D&D Wine Review

While on a road trip recently, our good friend Dave opened up a bottle of 2003 Wellington Vineyards Cabernet. He purchased it through wine.woot! (which offers weekly wine deals) and was curious to see what we all thought of it, so we opened it up.

The wine was not particularly fruity - yet it also was not heavy with oak. The best words to describe it were earthy and rich. I’m glad Dave decided to open this wine up, we really enjoyed it. Lisa cooked us a wonderful meal of spaghetti and meatballs and while the meal was delicious and the wine was delicious - I don’t think they were the best match for each other. I think the wine would be wonderful paired with a steak - it has that dark appeal to it. It could also go well with some of the tangier cheeses.

I would love to taste this wine again with a different dish and after it has aged. I really enjoyed it as it was and it could only get better.

Wine: Wellington Vineyards, Mohrhardt Ridge

Year: 2003

Grapes: Cabernet

Price: $22 (listed on website)

Rating:

This enjoyable Pinot Noir was on the wine list a fabulous resturant in Decatur called “Wahoo”. So, we picked up a bottle to try as a pairing to Pecan Encrusted Halibut. This Pinot has a nice floral aroma with a smooth, even taste. It is well-tempered and has soft, but flavorful fruits. A very nice, good valued pinot.

Wine: Five Rivers Pinot Nior

Year: 2006

Winery: Five Rivers

Region: California - Santa Maria Valley

Grapes: Pinot Noir

Price: $11.99

Rating:

Cajun Jambalaya 

12 oz. boneless, skinless chicken breast

Black pepper

1-2 tablespoons canola oil

4 oz. smoked chicken or keibsa sausage, cut into ½ inch thick slices

1 onion, chopped

1 green or red bell pepper, chopped

2 stalks celery w/ leaves, chopped

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 cup long grain brown rice

2 cups canned chicken stock

1-2 Bay leaves

Fresh Parsley

1 clove garlic

1 can tomatoes, 14-16 oz.

1 teaspoon hot sauce

½ cup green onions for garnish

1. Cut chicken, sprinkle with black pepper, place in heated skillet with oil until brown.  Remove and set aside.
2. Add Sausage, onion, green pepper, celery, garlic and thyme-Sauté over Med/High for about 5 minutes.
3. Add Rice, stir and cook for 1 minute (or rice can be cooked separately and added when you serve)
4. Add Chicken stock and bay leaf, simmer on low, tightly covered for 20 minutes, or until rice is tender.
5. Stir in tomatoes, chicken and fresh parsley season to taste with hot sauce.  Allow to cook on low for 20-30 minutes.
6.   Garnish with green onions serve.

*Variation-Use Shrimp instead of Chicken

*Variation-Omit Rice and serve with crusty French bread

The 2000 Serendipity Syrah was rated as a “best buy” in Wine Specator Magizine and with it’s appealing label I picked up a few bottles at a local wine store. The coloring was a deep garnet and the aroma was soft with subtle hints of berries. This wine has nice up front fruits with a soft, peppery finish. We also detected a hint of oak and possibly tabacco. It has a delicious and consisent flavor, we enjoyed this bottle most after allowing sufficent time to let it breathe. Smooth and easy drinking wine at a great price!

Wine: Serendipity Syrah

Year: 2000

Winery: Camplazens

Region: France - Languedoc-Roussillon

Grapes: Syrah

Price: $10.99

Rating:

On Sunday with gorgeous weather in Atlanta, we decided to try cooking pizzas on the Big Green Egg grill that has become Chris’ obsession as of late. I thought to accompany the pizza with a fun light red - and choose a Chianti from our wine cellar. I didn’t have any expectations about the wine - but I was pleasantly surprised. The wine was very light and smooth, definitely dry and a good flavor of fruit. Very enjoyable and a great companion for the grilled pizzas.

Wine: Chianti Classico Poggio Teo

Year: 2001

Winery: Valiano

Region: Italy - Tuscany - Chianti

Grapes: Sangiovese

Price: $14.75

Rating:

Last night, Chris & I celebrated an early Valentine’s dinner at Rathbun Steak here in Atlanta (see separate review). The waiter was very helpful in choosing a wine from a very intriguing wine list, including wines from more ’boutique’ wineries than most other restaurants. When asked what I wanted to drink, I wanted a red wine that could hold up to the steak we knew we would order, that was not ‘oaky’ and I said I tended to like the spice of a zinfandel but thought I wanted a cab to go with the steak. He brought us a taste of two different wines and the one we selected was actually less than the price range we had given him to recommend from - always a plus!

We decided on a 2006 Zinfandel from Sonoma - from Ridge Winery. As it turns out, this is one of my parents favorite wineries from the one year we lived in California in the late 80s. The word that came to mind to describe this wine was delectable. It was just very delicious with a good amount of fruit flavor (maybe currant or blackberries) and a slight bit of spice. It held up wonderfully to our dry-aged porterhouse for two. We highly recommend this wine. At the restaurant, it was in the $46 range - and when I looked it up online, its list price is $22. A great price for a wine I want to get for our cellar. Due to its good price and great taste, I think this deserves a very high rating.
Wine: 2006 Ridge Sonoma County Three Valleys

Grapes: 80% ZINFANDEL, 10% PETITE SIRAH, 5% CARIGNANE,
5% GRENACHE

Rating:

Region: California, Sonoma County

List Price: $22

I created a new category because I wanted to go ahead and post a review of the restaurant we ate at last night, Kevin Rathbun Steak. It was probably one of the best restaurants I’ve ever eaten at, if not the best. It’s a true steakhouse, with a dark seclusive feel - they give you a flashlight to read the wine menu if you can’t see in the dim light.

We went with the waiter’s recommendations for most of our order - lobster fritters to start (delicious pieces of lobster lightly fried), a dry-aged porterhouse steak for 2 (you get a strip and a fillet, the best of both worlds), a side of the truffle mac & cheese and then Chris added on a side of potato frittes with a stilton blue cheese fondue. The steak melted like butter - we choose to have ours served Medium Rare and I wouldn’t change that - it was perfect. I highly recommend going and choosing the dry-aged steak, it adds a nutty flavor that exceeded our expectations. We ended the meal with a dark-bottom creme brulee (delicious!) and a chocolate chocolate cake (very rich and yummy). Throughout the meal we enjoyed a very rich and smooth Zinfandel, reviewed separately on this site.

If you are in Atlanta and want a special meal - we highly recommend checking out Kevin Rathbun Steak.

Enjoy!

Updated:  We tried a second bottle of the Umbria Merlot and I am happy to say it was a much better wine than the previous bottle indicated.  The wine was very smooth, very deep and definitely had a taste of oak (at least to my inexperienced tastebuds).  It was a very enjoyable, casual wine.  Merlot probably isn’t my first choice when choosing a red wine, so my rating of 3.5 stars is probably lower than others - if you like Merlot, this would be a great wine with a good price tag.

Previous Entry: We must have a skunked bottle - that’s all I can say. I got 3 of these recently because I heard such great things and we didn’t have a good representation of Merlot in our cellar - Robert Parker gave it a 90 and Gary Vaynerchuk (very amusing wine reviewer) gave it an 88. I actually dumped my 2nd glass out. I never do that. I’m hoping that we open another one and it was a fluke. So for now - I guess I’ll just say this is supposed to be a good heavy, yet fruity wine. Its price is very reasonable, anywhere from $12 - $18. We found it at Whole Foods Market, who often give case discounts. I wish I could do a better review for our readers - I can’t even give what I drank one star. If you’ve had this and had a better experience, please post in our comments.

Wine: Italian Merlot
Winery: Umbria Falesco
Year: 2005
Grape(s): 100% Merlot aged 5 - 6 months in barrel
Cost: $14.97
Rating: