In case you never noticed my Bride can be impulsive, or as Micheleen Flynn would say “impetuous.” While we were making our reservations for seeing Bernadette Peters, she saw a movie poster for a film, that I had not heard of, but she had, she immediately called one of her girlfriends, and Ann Arbor is a halfway point for her and us, and she agreed to meet us for dinner and for a movie.  We had enough time to buy movie tickets and then we went back to Taste Kitchen to make a second dinner reservation, but this time for three.  

We basically all arrived at the same parking structure at the same time and walked around a bit, and then went to the restaurants.  The ladies started the meal with Butternut Squash Soup with a fried carrot, coconut milk, apple, red curry, and ginger.  I went with Smoked Salmon Rillettes with shallot, dill, aioli, trout roe, and crostini.  We started with Vinedos y Bodega Pardevalles Estate Albarin Blanco Leon 2023.  Leon is an historical wine producing area at the intersection of two major pilgrim routes to Santiago.  The district Leon, until 2019 was known as Tierra de Leon and is a recently new DO status; though viticulture has been recorded there, going back to the Tenth Century.  The area did suffer from phylloxera in the late 1800s, and slowly recovered, but during the Franco dictatorship, the area was concerned with quantity over quality.  Pardevalles Estate was founded in 1949 by Rafael Alonso, who came from a long heritage of grape farmers and winemakers, and his children and his grandchildren are now operating the estate.  The estate has thirty-eight-hectares planted to Prieto Picudo and Albarin Blanco on quaternary soils with a large number of rounded stones, which absorb the heat of the day, and keeping the soil warm during the nightfall.  The wines are stored in a subterranean cave that has been used for the area for the last three hundred years, and the estate has 125 barrels there made of French and American Oak. This wine is pure Albarin Blanco, mechanically harvested.  It undergoes maceration for two days, and then resting another two days, before Initial Fermentation in Stainless Steel tanks.  The straw-yellow wine offers notes of white stone fruits, citrus, white florals, and herbs.  On the palate a well-balance wine with good acidity and tones of jammy tropical fruits and florals; ending with a short crisp finish of terroir.  

The ladies were having a good time and they both had the Seared Diver Scallops with Shiitake, apple, fennel, arugula, Miso-butternut Squash Purée, and coconut curry.  I always have to be the odd one, and I had the Halibut with a vegetable Escabeche, marinated mussels, sunchoke purée, and chive oil.  We then had Marcel et Blanche Fevre-Fevre Chablis 2022.  This fifty-hectare estate is considered by some to be a benchmark independent winery.  Gilles Fevre and his wife Nathalie, have been recently joined by their daughter Julie to become a fourth-generation winery.  This is a proper family-owned domaine and not part of one of the large cooperatives.  Thirty-three-hectares of the property is Village Chablis all on the classic Kimmeridgian limestone that the area is noted for; and no oak is used.  This soft golden-yellow wine offered notes of citrus, stone fruit, tree fruit, sous-bois, spices, smoke, and minerals.  On the palate, a very crisp wine with ample layers and tones of stone fruit, tree fruit, citrus and citrus zests, followed by tinges of earth, honey, mouth-watering salinity then finally ends with a good medium-count finish of a mineral-rich terroir.

Then we settled for a three-way sharing of “Pawpaw Crème Brulee” with charred lemon curd and Maple Tuilé.   As you can figure out, the Gold-dust Twins had the legendary Spanish Coffees that my Bride is such a fan of.  I enjoyed a glass of El Maestro Sierra Jerez 1830 Pedro Ximenez Jerez de la Frontera NV.  El Maestro Sierra is known for having one of the oldest soleras in the region, getting close to one-hundred-years.  The bodega was established in 1830 by José Antonio Sierra, a master cooper for some of the other Sherry houses.  For years, the production was sold to the larger Sherry houses, as they had sold their vineyards in the 1930s and 1940s; and then in 1992 when they had an inaugural bottling for export under their own brand.  To this day, they still use an artisanal approach, and they even maintain their own in-house cooper.  One of the key assets of the bodega is that it sits on the top of a bluff with full exposure to the winds from the Atlantic Ocean, which promotes a vigorous flor growth, flor is a crucial part of biological ageing of Sherry wines, and flor is a special blanket of yeast that lives on the top of a cask of sherry that feeds off of oxygen, basically a natural vacuum seal for the wine beneath it; which allows the wine to age almost forever in the solera system.  Aged Sherry has a unique taste all its own, and this dark-amber colored wine offered notes of prunes, candied orange, candied cherry, nougat, and sweet spices.  On the palate this slightly viscous wine offered tones of raisins, orange marmalade with a long-count finish of rich dried fruits and chocolate.