Dinner Blog 4: Boudreaux's Wine Wednesdays

Earlier this semester, my wine adventures took me to Boudreaux's Restaurant right on Main Street here in Blacksburg, Virginia.  This was one of the more off-the-path wine dinners that I've had, not focusing on a particular region or cuisine of wine, and instead just trying to have different flavors of wine with all different kins of foods! This restaurant even touts itself as "Blacksburg’s favorite Cajun Restaurant"

One of the cooler things that I noticed about the menu, right when we sat down, is that their wine menu starts off with "a few words about screw caps - obviously a trend that is on the rise, and that we have discussed in class.  If you have found yourself perusing their wine list, a majority of them do use screw caps and not corks.  It is actually technically called a Stelvin closure, regardless of the brand, and is quickly becoming a standard around the globe.  This is not inferior, as some older wine snobs would lead you to believe, because of the fact that it allows no air at all to get into the wine. Some would argue that no manner of removing the cap with the grace of traditional cork pulling has yet emerged. But, although they were traditionally associated in the US with extremely inexpensive jug wines or even "skid row" wines, the screwcap is making a comeback due to concern about premature (or sporadic) oxidation and cork taint. 


 So, enough about corks. We sat down and looked over the wine list, and tried our best to pick out some wines that we thought would go great with the options of food presented to us - there were about 6 of us so we figured we would each get a separate appetizer, and each get a separate wine, and all trade dishes/wine combinations. :) We actually ended up having even more wine and food than we typically get at the Zeppoli's tastings! And luckily, we decided to go on WINE WEDNESDAYS when the bottles are half off!

The wines we tried were:

Electric City Merlot, 2008, Washington, $$ Bottle 21 Glass 6

 


Just like a lot of the other wines that I've tried this semester, this one comes from Columbia Valley.  I learned from Exploring Wine quizzes last week that the Columbia Valley AVA lies mostly in Washington state, with a small section in Oregon.  I thought that for the price, this wine packed a pretty nice kick. It had a really fruity nose, but tasted more like pepper and it definitely had the "Oak Monster" that Gary V always likes to talk about! I think it went well with this spicy chicken tenders that we got - and it actually enhanced the peppery spiceness of both items (both the wine and the food).

 

Garnacha de Fuego, 2010, Spain, $$ Bottle 20 Glass 5.50


My first and only "Old Vines" wine of the semester, and what a taste one it was! I'm not ever sure that I've had a wine made for the garnacha grape either - it was definitely good, and i looked up what old vine necessarily meant, and I learned that it's made from grapes from vines that were atleast 65-85 years of age - that's pretty old! A glass-coating opaque purple color, it offers up aromas of pure black cherries, that's almost all that I got. It was pretty dense on the palate and remarkably rich for its cheap price, but after all that's Wine Wednesdays for ya! :)


Bridgeview Oregon Riesling, 2009 (But I already reviewed this for a tasting blog separately, so I will focus on the other three.) But it definitely went the best with the crab cake croissant that one of my friends got.




 



Lastly, I requested the Simonet Blanc de BLanc, Nonvintage from France at $20/bottle but they were out. :( Instead I got this lovely gem: in the bargain bubbly category, it’s hard to beat Cava, I've come to learn over the course of this class. It is basically Spain’s answer to Champagne. I’ve tasted many of these over the course of the semester, mostly informally and at government functions in Richmnd, but I've rarely have found one I didn’t like. To paraphrase Animal Farm, “All Cavas are good. Some are more gooder than others.” This year, I found one of those that excels: the Kila Cava 2009, from famed Spanish wine broker Jorge Ordonez. Not only is it a delicious vintage-dated, estate-grown Cava, but it tastes more expensive than its $10 price tag would suggest. It's definitely a great steal - I was surprised that it was involved in Wine Wednesdays because it was somewhat strongly carbonated, but definitely still delicious!

Calimari that we tried with just about all of the wines - definitely went best with the Spanish Garnacha de Fuego.

Emily and I!

Alligator Bites! I didn't like the texture of these - they were extremely gummy. So I only had a a piece or with each one and basically thought that every single one was quite dreadful.

And some pictures with friends to round out the blog post. :)

This is the last blog that I have to make for class, so I would definitely like to thank you all for reading, and I hope you have enjoyed your trip through a small glimpse of wine culture here in Southwest Virginia at Virginia Tech. #boyerwine. :)