No, not my birthday and not my Bride’s.  While we were staying at Hilton Head Island we made a side trip to Charleston, South Carolina to celebrate with Ms. Yoga.  Ms. Yoga doesn’t live in Charleston, but she decided to celebrate her birthday there and we went to join her.  We pulled into the Renaissance Hotel to check our car in, because it is another city that is difficult to find parking.  Ms. Yoga, had already made arrangements with the attendants, and they were well aware that it was her birthday, not only did they know, but the hotel en masse knew and she even received a chilled bottle of wine with glasses for the occasion. Auntie Mame lives.

Ms. Yoga wanted to start the day off with a picnic in the lobby of her hotel, and we went into a coffee shop there, and they really didn’t have anything of note to add to the festivities, but the young man there suggested that we go to “Caviar and Bananas” only a couple of blocks away to get some accompaniments for the wine.  The shop that we went to had a little bit of everything from lunches to go, beverages and munchies.  So, we got some crackers, a couple different wedges of cheese, and a sausage.  We also got some paper plates, plastic utensils, and napkins.  When we got back to the lobby, I tried to used one of the plastic knives to cut the sausage to no avail.  Ms. Yoga went back to the coffee shop and returned with a knife that would, it was a steak knife by Laguiole, go figure.  While I was prepping our picnic with the impromptu charcuterie plate, the ladies went to get the complimentary bottle of wine and glasses.

As the ladies finished prepping our picnic in the lobby, I opened Ms. Yoga’s birthday present from the hotel, of Can Xa Cava Brut Penedes NV.  The winery was established in 2007 and is part of the wines from the De Andres Sisters and the vines are twenty to forty year olds.  The wine is fifty percent Xarel-lo, twenty-five percent Macabeo and twenty-five percent Parellada.  The wine is aged for nine months before disgorgement, in the classic Methode Traditionelle.  The wine was a pale golden color with plenty of intense smaller bubbles.  On the nose there were tones of apples, citrus, florals, and almonds; and on the palate apples, mousse, some honey, balanced with good acidity, probably a bit sweeter for a Brut, but I enjoyed it, with a nice medium count finish with terroir.