The wine and restaurant trade is rife with rumors. Manipulative innuendo and well placed tidbits of gleaned knowledge can make a day of selling wine seem more like an episode of All My Children. So this week, we came upon a rare mystery...
Across the way at the Store Where Special People Shop, our good friend Judy (who may have been previously blogged about somehwere) laid it out to JimDun that something had happened at this very group about a month ago.
The convesation was something like this:
Judy: "Did ya hear what happened at your tasting group a coupla weeks ago?"
JimDun: "I haven't been there in awhile, what happened?"
Judy: "Oh you'll find out..."
JimDun: "No, really, what happened...?"
Judy: "Oh, you'll find out....dot DOT FuckingDOT!"

So as we arrived one by one, the big question was what the hell was Judy talking about and how did he know whatever he knew? And nobody had a clue, but it was fun to conjecture as to just what it is that Judy knows. And it's probably better that only he knows it.

Undecided

Here's another cool cat who is new to the madness of Thursday afternoons. I don't know him well enough to slap him with a nickname yet, so I'll just refer to him as D-Money. Since this is his inaugural post, he gets the only large-size picture.

And then wine was drank...or is it drunk?

Three tasty whites from Europe. All three were very much my personally preferred style, being clean, fruity, and expressive of place and grape. 2004 Laurent Miquel Chardonnay/Viognier is my wine, so I'll refrain from a gratuitous review. The 2003 Palacio de Menade 'Cuevas de Castilla' from Rueda in Northern Spain had loads of ripe fruit and still tastily fresh and snappy. Good stuff.
The Loimer Gruner Veltliner was super duper extra awesome and was unbelievably cheap for the caliber of wine it is. a big YUM to all the white wines today.



And the food today was superb as always. ChefKid kicked it with these cornmeal/spoetzle pizza things topped with a sour cream, portabello mushroom, and onion goulash. Note the gratuitous use of the word GOULASH...

France

2002 Domaine Bertagna Hautes Cotes de Nuits 'Les Dames Huguettes' was pretty solid textbook Burgundy. Good Pinot fruit with a little drying grip and plenty of acid. Maybe too young to really drink yet. The Danjean-Berthoux 2003 Givry 'La Plante' was big, ripe, and ready to go. Much more enjoyable right now and more accessible for a Burgundy novice. Two good offerings from D-Money.

Italy

JimDun tore it down again with a couple Primitivos (do you need to pluralize that?) . Vini Pervini Primitivo de Tarantino 'I Monili' was dark and silky tank fermented stuff. The Tenuta Pozzopalo Primitivo de Manduria 'Giravolta' was dank and tasty. I've already expressed my bias toward budget Italian wines from new producers and these both offer value and real wine drinking pleasure.
'Giravolta', byt the way, means 'Emacited horse' when translated from the Italian. Apparently that is the proper main dish when serving this fine wine...

Chile, Spain, Good Times

The Casa Lapostolle Rapel Valley Merlot was thick and dark. I thought it was a whole hell of a lot of wine. Big, nasty merlot not fit for Napans or Sonomans. Figaro is super double ultra good and should be purchased by the pallet only.
The best part about the Dynamite Cab is the fact that when you are selling it, you can tell your customers it is Dy-No-Mite in your best Jimmy Walker voice. After you do that a coupla times, you'll get tired of the wine.

Cage Match

Two takes on a similar theme. The 2003 Rosenblum Richard Sauret Vineyard was intensely fruity with some deep cherry flavors and reasonable dryness. The 2003 Rockpile Road was black and thick and darker-fruited. Both were intense and balanced without making you want to spit it out.

Baroota

Binder Mitchell 2002 Baroota Shiraz was really big South Australian juice. Fair judgment could not be rendered by this time. It seems like the last wine is lost quite often in these endeavors.


I promised Sledge I would give Ciroc Vodka its proper glory. And yes, Ciroc is quite a beverage. So much more sublime than any other vodka ever created, Ciroc not only makes a great martini...make that two martinis... but I suspect Ciroc is also the cure for Alzheimer's Disease and will someday be Secretary General of the United Nations.

And after all was said and done. Chefguy made these neato horse doeuvers with chive flowers atop. Another successful week revelation and revelry.
And if anybody knows how to get those secrets out of Judy, we need to know...