On Tuesday, David and Nadine had us and our friend Bruce to dinner in North Vancouver. The occasion was the capture of a live 4.5 pound lobster which David deftly turned into a stunning pasta dish. I brought two contrasting chardonnays for that course, an 04 white burg I've TN'd before and a 2000 Chateau Montelena. The burg was the brighter and more interesting wine, but the richer Montelena was my preference for the dish. David felt the Montelena had too much oak, and indeed it showed more oak and less minerality than I expected. Might hold here for a few more years but if I had more I'd move them to the drinking queue.
Before dinner, we hardened our arteries with a delicious duck liver mousse and sipped on a 2006 Parallel 45 rose. I've not had this one before but it's a dry, crisp, cut little number with good grenache character. I'll be looking for this on my side of the border.
Last night I was serving Rao's Lemon Chicken to friends and when I went to the cellar to select a wine to go with that, I discovered a forgotten bottle of 2002 Wildridge Nebbiolo from Washington State's Red Mountain appellation. Have not had the wine before and had no idea what to expect, but was quite pleased. Not as complex as it's Italian cousins and fairly low on acid, but there's excellent secondary development here and the wine's all cherries, prunes, dried rose petals, leather and earth.
After dinner we played cribbage, and sipped on a 2000 Novy Alder Springs Merlot. It was drinkable but the wine's past peak and picking up those muddy, soy sauce flavors of a wine that doesn't know where to go when it grows old. Drink up if you got 'em.