(We had a snow day, the teen was with his girlfriend and friends all day and decided he would stay in for dinner)
I had solicited advice for the duck on previous night, my thought was off-dry Riesling (I usually prefer PN with duck, but the sweet sauce)- others countered with Gewurztraminer or Chenin Blanc. When pondering my cellar list I decided this was a good time to get rid of one of those ZH wines that I can never figure out what to serve with.
I brought up the 1999 Zind-Humbrecht "Herrenweg de Turckheim" Gewurztraminer (Alsace). At that point I found out that Betsy was doing a variation, using kumquats & kumquat zest rather than orange, but it still used Grand Marnier and I didn't think it was a big change re matching.
Floral nose with litchees and honey. Rather heavy/oily on the palate, mildly sweet. Very Humbrecht, very Gewurz. As one my expect, rather low-acid. Flavorwise a pretty good match to the duck's sauce, but not a wine I would seek out again - it could use more zip. More a question of "not my style" than quality, certainly a well-made wine. Still, nice to clear out one of my last non-dessert ZHs. B
After dinner we had some nice quiet time watching a movie while David studied upstairs, actually a pretty nice Valentines Day after a hard day shoveling. I'd recommend Bill's potatoes (recpe on FLDG) to anyone as a delicious and attractive side. Here's a link: http://www.wineloverspage.com/forum/village/viewtopic.php?t=6344 to the recipe.
Grade disclaimer: I'm a very easy grader, basically A is an excellent wine, B a good wine, C mediocre. Anything below C means I wouldn't drink at a party where it was only choice. Furthermore, I offer no promises of objectivity, accuracy, and certainly not of consistency.