The flag of New Zealand.
This week, we went to the Palisades in Eggleston. What a fun little restaurant! I went with my friends Kristin and Sarah, both students in our class, and I really enjoyed the food that they had there, and the venue seemed like something you would find in rural southwest Virginia. But I'm going to start this blog post off very bluntly - I thought these wine's sucked. :(
It was situated, kind of awkwardly, right next to "Hardware and Farm Equipment...
But the entrance to the restaurant itself was very quaint and something that was actually pretty inviting!
The wines that we tried were particularly from the Marlborough region of New Zealand.
The notes given to us by the waitress, Cara, noted that wine making and vine growing go back to colonial times in New Zealand. James Busby was the first to produce his own wine in the area, but due to economic, legislative, and cultural factors, the spirit of beer and spirit drinking int he area was a marginal activity in terms of economic importance.
In the late 1970s, Marlborough produced a lot of different grapes, and the strong contrast between hot sunny days and cool nights helped extend the ripening period for the grapes. The majority of Marlborough's extensive vineyard plantings are around Renwick, Blenheim, and Cloudy Bay in the Wairau Valley.
On the menu was:
Lamb with Apricot Sauce
Tuna with Sweet Potato Cake & Mustard Butter
Kiwi/Strawberry Gelee
And additionally, I got a Caesar Salad
My friends also got an Artichoke-Red Pepper Dip that is pictured later in the post.
All of the food was delicious - I enjoyed them all infinitely more than the wines, actually. I tasted each wine before the food came out, and I actually enjoyed the wines more with the food, really driving the point home that wine is supposed to be accompanied by food.
The three wines that we had were (from left to right):
Lawson's Dry Hills Sauvignon Blanc, 2011
Spy Valley Risling, 2009
Ponga Pinot Noir, 2010
The Sauvignon Blanc was very florally, and the color was really white, almost like water. It literally tasted like a flower, and to be honest, it was sort of gross. I don't like passion fruit so that could have been why - that was one of the descriptors used in the description of the wine, along with lime zest, stone fruit, and floral aromatic notes - all of which I don't think sound very appealing.
The Riesling was not as sweet as most. It was slightly carbonated, which was very refreshing. It was slightly sugary, but not as sweet as most Rieslings, more like a Chardonnay with a bite of a bit. It had more citrus flavors, and no real florally or apple scent, which was welcoming. There was no real change after tasting the food in the taste of the wine, but it definitely went best with the dessert layer, and went well with the creamy and almost chessiness of the roasted red pepper and artichoke dip.
The pinot was my favorite of the three, by far. It was very much like a pinot noir in the flavor of the grape, and was fairly alcoholic tasting. One of the flavors used was this - A Kola Nut. whatever that is hahaha
It tasted a lot like wild berries, and was even sweeter after the food pairing, especially with the lamb. The Gellee was like a sweet jelly relish. Played well with none of the wines, I realized as I saved the gellee for my last course. It also had strawberry puree which was extremely tasty - until the frozen bottom, which just tasted like frozen juice concentrate. :(
So, overall, the New Zealand wines had more flavors than those of the Italian wines, and are fantastic examples of the fact that wine really was made to go with food. The flavors of the wine were altered by the flavor of the food, and not vice versa - which was something that I experienced in a negative way last week at Zeppoli's while trying the Italian wine collection.
Here are the final pictures of the after-effect of all of the wine and food pairings. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment