)
So...to celebrate and "pay them back," I hosted a dinner. A nice salad with a delicious New Zealand Sauvignon got us started.
The food included a delicous green bean and bacon dish, and an amazing quiche brought by Betty, my good friend. I served a spicy Italian sausage and tomato sauce over pasta.
The red wines included:
Farella-Park Orchard Block 1995 Merlot. What an amazingly beautiful wine. $45 and a steal. Tobacco, leather, earth, but still the nice Merlot fruit. Bordeaux? Nope-Napa County. Not every Merlot is a soft, jammy fruity mess. Even the newer vintages are very restrained and lovely, but this is a very special bottle! Almost better this time (my second bottle) ****1/2 We all enjoyed this beauty. I hope there is some left! Time to give Tom Farella an e-mail or a call.
William Harrison Cabernet Sauvignon (Rutherford, Napa Valley) 2003. I knew Harry liked richer, bigger cabs, and I have three more bottles of this baby, so I decided to experiment with a younger tasting!
A group favorite--this wine was showing very well tonight. Especially the first glass, which was very dark and fragrant with black fruit and a strong tobacco on the nose. Black as night in the glass. Lovely black fruit-cassis and blackberry and tobacco and leather. And-so young. The second glass, strangely enough, showed a little more vanilla oak, but it was still smooooooth. A group favorite! A nice one to put down for a decade or so? **** first glass. *** second glass?
Cafaro Cabernet Sauvignon 1997. I am not convinced 1997 is a superlative year in Napa Cabs. This wine started out a little thin in texture. Definitely a lighter red color in the glass-and more reticent on the nose. Raspberry, tobacco, light leather. I really like Joe Cafaro, though, and this wine improved over the night. Solid ***1/2, maybe even ****. I picked this wine up from the back room of one of my favorite wine shops in the Bay Area-Arlington Wine in Kensington, CA. I have a great deal of fondness for this shop because they turned me onto good afordable Bordeaux. (I need to make another stop next weekend! The Ch. Larrivet Haut Brion 2000 is drinking lovely now, even if the notorious Michel Rolland is involved!. And relatively affordable!) In talking about what I like, and they sold me this bottle at whatever price I thought was fair. $20.00 is more than fair! Thanks, guys!
To wind down the night, my friend Joe opened the 2002 Frank Family Reserve. Definitely more fruit forward, sweeter, than the other three wines. Still, it evolved nicely in the glass. A solid **=1/2+ especially given the possibility for improvement. [/b]