Good Holiday Wine Selections Will Lead To A Happy New Year!
For Christmas Dinner, we decided to have a Whitehaven Pinot Noir from New Zealand which we received as a gift. Once we saw it we immediately knew that it would be part of the celebrations where lots of Turkey and Pork were going to be served. It was a luscious Pinot Noir with a nice berry ripeness to it underscored by mild vegetal and green pepper notes; which we loved. We have had their Savignon Blanc recently which we really enjoyed as well. We also selected a Blufeld Riesling for the same dinner selections but it surprisingly has not been consumed...yet.
During the course of the Holiday celebrations we found out that our family is (or has become) a wine family. Sure, we have it at every joint get together in some way shape or form. There has always been wine around the various houses but now, potentially due to the fact we blog about the stuff, it is everywhere and it is good stuff. Lots of Orvieto Classico, Pinot Grigio, Cabernet, and Bubbly. Our families seem to have adopted our curious nature and are trying new and different things. Not that they were set in their ways particularly but there seems to be new brands and different varieties popping up here and there....we LOVE that.
As we move into 2013, it is time to reflect on what was a very trying and challenging year in our household. We hope that the new year will bring peace on earth and good will towards all. We have no firm plans for New Year's Eve but we do know that it will be filled with great wine. We have recently received a very special gift of a 1988 Chateau Palmer Margaux from Bordeaux. That bottle is a strong candidate for the New Year's Eve roster.....however we are still going back and forth on it. Do we drink it? Do we hold it? Drink? Hold? You get the idea. We posed the question on Twitter and the overwhelming response was to open it. According to Chateau Palmer (who responded to our Tweet) it is drinking nicely now and they have encouraged us in the gentlest way possible to open it up. The internal struggle for us is that it is such a rare occasion that you get to open a time capsule in a bottle like this, we just don't know when the 'right' time enjoy it might be. Once it is opened and consumed it is gone forever. For some perspective, at the time those grapes were picked and fermented, Chris was just starting high school and Shannon was mid-junior high. The mere thought of that makes us slightly dizzy. Bottom line, there will be a significant blog post about this, whenever we open it.
There is also a nice Prosecco in our future, as it is New Year's and what is New Year's without bubbles (another blog post to be had on that as well). We are not Sparkling Wine experts by any stretch, as you can judge from our past posts, but we do enjoy it on occasion. Now Bubbly fans will tell you that Sparkling Wine should be an everyday wine and we would wholeheartedly agree with that. The challenge for us is finding the right food pairing for it. We think we had a rhetorical conversation with ourselves last New Year's that we would resolve to drink more sparklers but we failed pretty miserably on that one in 2012. Well, 2013 is a new year with new adventures so maybe this year will be the year of Sparkling Wine.....maybe.
So now we throw the question back to you. What are you drinking this New Year's Eve? Anything exciting or something you've been cellaring? This could be an 'Open THAT Bottle!' New Year's. We did survive the End of the World according to the Mayans after all. It should be time to celebrate.
Let us know. We would love to hear your plans!
To our Readers, both new and old, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy lives to read our wine reviews and random thoughts on this Blog. May you all enjoy a wonderful New Year!
Keep on tasting!
Chris & Shannon
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