#98- Muscadelle

On the 6th day of Wine-mas my true self gave to me- a bottle of Tokay from Hungary.

Now I've had a Tokay before, but it was a Tokay D'Alsace, similar to a Pinot Gris. But this one is the Muscadelle grape and known as Tokay in that country.

This is also a dessert wine.

And boy was it sweet. Super sweet but it was also very good. I hated the other Tokay but this one I enjoyed very much.

It was very thick and syrupy. A beautiful copper colour almost bordering on the orange colours and full of caramel and vanilla flavours.

The grape is of noble rot and hence gives it the dessert like quality to it. It is ranked a four star wine so it is of very high quality. Bill at Unwined suggested the wine to me.

Chateau Megyer  produces this wine. The Muscadelle grape is a white grape and is often blended with other grapes to create sauternes in France. In Hungary, it is often used as a single variety grape for dessert wines.

I paired this wine with dessert- carnation milk and a mixture of fresh blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries. This was an absolutely delicious dessert.

I think I'll be bringing this to Christmas dinner to share with the family. I'm sure it'll go with a nice spread of baking or something of the like. It should certainly last a while that's for sure. That's now two sherries and a dessert wine on the list of six so far. I'm definitely in the mood for sharing!

#92- Monica

I took one sip of this wine and I knew it was love. Kristin took a swig of it and it was love. I'm heading back to 123rd Street Liquor to buy myself a couple of more bottles; because it was love.

The wine is Argiolas Perdera from the island of Sardinia in Italy.

(but can I just say this- if the owners of the Argiolas ever stumble upon this blog, please please please take this advice- lose the cheesy romantic music and terrible 'tingy' noises any times I click on a link. It's enough to make one go bananas- lose the sound effects ASAP). Oh and that site is not user friendly at all. I couldn't find this wine at all on the site. Not a good thing when one is looking for information. I don't care how pretty the site is...

So aside from their terrible taste in audio and poorly laid out site, their wine is absolutely lovely! And by that I do mean love.

The wine is Perdera and is made from the single grape varietal- Monica. The Monica grape is very hard to find here in Canada so I was very happy to stumble upon it. And with my love affair with the grape, I have no idea why more stores don't carry this type of wine. There isn't much written on the grape other than to say it originated in Spain and is meant to be drunk young. This wine is 2009.

For a young wine, I found this wine to be incredibly complex and full of flavour. They danced all over my mouth. You can't taste just about every berry in there- raspberry, blueberry, blackberry and on and on. But it's very earthy as well. When drunk, it reminded me very much of a Cabernet.

I matched it with a pasta dish I had made- a three cheese pasta with broccoli and a nice peppered beef shoulder (roast). The fullness of the red paired very well with the beef and of course the cheesy pasta. I darn near finished the bottle that night but resisted.

I had it the next night (the night Kristin was able to take a swig) and the wine was just as good the next day.

I really can't say much more about this wine other than if you have a chance to purchase this wine (and i remember it being a very reasonable price as well), to go out and treat yourself to a nice bottle. Especially if you are a fan of full reds.

Well, tomorrow I'm off to see Prince in concert but then I start the 12 Days of Wine. I'm 12 wines away from completing a wine a week and I'm determined to finish on time here so on Wednesday, I start the 12 Days. I'm not sure what my liver will think of me on the 26th of December but it's worth finding out!

Purple Rain....We're gonna party like it's 1999!

#80- Dolcetto

It was the only red wine of the whole camping weekend. And it didn't disappoint! After a full day of hiking and hitting up Old Fort Point (next post), we were ready to enjoy a quiet evening at the campsite. It was a beautiful evening in Jasper with daytime temperatures in the mid twenties so the evening temperature was just perfect.

We'd hoped that we had burned enough of Owen's energy off during the day and doing the climb but no such luck. While Craig got the fire going (so I could make us dinner), I had to entertain the kid.

I threw a ball in the air. I played bocce ball. I wrestled with him. I played I spy. I played jump over the wood logs. I played hide and seek....you get the idea. I'm not sure how people do this "parenting"  thing full time. It was time to drink.

The menu that evening included fresh potatoes (from my sister's garden), some side salad and good old AAA Alberta beef steak. They'd thawed during the day so they were spiced up a bit and once the potatoes were done, the steaks were put on and grilled to perfection.

The wine is a Dolcetto, very obviously an Italian wine. The wine is a midweight wine and not very acidic. It is often drunk very young. This was an absolutely delicious wine and both Craig and I gave this wine a two thumbs up. I thought it was a great compliment to the juicy and flavourful steak- didn't take away any of the smoky flavours of the food that had infused itself into our grilled dinner.

The dolcetto grape is grown in the Piedmont region of Italy and is known as "little sweet one" which it was. Coming off a month of drinking ports, sherries and dessert wines, it's all relative so I wouldn't call this necessarily a very sweet wine. It is actually a dry wine- this world is sometimes full of mystery and confusion.

In this wine I could definitely taste licorice and cherries and would classify this as a very balanced wine.

The winery is the Poderi di Luigi Einaudi and based on the beautiful pictures on its website, I would very much like to go there. It's exactly how I picture a vineyard to be- beautiful and romantic and mysterious. Oh, who wants to buy me a ticket? If you can read Italian, you can read more about the wine.

I still have some of the wine left so the debate tomorrow while I do some of my classroom work (yes,I'm taking a wine class- maybe one day I'll actually be able to write something intelligent about wine) and drink the bottle or leave some for Kristin and mom to taste on Sunday. Choices....