Great food and wine this Monday night. Nancy cooked a pork roast on a bed of vegetables and potatoes and made some applesauce from apples she bought at the farmers market. The 2 ½ pound roast was seasoned with salt, pepper and marjoram and roasted in the oven for about an hour and a quarter. Surrounding the roast were onions, celery, potatoes, a few pieces of cauliflower and several whole garlic cloves. We also added a few cherry tomatoes about ten minutes before it was done. For the applesauce, Nancy just cut up the apples with a little cinnamon and cooked them down until they were soft and easily mashed.
Dave brought a really nice wine that paired extremely well with the pork roast. It was a 2007 Pasos Vineyards Reserve Charbono (13.8% alc.) from Lockeford in the Lodi appellation. Charbono is also called Bonarda, especially when it is from Argentina. The wine was aged in French and Hungarian oak barrels.
The wine was a nice dark ruby color with cedar, spice and dark fruit on the slightly restrained nose. There were flavors of spice and rich dark fruit and the wine had a nice light body. Well balanced with really nice tannins and a long finish. When drank with dinner the tannins mellowed out and left you with the beautiful dark fruit. A really nice pairing! I highly recommend this wine if you are looking for something that has a lot of fruit without being overripe as so many Lodi wines are. This wine would definitely last 3 or 4 more years in the cellar.
