Ms. Yoga came up for Christmas and we saw her before Christmas at the house and then we saw her again after Christmas and her son had come up from school to see his relatives as well.  My Bride and Ms. Yoga go way back before my showing up on the horizon and of course we remember when the son was born and he even went on the trip to Napa when we went there.   Ms. Yoga enjoys her wine as much as we do, and now her son is of the age of majority, but he was drinking cocktails, because he is cool, and the waiter did card him, and for some odd reason, he did not ask us for identification, so I guess we looked a little older. 

They were staying at her brother’s house and we met up for dinner at Hyde Park, since Ms. Yoga was the one to introduce us to the restaurant, in fact, like the week it had opened, and we were not even aware of it.  I knew that they had opened one in Birmingham, but not they had one in Northville, right on our doorstep.  It may have been the easiest meal ever ordered by this group in a restaurant, as the waiter did not have to go and have therapy afterwards.  For starters we all split a Shrimp Cocktail with a wonderful sauce full of really freshly ground horseradish, to clear the sinuses.  We, then all had the Lobster Bisque, which is just delightful there, it is worth the price of admission, except for my Bride who ventured astray and had the Tomato Bisque and she said it was lovely and real comfort food.  We almost all had Filets with Bearnaise Sauce, except Ms. Yoga who had Chilean Sea Bass.  Just a charming dinner. 

I saved the day, at least to me, because we would have had some wines by the glass, or a bottle of wine that we had enjoyed before, but lo and behold, I found something that even the Lord High Exchequer approved of.  We had a bottle of Chateau Coudray-Montpensier Chinon 2016.  If you are wondering why, I wrote about choosing this wine in such a way, it is because a red wine from Chinon in the Loire Valley means Cabernet Franc, and that distinctive varietal gets my Bride excited.  The estate is composed of both od vines and parcels that were planted ten years ago, on an area of thirty hectares.  Each of the parcels are recognized for imparting a special terroir; the limestone clay soils big aromatic wines and the sandy plains are described as more supple and fruit forward.  This wine is their flagship offering and is grown on fourteen hectares of the sandy plains and I have always felt that Cabernet Franc seems to offer more terroir compared to most of the other grapes, even in an affordable wine, and this wine delivered and you can’t ask more than that.