SQN dinner

Great friends are what wine is all about. The chance to share your passions for wine, and food, to spend an entire evening visiting, tasting and eating with those who share your passion for killer wine and food.

Last night I hosted a Sine Qua Non focussed wine dinner in Albuquerque. I love the SQN wines and this was a perfect opportunity to not only try them myself, but get others hooked. Mailing list wines should be shared with fellow winos, in my opinion at least. A friend volunteered her home as I cannot seat 10 people and the associated glassware. Everyone contributed what they could to the menu or wine selection. I think we did ok.

NV Veuve Cliquot Champagne from Magnum



Hors d’oeuvres

· Stuffed mushrooms

· Crab and artichokes

· Blue cheese and mango bundles

2001 SQN Albino white (Chardonnay, Roussanne and Viognier)



First Course

· Salmon with peach barbecue sauce on wild rice

2001 SQN Oregon Shea Pinot #6

1998 SQN Hospice du Rhone Syrah Alban Vineyard Special Bottling



Second Course

· Cornish Pasty with mushroom sauce

2000 SQN InFlagrante Syrah

2001 SQN Midnight Oil Syrah

2002 SQN Just For the Love of it Syrah

Main course

· Bryan Flannery 45-day aged Private Reserve Porterhouse Steak, creamed spinach, roasted fingerling potatoes, dinner rolls

2003 SQN Papa Syrah

2004 SQN Poker Face Syrah

2003 SQN The Inaugural Syrah



Dessert
· English trifle, almond sugar cookies

2003 SQN Mr. K The Nobleman Chard (375mL)



The champagne was wet and bubbly. Not an outstanding bottle and really just something to entertain us while everyone arrived.

The Albino kicked off the SQN part of the event. Tropical fruits, spicy, light toasty notes with a touch of vanilla. A very very nice wine.

Dick & Carollee Krueger surprised us with the 1998 Hospice bottle so we added that to the salmon course next to the No6 Shea Pinot. The pinot had classic notes of bing cherries, light chocolate and spice, vanilla, earth and forest floor. The Syrah was outstanding. Perhaps the WOTN, although lots of votes for the Midnight Oil. Integrating nicely with black fruits, tar, molasses, scorched earth, and spicy ripe blackberry.

The Inflagrante had exotic black fruits, light vanilla and scorched earth.

Midnight oil has long been my benchmark for SQN. Mainly because it was one of the first “big” allocations I received from SQN so I’ve had the opportunity to have it 2X before. It may be closing down a bit as it isn’t as lush as my previous two notes indicate. Blackberries, toasty oak, medium-full tannins. Lovely, just not as “over the top” as I recall. Perhaps because I’m tasting it beside a bunch of other top-tier, excellent, rich, mouth filling wines.

Just for the Love of it. Ripe blackberries, exotic black fruits, toasty, full-bodied. Wow!

Papa. Blackberries, plums, blueberry pie, touch of vanilla, aged meat(?) or is that the steaks influencing me?

Inaugural. Toasty oak, black fruits, full tannins.

Poker Face. Blackberries, blueberries, smoke, full tannins.

Mr K. Rich, mouth filling, botrytis, a touch of spicy oak, with good acid balance.

All the wines are phenomenal. And based on the 1998 Hospice bottle, will benefit from bottle age. How do we give higher scores? No clue, they are delicious on release and hard to keep my hands off of them.

I love my friends, I love events where I can open a selection of killer wines from my cellar for those who appreciate such indulgences.

I will note that we had one person who doesn’t like syrah, and upon the first pour said “wow, that’s wonderful”. Her husband about fainted, the rest of us just grinned “SQN can convert a person you know.” Another hates pinot and I caught her going back for seconds on the No6 Shea.

Dangerous tastings indeed

I’ve tried the 2002 SQN “Just for the love of it” at a dinner back on the 25th November 2007 and I didn’t “get” it. Nothing against the wine, just not my style - I didn’t “get” the '99 Le Pin and 2002 Screaming Eagle at the same dinner either.

For whatever it’s worth, my notes on the SQN at the time were:

2002 Sine Qua Non “Just for the Love of It” - Slight band-aid/iodine/camphor/eucalyptus/anise notes wrapped warm blackberry/cassis/raspberry, bit of black pepper and violets. This was mirrored on the palate (thankfully, sans the band-aid/iodine) with cedar notes and suggestions of mild anise and clove surfacing more to the back and onto the very long finish. Big, ripe, confident and certainly not shy. Until last night, I’d never heard of this wine, the only SQN I had ever tried being their dessert wine from the Doc (which, by the way, I found excellent).

Your band-aid descriptor suggested that it might have been Bretty.

Possible. I’m not very averse to brett though.

Jeff - sounds like a fantastic dinner. I had the JFTLOI, the Poker Face, Atlantis and the Inaugural syrahs week before last and enjoyed them. The one that was a disappointment at my dinner was the JFTLOI. I’ll try to find my notes on it. The Poker Face and Atlantis were outstanding. Glad you enjoyed your dinner.

LMD, the wine isn’t for everyone. It is unique and if it isn’t your style, it just isn’t. No worries there.

Cheryl, how can one not love this dinner? Great friends, great wines, generous people donating wines and/or food and/or a large table, a great evening.

I also learned, and will not go into detail to protect the guilty, that letting someone else run the grill is a big mistake. [suicide.gif] Of the 9 of us, 3 easily could have run the grill (me, Dick, Robert), unfortunately one of the other 6 decided he had it under control. [stop.gif] and we believed him.

I now boldly take over the grill if I’m at their house, and even a few others now let me run their grills when we party at their place. Not that I would dare touch Dick’s or Bill’s (I’m not even trained on Bill’s which is run by his computer via a wireless connection inside) unless they needed a sous chef, but for many others I just jump in without apology and get to work. Kevin and Sandi love that part, they tell me when I arrive “grill is yours, go for it”. It’s hard to find good help now adays