Mid-August weekend

[lobolance]

Twas good.

Friday night I stayed home, doing some much-needed chores (sorted through one of my boxes of electronics! Found no VGA cable. But did find all the bits for my old digital camera, that I need to get up on Craigslist...). Saturday afternoon kingwyatt and I headed over to the Costume-Con 26 Meet n Swim. It was a very nice, low-key party. I was the first to dare the pool, but a couple other people give it a try as well (the blue bikini matching the blue hair of one of the women was beyond perfect). Our hosts made delish blackberry ice cream. Yum!

Highlight: kingwyatt had made us hamburger with meat he had ground himself! From chuck and sirloin (following the Way laid out by Alton Brown, lead foodie for geeks). Nothing but a bit of kosher salt wa added to the meat. It was unbelievably good. Apparently it was also time and work intensive. So yummy!  bovil was generously pouring interesting drinks. The one with the chipolte vodka was really unlike anything I'd had before. The basil mojito was fun, but not something I'll chase down.  

Sunday, kingwyatt and I decided to drive on down to Solis, which was having a food-and-wine pairings event. It was a perfect day; sunny and warm and not hot at all (all this too-perfect weather makes me think Something Bad must be coming!). A blues trio eventually started playing. They had a guest guitarist/singer who was really good. It was quite a treat to sip wine and tap toes.

The 'event' tasting started with their '06 Fiano SCV. Kingwyatt and I both swore we'd tried their Fiano before, but not liked it as well as we did this time. :-)

'01 Estate Merlot was next. It was quite tasty, plenty of fruit in it, but dry. A good wine to share. Next up was an '03 Syrah SCV, which we also liked. They paired it with a bit of tritip sandwich; nice, save the green pepper flavor infused everything (including the meat), and neither kingwyatt nor I are terribly fond of green peppers. Oh well.

Next was the barrel tasting, an '06 Mannstand (vineyard) Merlot. This will be blended with some other merlot to make a reserve. I really liked it; I like the tannins middle of the taste. This was paired with some chocolates. The chocolates were excellent, but, boy, they did not go with the wine. ! The almond roca and other buttery things were better.

Last was an '06 Muscan Canelli. At first it was ok, nice, easy to share with friends, but not too special. But after it sat a bit, wow, what a difference! Whole new warm notes opened up. Impressive.  All told, I am liking Solis' wines much more lately.

We did the 'regular' tasting afterward: '04 Chardonnay, '06 Vin Roseo, '02 Zinfandel. All were ok, but tended to peter out at the end.

After that, back home for more Sunday lazing about. All told the weekend was a nice mix of going out, time at home, and lazy time with kingwyatt .

I keep thinking all these costume-y things. Gotta get some pictures and ask for help, and do some other research myself.

Comments

[bovil.livejournal.com]

Excerpt the Solis report and post it in vintacon!

[lobolance.livejournal.com]

oh yeah, that was on my list of To Do. :-)

[nightqueen13.livejournal.com]

You seem to be quite an expert ! I fully agree about the wine-chocolates combo: definitely a bad one!!

[lobolance.livejournal.com]

I'm no expert at all! I'm just learning what I like, and learning a bit of the vocabulary used to talk about wine. That's what makes it sound like I 'know' something. Wine is all just opinion, same as any other food preference; it's about fun. :-)

I think some wines are very yummy with chocolate, but boy, this one wasn't! :-)