We recently bought a new French cookbook, “Around My French Table” by Dorie Greenspan and have been trying various recipes so decided we would use it for our Monday night dinner with Dave. Nancy used two recipes from it, chicken, apples and cream a la normande and herb speckled spaetzle. Both were excellent and went well together. Dave brought over a 2005 Baltos Dominio de Tares Bierzo which is 100% Mencia. We haven’t had much exposure to the Mencia grape so we didn’t know what to expect. The color was a medium ruby and the nose initially smelled pretty bad, almost as if corked. After a few minutes it blew off and then smelled of dark fruit, tobacco and rubber tire. The body was light with mild tannins and moderate acidity. The nose carried over into the flavor with dark fruit, tobacco and rubber tire, a fairly complex wine. It had a moderate length finish and paired very well with the chicken and spaetzle. This is a really interesting wine and I recommend you visit the Dominio de Tares website and read about it. There is also an interesting article on winereviewonline.com about the Bierzo wine area.
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.