We enjoyed a fabulous dinner with friends at the special venue of the El Encanto, a high end resort located up in the Santa Barbara Riviera with magical vistas of the city, ocean and channel islands during spectacular sunsets. Featuring a new and vastly improved menu, we were seated at one of our preferred outside patio tables which on this night was next to a wonderful local musician who, much to our delight, played and sang beautiful background dining music.
Additionally, our server was a long time El Encanto fav who plays the role of a dedicated server with grace and charm. While enjoying the pre-sunset aura with a huge fog bank rolling in off the Pacific, we sipped some nice bubbly before moving on to dinner wines.
2009 LOUIS ROEDERER CRISTAL BRUT- I just don’t seem to be able to keep my hands off this exceptionally young treasure and chose to open another one on this night; as I’ve experienced previously, it is showing so much better now than the way too young 08`; our bottle was absolutely fabulous; the aromatics included inviting spicy stone fruit notes which on the palate translated into honeyed peach and apricot with some pear and citrus in the background; it was very rich and full bodied and had a magnificent creamy mousse; it begged to be sipped, not gulped and I avoided the temptation; as good as it is now, it promises to be much greater later on if I can just allow the resining bottles to get past adolescence.
1993 DOMAINE MICHEL GAUNOUX BEAUNE- high neck fill; medium pyrope color; we had the best bottle of the 2 I have already opened; it gave very nice tertiary fruit notes along with a streak of spice and an underlying.earthy character; it had some pizzaz and got better in the glass and held a steady course throughout the evening; on the palate, mature cherry and dried cranberry flavors were most prominent; it was medium bodied and had much softer tannins and therefore much better mouthfeel than the previous bottles especially at the finish.
2000 DUNN VINEYARDS HOWELL MOUNTAIN CABERNET SAUVIGNON NAPA- decanted for an hour prior with considerable sediment removed; this was really good from the nose on; it was very Bordeaux like IMO with earth and leather, almost Bretty, infused black currant and plum fruit; it was full bodied and had soft tannins which allowed for a pleasing texture to carry all of the treasures to the back end.
Both the Gaunoux and Dunn paired perfectly with a Portobello Mushroom Pot Roast and Crispy Duck Confit.
This was a fine evening of friendship, fine dining with some fine wines, very gentle guitar and vocal background music and the ambience of a large, spectacular outdoor patio overlooking the lower reaches of the city and out into the ocean, at least until the fog obliterated most of the view and we were relegated to the superb view of our table with the 4 smiling faces.
Cheers,
Blake
