TNs: Upscale Mexican Night! OLE!

Berserkers,

Board members Jay, myself, Mike Grammer and our friend Mike Wright welcomed American Berserker Jason and his Canadian co-worker Mark to dinner in TO before the latter two had to return to Orange County, CA and New Brunswick respectively. We went to a very nice upscale Mexican restaurant whose name conveniently escapes me now which opened two months ago and who just hired a young somm that Jay is very well acquainted with.

Mexican cuisine is similar to Indian in that it’s big on spices, flavors and meat and poultry. However, it trades out curry for salty cheese flavors from Queso Fresco which tastes like a cross between Feta and cream cheese. Therefore wine choice must be judicious. We had the following:

A Really Nice Anonymous Grower’s Champagne – We opened the meal with a very nice Champagne. Unfortunately, I forgot the name and nobody took a photo and other than a green label with gold lettering all I can vaguely recall is the name “Gordon.” So all I can tell you is that it was very nice with fresh green apple fruit, some yeast but not too much, and a great crispness to it with nice mousse. In fact, without my own bias to my ZH VT I actually gave it WOTN so it’s even more embarrassing that I don’t remember what it is. As it is, I’m this far away from developing a Champagne problem to add to my growing list of wine problems.

2011 Pearl Morissette Riesling Cuveé Blackball – I already posted notes on this on my previous Pearl Morissette thread but to reiterate: this is their last steel fermented and aged Riesling before acquiring their Riesling barriques and it’s quite nice. Very soft texture and high minerality/wetstone flavor with gentle lemon-lime flavors. Very good with the Rajas Poblanas appetizer of chicken and poblano pepper strips in a white queso fresco sauce.

2012 Louis Jadot 1er Cru Les Fourchaume Chablis – A bit of an odd duck wine in that the nose was spectacularly aromatic and full of green apple and yeast aromas… and then all of that went away on the palate. Now I know Chablis is more flinty than fruity, but I was expecting at least some fruit in this and I got virtually none here which was a bit jarring. I much prefer the Mersaults and Montrachets and Corton-Charlemagnes Berserkers have brought me before. I’m sure I’ve even had a Chablis I’ve liked a lot better than this too.

2007 Stratus Red – 2007 is acknowledged as probably the best ever vintage for red wines in Ontario. This Bordeaux style blend is doing very nicely with deep ruby red color, medium-full body and rich cherry flavors. Tannins are soft on entry but become more present the more you drink. A nice red but I would be very hard-pressed to say that is in the class of a red Bordeaux based on the few I have had. I would like to see this with lots more age on it. This said, it was a very good match with my upscale chipotle skirt steak.

1989 Chateau Soucherie Chaume – Gaaaa! Corked! Finally, someone who understands me and brings up a sweet wine to share… and it’s spoilt. It was a lovely deep golden color and despite the TCA taint you could taste some lovely lemon-lime and quince fruit as well as register some great acidity. This gave us false hope that it would blow off with a decant or more time in the glass would but as the night went on it became clear that it would not be coming back. Fortunately, I have two bottles of the 07 vintage. This only reinforces my hatred of cork.

2010 Zind-Humbrecht Vielles Vignes Vendanges Tardives Gewurztraminer – In the absence of the Chaume, this became our dessert wine, garnered a couple of WOTN votes from both Michaels, and was shared with both the somm and the chef. Turns out the latter is a sweet wine lover like myself and she was very happy to receive our gift. Not a good match with my Tres Leches cakes, so I finished dessert and savored this on its own. I gave my own WOTN vote to the champagne to be objective, but honestly this should’ve been my WOTN vote as well.

Tran, what’s the corkage policy at Los Colibris? You can PM me if you don’t want to post it publicly. TIA.

Despite the cork, what a fun sounding evening.

Your enthusiasm was infectious.

Oops. Sorry guys, the last wine was a 2010 Zind Humbrecht Vieilles Vignes Vendanges Tardives Gewurztraminer.

Corkage I will PM on. Food was amazing. I highly recommend it.

Oh, then I take it all back.

Thanks for the notes and great to meet you. I’ll try to add some thoughts later.

fyi the Soucherie Chaume was the 1989.

Gaston is close to Gordon and has a green label -Gaston Chiquet? Good stuff.

Michael

I’ll just tag onto Tran’s notes to jar my memory.

BTW, it is risky business to take a Californian to a Mexican restaurant … IN TORONTO but the food was outstanding. So good. I want more.

Hopefully Jay or Mike can chime in with the name. I thought it was excellent. Really opened up with about 30 minutes of air. Yum.

I really enjoyed this wine. Very dry but not sure if completely dry. Works great with food but has such good balance, it can be sipped on its own.

It should be noted that this was popped and poured. Sulphur on the nose. I thought this wine was very nice with decent upward potential. Not a wine I have seen around in the US but if I did, I would buy.

I believe this was 100% Petit Verdot. Probably my first “aged” Ontario wine. We briefly decanted it. This is drinking very well. Somewhat on the soft side but I found that element appealing. Medium/Full bodied.

Yes the second I got the glass near my nose I got a whiff of TCA. But the fruit was still extremely racy. Seems odd to have a slightly tainted 89 with such vibrant fruit. Showing a little bit of oxidation. High acid. I can imagine a clean bottle being terrific.

This was outright tasty. i have never tasted the VV VT. I would say aggressively primary. I am not a huge fan of aged Gewrztraminer but this needs a few years but with the lowish acid, I would keep an eye on it.

Good times.

Cheers,

Jason

Hi guys—sorry to be so late to the thread, and don’t know what happened to my notes—the dangers of not posting the next day. Jason, so great to see you again and a pleasure to meet Mark. Thanks so much, Tran, for posting your notes. From memory (dimming by the day)

The Champagne, I have even less memory than Tran, as I was late from work and only gulped a bit of it, but it could have been Gaston-Chiquet, very possible.

2011 Pearl Morissette Blackball Riesling was quite good, good tactile element to it now, agree that the flavours are more to the slightly sweet lemon vs apple. Still probably a year to fully come into its own.

2012 Louis Jadot Chablis Fourchaume. Michael grabbed for this from the list. It’s a “correct” Chablis, with some stoniness around lemon and a slight dash of tart apple, but doesn’t go any further—missing the verve and class of a Valmur or Les Clos. I’m starting to focus in somewhat on vineyards in Chablis for my pleasure points.

2007 Stratus Petit Verdot. While I think 2010 and certainly 2012 will be better, the 2007s whose fruit has made it through the huge structure are, I think, drinking reasonably well at this point. So it was with this item, I agree with Jason that this was softer and had more plush red fruit than I expected, but it did provide an interesting counterpoint to the Aussie PVs I have had in the past. It definitely matched with my chorizo dish. Liked it without loving it.

1989 Chateau Soucherie Coteaux de Layons

Yeah, it was a shame that this was very lightly corked—not sure I caught any oxidation as Jason did. It was hampered enough, though, to tamp down the flavours and playfulness that should come through these wines at this age range of their existence. I concur with the quince and also perhaps some star fruit and pear. Good feel to it too. Just a shame it’s muted.

2010 ZH VV VT Gewurtz. This was quite excellent, already showing rich and well. I agree with Jason that I’m not sure it’s destined for a long life, but fans of this style will definitely find a winner here.

The food was tremendous—very glad we could impress the Californian on that score.

Hope to see you at FallTacular next year, Jason, and perhaps on one of the hockey or football Fantasy leagues.

Best,

Mike

The champagne was NOT Gaston-Chiquet. It was one of the few I had picked up and did not document

aGrapart?