This weekend we had Nancy’s Mother and our friend Dave over for Rolled Pork Florentine. Nancy stuffed a pork loin and I cooked it on the BBQ with a little Hickory wood. Nancy has made this stuffed pork loin before. She modified the stuffing this time to include spinach, mushrooms, bacon, onions, garlic and marjoram. We thought cooking the roast on the BBQ would give it some interesting flavors, and we were right. The roast was a beautiful brown color and very moist as well. I cooked the roast using indirect heat on the BBQ. She also made her famous corn pudding and glazed carrots. For desert she made a Craggy Chocolate Cake using a recipe by Laura Calder. The cake is flour-less and rustic looking (code for really craggy) but tastes great. It’s easy to put together and requires few ingredients. Nancy served it with a dollop of creme fraiche. Everything turned out great and tasted great.
For wine we had a 2009 Mas Del Perie Les Escures Cahors and a 2005 Cameron Hughes Lot 182 Meritage. Two very different wines, the Mas Del Perie is 100% Malbec while the Cameron Hughes is 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Cabernet Franc and 5% Petit Verdot.
The Mas Del Perie was one of the wines I had collected but not tasted for our Cahors tasting back in April. In that tasting we only tasted 2007 vintage Cahors to eliminate vintage differences. The 2009 Mas Del Perie was fruitier than the wines from the 2007 vintage. The color was extremely dark, one of the black wines as they say. In the nose was fruit, smoke and mushroom aromas. There was a lot of fruit and a little smoke in the flavor. Moderate tannins, good acid and a medium length finish. This was more a new world style Malbec. We enjoyed the wine quite a bit and it went well with dinner but did not go well with the chocolate cake dessert. By the way, I had decanted this for three hours before it was served. I tasted it when first opened and then later at dinner and did not perceive any change.
Dave brought over the Cameron Hughes. This Meritage’s blend of grapes are from the Atlas Peak area in Napa valley. It was a medium garnet color with a hint of bell pepper, red fruit and cassis in the nose. The flavor was red fruit, raspberries according to Dave, and dark chocolate. Good acidity with moderate tannins and a medium length finish. This was a very nice and flavorful wine that went well with both the dinner and the dessert.
