St. Patrick's Day Wine

My friends made corned beef and cabbage and potatos for supper tonight. Appropriately enough, we opened a bottle of 2003 Sullivan Coeur de Vigne (about half Cab and half Merlot), and, it went quite well with the meal!

Decanted for about an hour, recorked, then redecanted during dinner. Pretty primary right now, and there is definitely a layer of smooth vanilla oak underlying the fruit. More than I now prefer (this was purchased awhile ago). But-What made it go well with dinner, however, was a distinctive anise note-Beringer St Helena Home Ranch has a very similar flavor profile. for some reason, this anise note worked well with the beef and veggies. Throw in the sub 14% alcohol, and we all enjoyed this cab quite a bit.

Given the price point, I would probably rather have another bottle of the much more complex Heitz Trailside in the future. But, this wine certainly went well with the food tonight. Overall, a very nice wine weekend, with the stars still being the Cornas and the Verite on Friday!

Top o' the mornin' Brian. Sounds like a nice match. We had corned beef and cabbage last night, but stuck with the traditional Guinness Stout and Sam Adams Irish Red - a very tasty beer.

Top o' the mornin' Brian. Sounds like a nice match. We had corned beef and cabbage last night, but stuck with the traditional Guinness Stout and Sam Adams Irish Red - a very tasty beer.

My friend, at first, wanted to serve us Guinness from a can! We disabused him of that notion.

My friend, at first, wanted to serve us Guinness from a can! We disabused him of that notion.

There are some Irishmen at my workplace this session who insist that is the only way to drink it in the States. There is quite the party here tonight!

My friend, at first, wanted to serve us Guinness from a can! We disabused him of that notion.

There are some Irishmen at my workplace this session who insist that is the only way to drink it in the States. There is quite the party here tonight!

Most of the Irish that I know claim that the canned stuff is miles ahead of the Guinness in the bottle (which comes from Canada IIRC and hence earns only derision) or even in keg. My limited sampling tends to support this notion.

Mark Lipton

Well....you learn something about beer on a wine board. Who wouldathunkit?

There are 2 different versions of canned and bottled Guinness. Draft and not draft. I had the bottled draft over the weekend and it was better than the non-draft bottled, but not as good as what I get on tap at the local Irish Pub.