Our friend Dave came over for our usual Monday night dinner. I grilled some pork chops on the BBQ with a little mesquite wood. We also had a salad made from avocado, red onion slivers, english cucumber and home grown cherry tomatoes with a lime vinaigrette. The other side dish was a mixture of Israeli couscous, orzo,baby garbanzo beans, red quinoa from Trader Joe’s and Nancy added some finely diced carrots to it. Everything was very good.
Our wine for the evening was a 2005 Artesa Cabernet Sauvignon, 63% Napa valley and 37% Sonoma Valley. The winemaker was David Dobson who has since moved on to Stage Gulch I believe. This is a very nice wine for it’s price ($17 at BevMo) and I am surprised it isn’t more expensive considering the grapes are from the Napa/Sonoma area. The wine had a nice dark ruby color and a big nose with fruit (dark plum), some earthiness and a little spiciness Nancy described as cedar. In the mouth there was good acid and smooth well integrated tannin. Also, ripe dark fruit (plums for me again), earthiness, vanilla and some spice from the oak. After the wine had sat in the glass for awhile the nose lost some fruit and a subtle flavor of bell pepper appeared. This wine was aged for 2 years in french oak. There was enough oak to enhance but it was not so much it covered up the true flavor of the grapes. This wine had a very long finish with a lot of flavor. It went very well with the pork chops, too.
We enjoy wine, food and travel. Pull That Cork is a chronicle of our wine adventures, the food and wine pairings we create and our travels which are increasingly organized around wine.