Paradocx Touriga and Domaine Ste Michelle Champagne

Last night, July 26th, was our one month wedding anniversary, so we celebrated with a filet mignon, roasted potato, roasted sweet potato and corn dinner. And, obviously, a bottle wine. This celebration, mind you was different from the fourth Saturday of married life celebration we had two days prior we had with friends. I swear, if Treasa ever got a job at Hallmark, she’d make them a fortune with her ability to invent holidays that husbands are legally, at least by the law that counts, obligated to celebrate.

I did the usual burnt herb roasted potato side, but also got frisky and tried something with sweet potatoes too. To contrast the burnt, savory herb flavor of the former, I did the latter with more of a Persian flair with a hint of cinnamon sugar. Treasa nuked the frozen corn, added a stick of butter for each week of our marriage, the steaks came off the grill, and we sat down to eat.

We had a Paradocx Touriga left over from the wedding. Not only was this sentimental and thoughtful, but practical as the wine goes well with red meats. It also gave us an excuse to try our new Vinturi wine aerator, which was a wedding present from Treasa’s aunt and uncle. I’ll be honest, I really can’t tell you if it works because we didn’t aerate one glass and just uncork and pour the second one to have a taste test. (I’ll try to remember to do it next time though). However, the aerator is really easy to use, dishwasher safe and makes a really cool sound when you pour wine through it. So even if it is a gimmick, which I doubt, the sound effects are worth any incremental effort.

And partially because we still have most of a case left over from the wedding and because it’s really good for twelve-ish dollars, we relaxed after cleaning up the kitchen with a bottle of Domaine Ste Michelle.

Placeholder

This post is a continuation from the previous, where we are about to head down for dinner at the Waterford Castle in Waterford, Ireland.

I can’t find my notes which captured our wine selections for the evening. I’m going to use their disappearance as an excuse for not updating here in a few days. So, if I find the page, on which I distinctly remember writing the wines down on a piece of paper separate from my trip journal, I’ll come back and update the following:

The chef provided a non menu special to get us started. I’m sure the official name was something tastily extravagant, but I remember a grilled pita chip, cheese and a spicy roasted pepper spread with fresh parsley. It was a fantastic one bite course.

Treasa had the lobster bisque for an appetizer while I enjoyed seared scallops in a bisque-esque sauce over a red onion salsa.

Treasa had a meat trifecta, not the Castle’s wording, for her entrée consisting of pork loin, pork shoulder and lamb. I had a filet mignon with a mushroom black peppercorn sauce. While mine was certainly good, her pork won the most attention. As a side note, this was the second time we had ordered a filet, both time medium rare, on the trip. Each piece was cooked to what I would consider just a hair past medium. Being as both places were definitely fine dining, I’m starting to wonder if there is a disparity between the US and Ireland meat temperature scale.

Pierre Darcy’s Brut Champagne

I’ve fallen a little behind getting the honey moon exploits in blog format. This entry relates to our 5th day in Ireland, Sunday, July 3rd. We spend the day in Waterford. We arrived late morning and were taken aback by the ghost town likeness of the city. We stopped into a pub for lunch. After we finished, we were astounded at how the city had come to life. Apparently, either you go to church on Sunday mornings in Waterford, or you don’t show your face in public if you didn’t.

Prior to arriving at Waterford Castle, we stopped and got a bottle of Champagne for the night (along with a few other bottles, but those are for another post). Funny how you can get booze in a town on Sunday where people are afraid to show their face if they aren’t in church, but in Pennsylvania you’re SOL.

We found a E38 bottle of Pierre Darcy’s Brut Champagne for 50% off. We didn’t notice this until after we paid, but it’s a blend of Chardonnay, Pinor Noir and Pinor Meunier.

We arrived at the Castle, unloaded the luggage and I parked the turbo diesel. Somehow in the course of checking in, the fact that we were on our honeymoon emerged as a focal point of the conversation. Almost on cue, the concierge told us that we were upgraded to the Presidential Suite.


This. Was. The. Best. Hotel. Room I. Could. Possibly. Imagine. Our suite had its own foyer. Our bathroom was about the size of the first floor of our home in Delaware. It had a living room with a flat screen, two couches, a desk, dining table and three or four bookcases. (If you go to the link above and wait for the page to scroll through the photos, you’ll see a few of the room we stayed in). The master bedroom was probably a third of an acre. We decided that we could manage in these accommodations, and uncorked the champagne. Lemon and apple flavors were apparent. It was good, and we certainly didn’t complain, though Treasa and I prefer the bubbly a tad drier.

Huia Sauvignon Blanc & Ontanan Crianza Rioja

…continued from previous post…

After finishing the bottle of Henriot Souverain, taking pictures of the empty bottle, and ironing our fancy clothes, we headed down for dinner. The wine list was fairly extensive, and considering we were already lubed up with a few Guinni (plural for ‘Guinness’) and a bottle of bubbly, we decided to let the sommelier match wine to our food in half bottle increments.

Treasa selected a roast duck breast appetizer while I went with the Atlantic sea bass and tiger prawn. The sommelier, who was excellent though I didn’t note his name in our daily log, paired us with half a bottle of an ’08 Huia Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough New Zealand for E26. We each really liked it. It was much fuller and rounder than a lot of the Sauv Blancs we typically drink in the $10-$14.99 range. While it wasn’t a perfect match to either of our dishes, it was very good with both.

Treasa went with lamb chops with a side of shepherd’s pie while I had a filet mignon with a sweet onion puree for entrees. We were paired with a E22 half bottle of Ontanon Crianza, which I absolutely fell in love with. It was very similar to one of my favorite wines, Bogle’s Phantom, in so far that it was bold and robust, yet it was also a smidge smoother and lighter.

After a fantastic day and a wonderful meal, we retreated to our suite to combat the forces of jet lag.

Henriot Souverain Brut

This post refers to Tuesday, June 29th, our first night in Ireland. Treasa and I flew into Shannon and proceeded to the car rental counter to pick up our Hyundai i30 turbo diesel. This car was really fun to drive. Except for the fact that everything was on ‘the wrong side.’ The driver’s seat was on the right, you drove on the left side of the road and I had to shift with my left hand. Luckily, the pedals were oriented normally, with the clutch on the left, brake in the middle and gas to the right.

And if that wasn’t nerve wracking enough, a combination of narrow, seemingly medieval roads and psychotic Irish drivers was sufficient to make me wholeheartedly appreciate my first Guinness. But I’ll get to that. In so far as the roads were concerned, picture this: all of the various and frequent corners are blind because the road serface is below field level with grasses and shrubbery lining the pavement. One road was so narrow that the aforementioned grass was hitting each of the side mirrors and the speed limit was 80 km/hr. And for the cherry on top, the road is a two way street!


After driving north to see the Cliffs of Moher, we head back down near Limerick to the Adare Manor. If you follow golf, you’ll recognize Adare Manor from the JP McMannus ProAm Tiger Woods played in the weekend following our stay. Because of the upcoming event, we saw the Manor’s grounds in a state of absolute perfection.

We went into the clubhouse for the golf course, watched some Gaelic football, and had our first Irish Guinness. It really does taste better there. Then had our second.


By this time it was getting close to dinner, so we had a bottle champagne sent up to our room while we were getting ready. The staff selected the cheapest champagne on the wine list…for E78 (I’m going to use a capital ‘E’ to denote Euro’s) which after the American Express currency conversion, leaves me with a $106 line item on this month’s credit card statement. And this is how we were introduced to Henriot Souverain Brut. By no means was this a bad bottle of champagne, but I feel comfortable putting a ‘nothing special’ label on it. And considering Domaine Ste Michelle can be had for about $95 less, well, we’ll chalk this one up to first night on the honeymoon indulgences.

Paradocx Left Overs

Treasa and I just got back from our honeymoon in Ireland. I’ll be updating with posts about the wines we drank abroad, along with a daily recap of our doings, over the next few days.

This post refers to Sunday, June 27th, which was the day after our wedding. We had a few open bottles of wine left over from the reception, and considering they’d go sour while we were abroad, I decided to do a little wine tasting while I cooked dinner. Despite the caterer’s leftovers in the fridge, Treasa wanted spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Combining the desire to cook and the motto, ‘If she ain’t happy, you ain’t happy,’ I made sauce from scratch to go along with beef-pork meatballs.

Paradocx packages some of their wine in paint cans, as shown in the picture. It’s pretty unique, and a pinch classier than a box. Of course, the incremental classyness aspect of it isn’t something I particularly care about much. If you like it, drink it. But, it’s touted to keep the wine fresh for 2-3 weeks, and, well, it’s pretty darn cool.

Wines I re-sampled were the Touriga, Leverage, Merlot and Barn Red. I’ve listed them in the order of my preference. I didn’t have any of the leftover whites. The opened bottles went to Miranda and the Whitewash paint can still resides in my refrigerator.

Dry Creek Fume Blanc

Yesterday was Father’s Day. My two dogs are spoiled like kids, that counts, so I can celebrate too. It was sunny and in the mid 90’s. It’s not like I need an excuse, but even if I had to play the Father’s Day card, I would have. Nothing was going to keep me from the grill.

I’ve been on Mission: Clean Out The Freezer lately. Partially because the frozen food is already paid for and doesn’t require a current cash outlay with the wedding coming up, and secondarily because I have a deep sea fishing trip planned for early August. I plan to restock with tuna and dolphin. No, not Flipper. Mahi-mahi.

I found two boneless chicken breasts. Thawed them and gave them a good soak in fat free Italian dressing before grilling. When they were just shy of done, I topped them with a few slices of deli ham and Swiss cheese. They went onto grilled rolls with a fat free ranch dressing (70%) and spicy honey mustard (30%) sauce. Voila! Grilled chicken cordon bleu.

I’d saw I paired the sandwich, with my bestest roasted potatoes, with the Dry Creek Fume Blanc, but that would seemingly imply that there was some thought behind it. There wasn’t. I grabbed something near the Riesling section of my fridge, and this came out.

I remember buying this bottle for two reasons. First, it was about $10. Low risk. Secondly, perhaps more importantly, it had a picture of a sailboat on the front. And I want to but a sailboat. Both are totally rational.

The wine smelled sweeter than it tasted and finished clean. It had a pretty round flavor though the crispness of grapefruit came through. The back of the bottle says it was fermented in stainless steel, and it isn’t oak aged. The wine didn’t add to the food, nor did it take away. Which, considering the price point and the fact that I didn’t put too much thought to pairing, the ‘taking away’ was my main concern. Overall, I liked it.

Fish Eye Pinot Grigio

I was in the mood to cook tonight. Not to reheat leftovers, but actually put together a meal that I’d enjoy. Treasa was out at the mall with Miranda shopping for something that will be ‘crucial for the wedding.’ That line is like an impenetrable defense. No matter what my argument is, she wins.

But, despite the credit card flesh wound, I had the ability to cook for myself, irregardless of my any other taste recommendations. I decided on fish stew. I have tilapia filets in the freezer from Costco, so I Googled a few recipes. I sort of stole from most of the ones I viewed, so I won’t give any particular one credit, but if you search for ‘fish stew’ and find the one that errs towards Mediterranean, doesn’t use bacon and calls for Tabasco, well, you’ll get pretty close.

The recipe called for a bottle of dry white wine, pinot grigio in particular. I saw a bottle of Fish Eye pinot grigio for $6.99 at the corner store. Considering I was making fish stew, I thought it was a match made in heav—an enameled cast iron dutch oven.

To go along with the tilapia, I ordered a handful of shrimp and scallops from the grocery store. I got a fresh tomato and some tomato paste. A little bit if culinary magic, and holy schiznit, the recipe called for a 1/3 cup of white wine and I’ve drank the rest…

The wine exceeded all expectations, especially considering its price. It was palatable by itself and didn’t detract from the seafood party in my deep bowl of flavor. For something to cook with, or to enjoy without trying to impress yourself or guests, this won’t hurt your wallet. Unlike white designer flip flops at the mall.

Cooking note: I bought smaller scallops thinking they’d cook at the same pace as the thawed fish and the shrimp. Eh, slight miscalculation there. Give those buggers a head start before you add the rest of your seafood assortment. I’m not sure if it was a faux pas to add a little reduced fat parmesan cheese to the fish stew, but after a bottle wine minus what I used for cooking, it seemed like a good idea. And at my reduced cognitive ability, I’d still say it was.

Pat Me On The Back

So the handful of page viewers we’ve had so far are probably wondering, ‘What’s up with the Domaine Ste Michelle? It’s all over this corner of the internet.’ Well, you’re right. It is. And it is.

Here’s a little independent validation.

Results were compiled, analyzed and reviewed by a team that included statisticians, neuroscientists and economists.
Among the surprises: More than two-thirds of tasters preferred a $12 Domaine St. Michelle Brut, a Washington state sparkling wine, to a $150 Dom Pérignon Champagne.

And if our wine qualifications ever come into question, just look at the background of the picture in the previous post. Yep, that’s about it. We drink a lot of wine.

Francois Montand Extra Dry

Today marks ten days to our wedding. So I went to the liquor store to find something to celebrate with, partially due to Treasa’s suggestion and mostly because our champagne cache was null.

The knowledgeable, though overly eyeshadowed, woman at Toys R Us for grownups suggested a Francois Montand Blanc de Blancs champagne. Given that she also said that Prosecco was dry—which potentially conflicts with the first sentence of this paragraph—I went for the drier bottle: Francois Montand Extra Dry.

This bottle was a little less dry than the Domaine Ste Michelle, but carried a rounder presentation with a more flavorful finish. I can’t really say which one I prefer between the two, regardless of the extra dollar necessary to take home a little piece of Mr. Montand.