000. We encourage everyone to try lots of new things and enjoy the opportunities life throws out at you.
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