1000 New Tastes: wine

Showing posts with label wine. Show all posts

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Wrap up post #2 for 2014

This will be a wrap up of the wines we've tried over most of the year as I've been a slacker and haven't gotten any wines recorded since February...

Saturday, May 10, 2014

This has been one heck of a semester and we obviously haven't spent any time whatsoever about posting our new tastes. We haven't been slacking off in terms of tasting, but sure have been about posting about those tastes! Because we have such a backlog, we'll start with just some food tastes, then move to beer, and then wine.

Lake Champlain - Salted dark chocolate
Crostini with Balsamic Caramelized Onions, Melted Cheese & Sage
Almond-Bacon Cheese Crostini
Stowaway Chocolates - Peanut Butter Meltaway

We went to a special wine tasting dinner in Marion, Virginia held at the General Francis Marion Hotel/Black Rooster restaurant. There were some phenomenal wines and great food. The food and wine was a smattering of spanish wines and foods.

Esparragos blancos - white asparagus, lemon, caper
Aceitunas arbequinas y cabrales - sweet brown olives, artisanal blue cheese
Manchego, jamón y membrillo - sheep's milk cheese, cured ham, and quince
Pan a la catalana - crusty bread, garlic, tomato, wild olive oil
Torta de cangrejo - crab cake and saffron aioli
Lubina con romesco - Mediterranean seabass, roasted pepper, and almond sauce
Carrillada de cerdo - braised pork cheeks, sofrito, glace
Tarta de Santiago - marcona almond cake
Flan con jarabe de café - custard and coffee syrup

One of the regulars at the wine club is starting a fine chocolates business, Chocomiro, and their chocolates are incredibly delicious. They have a limited selection now, but every single one we tried was phenomenal.

Chocomiro - Creamy espresso caramel
Chocomiro - Jasmine tea lemon ganache
Chocomiro - Earl grey garnache
Chocomiro - Deep vanilla caramel
Chocomiro - Cherry fondant cordial
Chocomiro - Coconut
Chocomiro - Deep vanilla sea salt caramel
Chocomiro - Four spice fusion
Chocomiro - Raspberry ganache
Chocomiro - Saffron lavender honey fusion

We're sure that there's more foods we've tried, but we are often lazy about remembering to record new foods.

Brett went to a meeting in the DC area and was able to go to Pizza Paradiso (the DuPont Circle location) and got a nice pizza.

Macellaio - Paradiso Tomato, Pepperoni, Mozzarella, Sausage, Red Onion

Megan found a quick casserole recipe for dinner. It's fast to make and darn tasty!

Hamburger potato casserole

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Numbers 996 - 1000!

We're down to our last 5 tastes until we hit the 1000 mark. Here's our final 5 tastes and because it's the last 5, we've saved some great ones and we'll give a full description of each one. Numbers 998 - 1000 were all had the same weekend at Vintage Cellar and we provided two of them (#998 and #1000) while #999 was provided by another customer. The remaining 5 tastes, #996 and #997, were had during a special Champagne tasting.

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.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

New Tastes - Catching Up

We've been super busy with the end of the semester and finishing up refinishing our countertops, then we both got sick. The good news is we made it through the semester and we've more than made 1000 tastes. We will take this list up to 995, then over the next few days wrap up the remaining 5 with some big tastes. We will then have a couple best of and worst of lists. Once we get those done, we'll continue the list from 1000 on. Because we're catching up from almost a month, there won't be tons of descriptions here.

Chuao - Maple Bacon Milk Chocolate - This was the first thing from Chuao that we didn't really like. It has a "bonfire smoked salt" which was just completely overwhelming. There was bonfire on the palate and bonfire in your nose the whole time you chewed, but it wasn't like wood smoke, it was like wood and some plastic/rubber/trash. The smoke was just way too overwhelming to enjoy this. It's possible that the small taster we got was just out of proportion from a full bar, but we're both a lot gun-shy to try it again.
New Belgium Brewing - Accumulation - This is their new seasonal white IPA and normally that's not a style either of us are huge fans of, but this is very good. Brett surprisingly like this a whole lot.
Brouwerij Rodenbach - Rodenbach - Classic Belgian red sour from Belgium and it's delicious.
Einbecker Brauhaus - Einbecker Winter-Bock - nice winter bock
Anchor Brewing - BigLeaf Maple Autumn Red - Virginia finally got some of this, well past fall, but better late than ever.
2006 - Blackwing Shiraz
2012 - Nautilus Estate - Sauvignon Blanc
2011 - Yalumba - Vermentino
2011 - Langmeil - Hangin' Snakes
2012 - Yalumba - Shiraz - Galway Vintage - Barossa Valley
2010 - Yalumba - Cabernet Sauvignon - The Cigar - The Menzies
2010 - Reichsrat Von Buhl - Riesling - Medium Dry - Maria Schneider Jazz
2012 - Viña Robles - White4
2010 - Viña Robles - Cabernet Sauvignon
2010 - Viña Robles - Petite Sirah - Estate
2010 - Viña Robles - RED4 - Paso Robles
2012 - Locations CA - This is super delicious. It's a ridiculous label with just "CA" and the California flag on the label.
2009 - Pietra Santa - Chardonnay - Twin Terraces
2011 - Pietra Santa - Pinot Gris - Amore
2006 - Pietra Santa - Cabernet Sauvignon - Signature Collection
2009 - Pietra Santa - Cabernet Sauvignon
2009 - Pietra Santa - Merlot
2008 - Pietra Santa - Sangiovese
NV - Cantina del Taburno - Falanghina Folius - Falanghina - Extra Dry
2012 - Domaine Bois de Boursan - Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc
2008 - Brewer-Clifton - Chardonnay - Mount Carmel
2012 - Zind-Humbrecht - Gewurztraminer
2011 - Wwe. Dr. H. Thanisch (Erben-Thanisch) - Berncasteler - Doctor - Riesling Kabinett
2008 - Brewer-Clifton - Pinot Noir - Mount Carmel
2012 - Patricia Green Cellars - Pinot Noir - Freedom Hill Vineyard
2010 - Domaine Serene - Pinot Noir - Evenstad Reserve
2005 - Bodegas Muga - Rioja Gran Reserva - Prado Enea
2008 - Azelia - Barolo - Margheria
2008 - Girardet - Gewürztraminer - Frostbite
2009 - St. Clement - Sauvignon Blanc - Napa Valley

That's all for now. Check back for our final 5 tastes very very soon!