You may or may not have noticed we haven’t had a Monday night dinner in awhile. Dave has been somewhat indisposed but has now returned. We were missing his company and the fine wine he always brought. To celebrate his return we opened a 2007 Bealieu Vineyards Georges De Latour Private Reserve . It’s a little early to open this wine but we wanted to try it to see if we should buy more for the cellar. If you remember, we had been given two bottles of the Private Reserve as party favors at the black tie ball we had attended back in February. I decanted it for an hour but as young as it is I could have opened it even earlier.
Nancy made her great beef stroganoff served over spaetzle with buttered Lima beans on the side. The wine went well with the stroganoff, although a little big. I think a northern Rhone wine my have matched more closely.
The 2007 Private Reserve has a really dark ruby color with a violet tinge around the edge. There was dark fruit and licorice on the nose. The flavors were dark complex fruit with big grippy tannins and good acid. There were so many flavors we couldn’t pick out any single thing that stood out. Perfect amount of oak, you know it’s there but it doesn’t overwhelm the rest of the flavors. This wine definitely needs to age for awhile to soften the tannins. I put a note on my cellar inventory to wait five years and try it again. Really nice wine!
