My Bride and I met thirty-one years ago, and I may have ambushed her about the date, as she was just waking up.  Even though we are retired, she has volunteered to help her sister, who just acquired the company that she has worked at, since I have known her; hence her grogginess.  She got all keyed up and suggested that we go to our local place for dinner, and we have been going there almost as long as we have known each other. 

I suggested Taste Kitchen in Ann Arbor, Michigan as we had discovered this restaurant by accident, because I guess they don’t pay off the local world of “food critics” that frequent the internet, because when I was looking for a restaurant in this area, the big bullies of social media, tried to have us believe that we had to be twenty miles away.  We had sat at the bar, shared a dessert and she had the best Spanish Coffee, and I had a Malmsey.  I booked a table, we got there early and she wanted to have a drink at the bar, as she thought the man behind the bar was superb, and he was there.  She wanted something festive, and he poured us two tastes, before we got festive.  The first taste was Champagne Lete-Vautrain 204 Brut NV.  It began at Chateau-Thierry in 1968 when their Maison was founded by Robert Lete and his wife Liliane Vautrain.  They began with a 0.4-hectare plot and progressively until today it is seven-and-a-half-hectare vineyard.  It went to their children and then in 2011 to the Baron-Fuente family in the Marne Valley.  The wine is a blend of fifty percent Pinot Meunier, twenty-five percent Chardonnay, and twenty-five percent Pinot Noir.  It is aged in the cellar for three years.  A nice golden color with fine bubbles, it offered notes of peaches and apricots.  On the palate, tones of peaches and green apple, with bright acidity, minerals and a longer finish of fruit and terroir. 

The second tasting was Veuve Ambal Blanc de Blancs Brut NV.  Anne Marie Ninot was born in Rully in 1859, she met and married Antoine Emile Ambal, a Parisian banker in 1879.  She had two children with Antoine and he died and she moved back to Rully, where she had a brother who was an owner and merchant of Burgundian wines.   She was observant of the beginning of the “Champagne Method” and created her own Maison in 1898 of red and white sparkling wines.  Veuve Ambal has been a family-owned concern and in 1975, they and others saw the designation AOC Cremant de Bourgogne approved.  In 2005 Veuve Ambal Maison built a state-of-the-art premises closer to Beaune.  This wine is a blend of Airen and Ugni Blanc.  Airen is a drought-resistant, white wine grape, that in the 1990’s was the most-planted grape in the world.  It is considered a workhorse grape and along with Ugni Blanc is known as a base for brandy.  The fruit is hand-harvested, and only the first pressing is used and it aged on racks for twelve to eighteen months.  This golden-yellow sparkling wine with fine bubbles offered notes of citrus, lemon, lychee, and white florals.  On the palate there were tones of green apples, plums, and pine nuts.  A nice dry wine, that is very fresh and I thought it would be great as an aperitif, as we were sitting at the bar, and my Bride concurred.

Since we had gotten to the restaurant early and having a drink there, we also enjoyed an appetizer, before we went to our table.  We were going to share an order of Jumbo Lump Crab Cakes with a vegetable escabeche, avocado and Remoulade.  I knew what wine I was going to have, as I enjoy the grape, much more than my Bride does.  I went with Azienda Agricola Malvira Renesio Roero Arneis 2021.  Giuseppe Damonte started to produce wine in the Fifties, in the winery and estate of his family.  In the Seventies the company was renamed Malvira, after the old 19^th century building in the center of Canale that became the headquarters of the winery.  The name refers to the exposure of the courtyard which faces north, instead of the traditional south. In 1989, they moved the headquarters again to the foot of one of their Trinita vineyards. Since the harvest of 2017, they have been certified organic.  They are now into the third generation known for their Arneis, but they have also recently began making Barolo wines as well.  This varietal was almost lost in the Piedmont, but through some dedicated winemakers, it has been saved and locally it is also referred to as Nebbiolo Bianco.  This wine comes from their Renesio vineyard.   The wine undergoes fermentation and maturation in Stainless Steel tanks and undergoes about eight months of repeated batonnage to get all the flavor from the grapes.  It is a pale straw-yellow color with a greenish tint and offers notes of white florals, white peaches, and herbs.  On the palate, where one would expect a sweeter wine, this wine is savory and that perhaps is why I am always drawn to it; the wine proclaims freshness and has tones of almonds or hazelnuts, with a nice maybe a kiss of honey at the finish, after being so crisp in the beginning.