We are eating more leftovers in the last hundred days then I can ever recall.  It is the lockdown mentality, we make a bigger dinner, so that we can enjoy the meal, maybe once or twice more after the initial meal.  We are actually using up some of the food that has been stockpiling in two refrigerators and a chest freezer.   We even survived the great toilet paper shortage, because we just naturally buy in quantity, especially basics; we don’t buy bananas like we buy paper products.   Anyways, I think it is harder to cook for two, compared to a party, and though my Bride says no, she still cooks for a crowd and hence, I am maintaining my new figure.  I actually haven’t gained any weight, but I certainly have not lost any either.  Any ways, we are eating more leftovers and then if you toss into the equation a chance to go out, on a limited basis and now we have more leftovers, plus all the regular food that we already have. 

I have going through the cellar and bringing up the white wines to put into the wine vault in the family room and then I will rearrange all the red wines that that are allover the basement and the stair case going to the basement.  As a precaution, I have been putting two white wines in the refrigerator at the same time, more as an insurance policy, just in case, and so far, we have only encountered one over-the-hill wine, out of perhaps 1500 bottles, so far, the odds have been good.  I also have to say that I am really appreciative that my Bride got me The Durand wine opener, as it has been a blessing for opening up all of these twenty-year-old wines.   I opened up a bottle of Robert Mondavi Winery Fume Blanc Napa Valley 2001, and the label actually fell off of the bottle in the refrigerator.  Some people will probably scratch their head and say that they have never heard of a grape varietal named Fume Blanc, this is all fine and good, now onto this mystery varietal Fume Blanc, that I had opened. Fume Blanc is a marketing name coined by Robert Mondavi for Sauvignon Blanc, which at the time was suffering an image problem, as most people were associating this varietal for a sweet white wine, which it can be when it is in the production of French Sauterne. It can also be a dryer white wine, when it is from Graves in Bordeaux or from the Loire Valley of France. It is from the Loire Valley that Robert Mondavi created this wine term of Fume Blanc playing on the reputation of Pouilly-Fume. The most remarkable thing is that several other wineries including Ferrari-Carano have jumped on the band-wagon and call their dry Sauvignon Blanc Fume Blanc. They also tend to make the wine more in the tradition of the Loire Valley by using both Stainless Steel and used French Oak barrels for the production of the wine, and I also have to say that Fume Blanc is not a trademark name, just one that has been used and accepted; and there are no actually regulations or requirements for this “proprietary” name.  I guess the name change has worked over the years, and because this wine is actually a Sauvignon Blanc it should be a pale straw wine that normally is described as green and flinty.  This was the second wine that had to be unceremoniously poured down the sink, as it was amber in color and had a foul nose and taste.  I cannot blame it on the wine, it was just in the cellar longer then it should have been. 

The second bottle which was a backup was a Maison Loui Latour Macon-Lugny “Les Genievres” 2000.  Maison Louis Latour is a major negocient of red and white wines, and mainly Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in the Burgundy region.  The firm was founded in 1797  and is still family owned and operated, and with roughly seventy-two acres of Grand Cru vineyards, they have the largest holdings of any producer in Burgundy, as well as holdings in other parts of the region, and they have also started developing other holding in the south of France as well.  Macon-Lugny wines fall under the Macon appellation within the much larger Burgundy region, and is one of the most recognized districts in the Maconnais.  The white wines are exclusively Chardonnay and the red and rosé wines use Pinot Noir and Gamay.  This twenty-year-old Chardonnay still had life in her, the color had definitely darkened, the nose was very soft, but there was still some stone fruit and spices, with a nice finish of some terroir.  It was a lovely wine to drink, and it made the leftovers, all that much more special.