We had a very quiet New Year’s Eve celebration, as the weather was terrible, and we live on the opposite side of the city from everyone else.  So, we had just a small gathering and my Bride was still a Whirling Dervish of activity.  She was enjoying herself, as she later told me, that she could relax and enjoy her company, because it was a quiet evening. 

My Bride loves to have cheese boards, and plenty of dips to nosh on.  She is not a fancy gourmet-style chef, but she enjoys good food.  She enjoys her whitefish pate, her shrimp cocktails, and she enjoys liver pate and mousse, and we have fine specialty markets where she can shop to her heart’s content.  For our guests, they prefer Chardonnay, and we have been drinking more Sauvignon Blanc lately, but we had no problem opening up some Dunning Vineyards Chardonnay Willow Creek District Paso Robles 2018.  Bob and Jo-Ann Dunning are the winemakers and owners of this forty-acre estate which was established in 1991 on the west side of Paso Robles.  The winery produces about fifteen-hundred cases a year using several different varietals.  This Chardonnay wine is produced in the classic Burgundian style with full oak barrel fermentation and sur-lees aged for one year.  It was a delightful wine with notes of pear and citrus, nutmeg and vanilla.  The wine had a nice creamy taste with balance acidity and layers of flavor that opened up and finished with a nice medium finish of terroir.

For our dinner my Bride prepared her Caesar Salad, Armenian Pilaf, a couple of side vegetables, a simple New York Strip Steak for one of the guests that has a certain food regimen, and a whole tenderloin for the rest of us.  We then had one of my Bride’s favorite wines, that she likes to save, but I went with one anyways.  We had Cain Vineyard and Winery Cain Cuvée Napa Valley  NV12.  Over the years I have called Cain Cuvée, Cain-Lite because it is made with the same loving attention, and with the same five grapes, but from two vineyards and much more affordable.  I still have in the cellar some of the original Cain Cuvée wines that have an actual vintage year.  I mention this because now the wine is a blend of two vintages and the date on the label refers to the year of the blending.  I think that it is a rather clever play on the term NV, as most of the time I use NV to mean Non-Vintage, some may think of Napa Valley and in some sort of texting language is can be read as eN-Vy or envy.  A great way to create interest, especially the first year that they did it.  Each blending year is a different blend and the wines are not a cookie-cutter duplicate of the year before and neither is the taste of wine, as compared to the Champagne houses that strive to have every batch of Non-Vintage taste like the last year for continuity and market appeal.  The labels are now a diamond shape and the back label now reads “harvested, vinified and blended for freshness, lightness, complexity and balance.” The wines also carry a Napa Valley designation as the fruit can be from their Spring Mountain estate and from their Benchland vineyards.   NV12 Cain Cuvee Napa Valley is a blend of fifty percent Merlot, thirty-two percent Cabernet Sauvignon, ten percent Cabernet Franc, four percent Petit Verdot and four percent Malbec.  A deep garnet red wine that offered a slightly funky nose when I first opened it, but about two hours later when we had it with dinner it showed a rich Medoc style wine and offered notes of black fruits, old leather, coffee, herbs and sous-bois.  On the palate a medium-bodied wine with striking tones of black cherry, plums, cedar, elegant tannins and a nice medium-count finish of fruit and forest floor terroir.  This is a totally pleasant wine that definitely is not a typical Napa Red Wine. 

After an assortment of desserts, they got ready to watch to watch a modern version of Dick Clark, and some entertainers that were all shivering from the cold weather in Manhattan.  For the count-down we had Andre Clouet “Spiritum 96” Rose Champagne NV. Today the estate is owned by Jean-Francois Clouet, a Bouzy native with a family history dating prior to the 17^th Century.  The house of Andre Clouet was established in 1741, and over the years the family had built it up to the present portfolio and status.  The estate now has eight hectares of vineyards on the mid-slopes of Bouzy and Ambonnay in the Montagne de Reims, on the famous chalk soils of Champagne. The desire to make this wine was to have a Rosé that offered freshness and youth with the essence of a great vintage.  This wine is a blend of ninety percent of a white Pinot Noir base, seven percent Bouzy red and for the dosage three percent of a liqueur made from their 1996 Grand Cru Bouzy Pinot Noir.  A pinkish orange/salmon colored wine with tiny bubbles and fine mousse that offered notes of red cherries, strawberries, raspberry, blood orange, brioche, florals and minerals.  On the palate a medium-bodied, high acidic wine that offered tones of cherries, strawberries, raspberries, some grapefruit with toasted yeasts and a nice long finish.  My Bride and I are both not major sparkling wine drinkers, but we both really enjoyed this wine and looking forward to other wines from this house.