Last night’s light supper was sliced ripe avocado, topped with tuna salad. The avocado was sliced, placed on our salad plates; and finished with SI Beau Monde Seasoning and juice of half a lemon. The tuna salad was made with tuna packed in olive oil (most of the oil was drained off), a 1/3 cup of a Caper, blood orange, & Kalamata Olive tapenade, eight marinated artichoke hearts (chopped), and a 1/4 cup of rinsed and rehydrated capers. The tuna salad flavors were allowed to blend for a couple hours before serving atop the sliced avcado. The salad was enjoyed at our patio bar on a pleasant warm evening, looking out at the mountains, listening to Rossini Opera Overtures played by Roger Norrington and the London Festival Players; and a lovely 1994 Ridge Whitten Ranch (Geyserville) Carignane - fill a cm below the capsule; cork barely colored; rich dark fruits in nose and flavors; mid-palate with adequate acidity for the salad, rich dark fruit, and mostly resolved tannins, with a medium dark fruit finish. It was very good with the salad.
Then for dessert, after sunset watching re-runs of 1957 Maverick’s (via TiVo), we had a firm St. Andre cheese with mixed nuts & raisins and a 1986 Chateau Montelena Estate Zinfandel - fill mid-neck; cork saturated about a half inch; rich, dark berry fruit in nose and flavors; barely adequate acidity, rich fruit, a little oxidation, and fully resolved tannins in the mid-palate; and a medium long sightly oxidized dark berry finish.