“Mixtape” and “Green”

Posted on May 25, 2022 by thewineraconteur

We were coming down to the wire for the last two wines to taste at The Royce and curated by the winemaker and owner Mike Laing of both Mawby Sparkling and bigLITTLE Wines.  During the entire time, he was also trying to explain the concept of making sparkling wines and why Michigan was perfect for it.  He was also explaining the different ways to make sparkling wine.  While he was discussing the concept of riddling the bottles, I automatically envisioned in my mind’s eye the boards with holes in it, that are slowly ratcheted and tilted further and further down, until the bottles are upside down to facilitate the disgorgement and the addition of the added liquid for the final fermentation that makes Methode Champenoise.  I said that I had heard that it was one of the highest paying jobs in the Champagne region of France, because of the danger of exploding and breaking bottles.  Mike Laing explained that it is all done at the winery by automation with almost no breakage encountered at all.  I found that very interesting, but I may have been the only one.

The penultimate wine for the tasting was bigLITTLE Wines “Mixtape” Leelanau Peninsula 2020.  One of ways in the old days to make a collection of music that one enjoyed to hear over and over, was to record the music on tape, way back before computers made everything so easy and this was named to honor how this wine was made.  This wine is a field blend of grapes that are grown and picked together at their Sylt Road Vineyard.  The wine is a blend of Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris.  The wine is fermented slow and cold and bottled with residual grape sugars for an off-dry white wine and there were four-hundred cases made of this wine. The pretty soft straw-colored wine offered notes of fresh fruit and on the palate tones of pink grapefruit, with a mix of sweet and tart, and bright acidity; a charming still wine with a touch of sweetness, and refreshing.

The last wine of the tasting was Mawby Sparkling Semi-Dry “Green” American NV. This is the only wine from Mawby that we had that is produced by the Charmant Method or the Tank Method, a more economical way of producing bulk wine that is used around the world.  This wine is made from seventy percent Cayuga and thirty percent Riesling and the fruit is sourced from Michigan, California and Washington State. The grapes for this cuvee are gently pressed, as they only use the juice from the first pressing for this wine and after initial fermentation the secondary fermentation is done in the tank.  The soft, pale gold colored wine offered notes of citrus and florals and on the palate tones of apricots, lemons and tropical fruit in a slightly sweet wine with high acidity and a crisp finish.  I guess “Green” as in a fresh and young wine and very easy to drink, as we were leaving The Royce, I ran into a fellow Instagram blogger and his wife, who I recognized and I introduced myself, by my nom-de-plume which he recognized, as well as my Bride.    

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“Blanc Brut” and “Underdog”

Posted on May 23, 2022 by thewineraconteur

Mike Laing of Mawby Sparkling and bigLITTLE Wines was holding court and he had everyone in the loft section enraptured with his discussions of winemaking, and even discussing contract purchases of grapes, and how the Vineyard Manager is going to different estates, checking on the quality and health of those vines as well.  It was a pleasure hearing him talk about the different AVAs in Michigan and he even discussed Larry Mawby who was one of the pioneers in the Leelanau Peninsula, but he also mentioned Bernie Rink of Boskydel Vineyard (Bosky means “befuddled with drink, inebriated”) the proprietor of the first bond winery in the region back in 1976.  Some referred to him as a curmudgeon and some as the “Wine Nazi” as he didn’t want tour busses of inebriated, partying “wine tasters” invading his serene and rustic winery.  

The wine tasting at The Royce was a bit more sedate compared to the always fun Mawby Sparkling with the bell and gong ringing.  The third wine that was being poured was Mawby Sparkling Blanc Brut Leelanau Peninsula NV and made in the traditional Methode Champenoise. The wine is a blend of eighty percent Chardonnay and twenty percent Riesling with a minimum of sixteen months Tirage ageing.  It was stressed that the classic sparkling wines from Mawby Sparkling use hand-harvested and whole-cluster first gentle pressing for the juice, the later pressings which contain more phenols, tannins and acids are reserved for other, sweeter sparkling wines.  The initial fermentation is done in Stainless Steel and then the young wine is transferred to bottles for the Tirage ageing.  This is considered their most delicate and refined wine.  This soft pale golden colored wine offered notes of lemons, brioche and yeast.  On the palate the delicate white fruits and lemon zest along with the traditional brioche added to the refreshing and clean finish.  It was my favorite of the bubbles.

Then along side the third wine the fourth wine was bigLITTLE “Underdog” Gamay Leelanau Peninsula 2020.  Since the wine names are from childhood memories, I thought of a cartoon series called Underdog, but I was told it was a certain way of utilizing a swing set for maximum velocity at a park.  This Gamay Noir fruit is harvested from their Stoney Point Vineyard.   The fruit is handpicked and crushed, and the wine is fermented on skins, with ten percent undergoing Carbonic Fermentation.  At the end of fermentation, the wine is pressed again and racked to barrel and then undergoes full Malolactic fermentation.  The wine is aged for eight months in French Oak, of which twenty-five percent is new and it is bottled unfiltered.  There were two-hundred-eighteen cases produced.  The wine is a lighter garnet color with notes of red fruit and black pepper.  It is a medium bodied with tones of berries, vanilla and a touch of pepper with a medium count finish with lingering fruit.   

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“Open Road” and “Grace”

Posted on May 21, 2022 by thewineraconteur

There I was walking up the steps at The Royce going up to the mezzanine to have a tasting with Mike Laing of Mawby Sparkling and bigLITTLE Wines.  After they made sure that we were registered and paid, we were handed our first glass of wine and of course, I had to slow up the proceedings as I had to take a photo of the bottle; and then we went off to stake our seats.  I selected two seats with a small table at the rail, so that I could watch what happens up in the loft, and downstairs to see what was going on at the wine bar.

The first wine that we were given was bigLITTLE Wines Rosé “Open Road” Leelanau Peninsula 2020.  All of the bigLITTLE Wines have names evoking nostalgia to the two Laing boys and this wine evoked family road trips from their home, and I have to say that road trips were very prominent and still are to Michiganders and the home of the original Big Three automotive corporations.  The wine is a blend of fifty percent Pinot Gris, twenty-five percent Marechal Foch and twenty-five percent Riesling.  The fruit was hand-picked, crushed and gently pressed together.  The wine was fermented in Stainless Steel and three-hundred cases were produced.  This dry rosé wine had notes of strawberry and hard candy, while on the palate fresh strawberries, juicy with a crisp acidity that made you want to have another taste.  A good first wine or to enjoy on a nice summer day with a casual dinner.

Even before we started to enjoy the first wine, they came around and poured the second wine for tasting and it was Mawby Sparkling “Grace” Brut Rosé, Leelanau Peninsula NV.  The wine is a blend of seventy-nine percent Pinot Noir, nineteen percent Chardonnay and two percent Regent.  The fruit was hand-harvested and had whole-cluster gentle pressing and only the juice from this first pressing was saved for this cuvee (the harder pressed juice which contains more phenols, tannins and acid are reserved for other sweeter sparkling wines).  After Stainless Steel fermentation, the young wines are blended with older, reserve wines before bottle fermentation in the Methode Champenoise and tirage ageing of fourteen months culminating with a dosage of Brut wine.  This pretty pale rose wine had notes of red fruits and on the palate, there were tones of black cherries and red berries mixed with that charming yeasty flavor, with a crisp and dry finish.  A very easy drinking wine that would add festive notes for any dinner’s first wine, or by itself, just with friends.

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A Tasting With Mike Laing of Mawby and bigLITTLE

Posted on May 19, 2022 by thewineraconteur

We were going up to the loft at The Royce and it we were going to do a wine tasting with Mike Laing who I had thought was the winemaker at Mawby Wine, as I knew that he and his brother were making wines in a side building off of the parking lot at Mawby with their own label bigLITTLE.  I was kind of right and kind of wrong, as you will note later.  I went back in the archives and the first of multiple articles about Mawby was back in 23 October 2012 “October Birthdays and a Dinner” and I had only begun writing my blog in May 2012, but I had been drinking wine for decades before then.  I was even surprised that they were making the house bubbly for The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island.  Years back, there was a group of us bloggers that would get a theme and we would all write about that theme, and it would take us out of our comfort zone, and the theme was “Once Upon a Time’ and I used the story of Lawrence Mawby and his almost fairy tale story of really being the impetus for the Leelanau Peninsula, and yes, there were one or two before him, but not with his drive and moxie.

In 1973, Larry Mawby planted a parcel of land in Leelanau County, and in 1984 he produces his first sparkling wine and decides that the region and climate is best suited for making this type of wine.  L. Mawby Vineyards by the mid 1990’s is only making sparkling wine either by Methode Champenoise and the M. Lawrence label is for the Charmant Method.  In 2004, he started marketing a fruity and fun line under the M. Lawrence label with the names like Sex, Detroit and Us. The Laing Family partners with Larry Mawby in 2009.  In 2019 L. Mawby and M. Lawrence are rebranded as MAWBY Sparkling Wines.  Michael and Peter Laing, who have a combined twenty years of experience are now currently in charge of the company, with able support from Stu and Sharon Laing and Larry Mawby. 

I first wrote about bigLITTLE wines on 27 December 2013 and their Tire Swing Brut NV and there were only one-hundred-eighty-six cases made of it.  Stu and Sharon Laing planted two acres of Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir vines on an old cherry orchard in the Leelanau Peninsula in 2003 and now there was two-thousand vines.  Eventually the magnetism and charm of the wine industry won over the two sons and Michael and Peter Laing were on-board by 2010, living and working the dream.  As they say “Big and Little brother, making Big wines from this Little Peninsula.” By 2012, they were producing other wines like Treehouse White Pinot Noir, Mixtape blended white and C-3 Pinot Sparkling Brut, as well as Dune Climb and Open Road.  The names of their wines are culled from childhood memories of fun endeavors.  They have also continued to buy acreage to expand their vineyards as well as having contract crops as well.

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The Royce and a Muscadet

Posted on May 17, 2022 by thewineraconteur

A friend told me about a wine tasting for Mawby and Big Little Wines at wine bar called The Royce, that I have heard about, but we had not been there.  Of course, the friend that told me about the tasting, didn’t make it, but we went down to check it out.  Many years ago, when I was going to high school in Downtown Detroit, I walked by the building and never thought about it, at all.  I cannot place what type of business was there, but it is rather unique in that it has a mezzanine within the confines of the building, which in today’s parlance would be called a loft.  It is owned by a woman that has a restaurant with an adjoining butcher shop, on the east side of Detroit, in the West Village, and she has recently opened a fish-centric restaurant in the Corktown section of Detroit.

The Royce, besides being a wine bar, also is a wine shop and they offer to rent out the “loft” for parties.  There were tables outside to drink wine on the sidewalk, as well as some tables inside, and my Bride and I just bellied up to the bar, as they used to say.  They had fourteen bottles of wine that they were selling by the glass and they were posted on a blackboard, a tried-and-true method since I can remember at some restaurants, when the menu can be adjusted very quickly with an eraser.  There was also another blackboard that had a list of assorted cheeses, cold cuts, munchies and preserved fish.  Since, we arrived early, we had a plate of Portuguese Sardines (served in an open tin) with crackers and lemon slices, and an order of Spanish Manchego cheese.  The sardines were excellent and my Bride photographed the label, so that she will attempt to find them in her travels. 

Of course, we had some wine to prepare us for the wine tasting that we came for.  We enjoyed Eric Chevalier Domaine de l’Aujardiere “Les Clos de la Butte” Muscadet Cotes de Grand Lieu Sur Lie AOC 2020.  Eric Chevalier was a negocient in the Pays Nantais region of the Loire Valley for ten years, in 2005 he moved back to be with his family and the following year took over the family domaine. In 2020, the domaine which is thirty hectares, and now under the fourth generation, was certified organic.  All Muscadet wines are made from Melon de Bourgogne or sometimes just referred to as Melon.   The land at one time was underwater and hence the soil is basically quartz and limestone.  The vineyard for this wine is about six hectares and the average age of the vines are fifty years.  The grapes are gently crushed and the juice is transferred to Stainless Steel tanks.  Natural fermentation is by indigenous yeasts, and this wine aged for about ten months on the lees and stirred regularly.  The grapes are known for having high acidity and that is the reason for the extended aging on the lees for a richer and creamier texture to the palate.  This soft golden color wine offered notes of apples and citrus, while on the palate soft fruit, a touch of pepper, and a salinity factor that was refreshing with a nice finish of chalky terroir.  Just as we were paying the bill, it was announced that the tasting up in the loft was now open and ready to begin.      

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May 2022 Club Selections

Posted on May 15, 2022 by thewineraconteur

It always feels to me that I am over due for a visit to my local wineshop, The Fine Wine Source in Livonia, Michigan, even if I am tripping over some cases of wine at the house.  Today was just a short and sweet visit with no wine tasting as they were busy with real customers.  Though while I was there, I also booked a dinner reservation at their restaurant Vertical for later in the month, since we are going to an exhibit downtown.  I also like to make reservations with a person and not a computer site as I feel that it is so impersonal, and dining is such a personal art. Yes, I am from another century, but it is fine with me.  I also enjoy the wine club as I get a couple of wines that for any number of reasons I may overlook, just wondering around.

The wine club selection representing the European side of the Atlantic Ocean, but going further south to the Republic of South Africa and Mulderbosch Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé Stellenbosch 2019.  Larry Jacobs founded Mulderbosch Vineyards in 1989 and the farm property was referred to locally as “vuilplasie,” which is Afrikaner for “dirty little farm.”  He soon partnered with Mike Dobrovic and they cleared and planted the first vineyards of twenty-five hectares.  They soon built a small winery and cellar and the first wines produced were a Sauvignon Blanc and a Chardonnay.  Mulderbosch Vineyards was acquired by the California-based Terroir Capital in 2011.  In 1999, they created the Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé, the very first in South Africa.  The vineyard for this wine is specifically farmed to produce a Rosé, with early picking and then to vinify the wine as if they were making an aromatic white wine. By picking early the grapes have a naturally high level of acidity, once pressed the wine is handled the same as if they were making a Sauvignon Blanc with a short period in Stainless Steel and early bottling to preserve the wine’s freshness.  This blush pink wine with a touch of copper shimmer offers notes of fresh strawberries and floral notes and spices of a Cabernet Sauvignon.  On the palate the bright acidity and vibrancy offer tones of black cherry, pomegranate and watermelon with a medium length finish offering aromatics and terroir, along with the desire to have another taste.

Airfield Estates Cabernet Sauvignon, Yakima Valley 2019 represents the New World.  Airfield Estates goes back to 1907 when H. Lloyd Miller was pioneering this area as he was into the buying and selling of farm properties, and this area did not have access to irrigation water.  He was instrumental in getting water from the Roza Canal Project and he also leased part of the property to the Olympia Air Transport Corporation, which constructed a flight school for hundreds of Army Air Corps pilots needed for World War II.  Eventually they got their property back and it was the basis for Airfield Ranch and a portion became Airfield Estates originally selling grapes to other wineries, until 2005 when they began producing their own wines.  This is an Estate Grown Cabernet Sauvignon.  The grapes go through a cold soak for twenty-four hours and inoculated with several different strains of yeast. Fermentation on the skins was for fourteen days and then the skins were gently pressed and then all the juices were sent to a variety of French Oak barrels still with the lees for Malolactic fermentation for four months and then aged for eighteen months in French Oak, of which forty percent was new.  The deep red wine offers notes of black fruits and sandalwood, while on the palate slightly sweet notes of blackberry and black cherry with tones of coffee grounds with a medium bodied wine with a medium finish of fruit and toasted oak.  

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Mother’s Day 2022

Posted on May 13, 2022 by thewineraconteur

It is a holiday that is popular and celebrated around the world.  It is also a day that seems to get more chaotic each year, as we try to make plans.  For restaurants, it is a powerhouse of a holiday, as a lot of people think that Mom should not have to cook on her day.  I have thought about making reservations, but my Bride wants to make sure that everyone gets together for Mother’s Day.  It is getting harder to coordinate the families to agree on a time and to get them to actually get there, though this year, the highway construction teams went out of their way to make it difficult to get from Point A to Point B with all of the detours not with actual construction, that even the handy-dandy GPS systems were not aware of.  So, even with my Bride trying her best to get everything done at a certain time, everyone basically showed up later.

She always enjoys making fruit and vegetable platters for all the noshers to get started on, and sometimes I think that it is the most labor-intensive part of the meal.   We may not have a charcuterie plate, but we always have cheese.  One of her cheeses of choice that she like to prepare is warmed Brie with a savory onion jam topping and she had some wonderful brown crusty bread to go with it.  Along with our trusty “go-to” white wines, since my Bride is also a mother, I had to make sure that we had a Pinot Grigio for her to enjoy.  I opened a bottle of Pratello Pinot Grigio Garda DOC 2020 from Azienda Agricola Pratello di Bertola.  Pratello was founded in 1867 on the morainic hills off of Lake Garda.  The estate is now one-hundred-twenty-hectares, of which eighty are vineyards and the balance is for olive groves and borders two districts; Valtanesi and Lugana. Lake Garda is Italy’s largest lake and it splits up two DOC areas; Lombardy and Veneto.  In 2017, Garda DOC combined with Valtanesi and Riviera del Gard Bresciano to become the Riviera del Garda Classico DOC.  The fruit is hand harvested with a soft pressing in Nitrogen saturation.  The initial fermentation is for about fifteen days, and then aging in Stainless Steel for five months, with an additional bottle aging for three months.  The wine was a pretty golden color with notes of pear and golden apples, and on the palate, great citrus flavor and acidity and a finish of fruit. 

For the main dishes my Bride went with some tried and true and one new dish.  She made a classic Roast Beef with roasted vegetables and gravy with mashed potatoes.  She made her Bourbon Salmon, Armenian Pilaf, Candied Carrots and Fennel and Onions.  This time she also tried Braising Center Cut Pork Chops in a Port-Fig Sauce.  She also made her own Cream Puffs to go with Hot Fudge and Ice Cream.  I brought up from the cellar a bottle of Langtry Estate & Vineyards Guenoc Victorian Claret North Coast 2007.  Lillie Langtry the famous British actress bought the estate in the Guenoc Valley in 1888 and introduced vineyards in the area.  The property is over twenty-three-thousand acres going from Lake County to northern Napa Valley.  The winery was built in 1981 and looks like another barn on the property.  It is now owned by Foley Family Wines.  A proprietary red wine and is a blend of Petite Sirah, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot and Malbec.  The nice dark claret wine offered notes of black fruit, cloves, tea and vanilla.  On the palate were tones of black cherry, raspberry and blueberry with soft tannins and a medium finish of spices. Father’s Day will be a brunch.             

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We Went to the Cinema

Posted on May 11, 2022 by thewineraconteur

I don’t know how movie houses were treated elsewhere, they were under lockdown for about a year, and we got kind of used to not seeing any movies.  I mean my Bride started doing “binge” watching almost anything that was suggested to hear, and most of the descriptions were enough to keep me from ever watching television again.  It has been over thirty years for television and once I give up something, it is almost impossible to make me return to a habit, just like cigars.   Anyways, we went to see the third part of a film series, a prequel to a nine-part film series that I enjoyed.  The big “shock” was filmed in such a way that any country that wanted to censor the scene, could without any problems,as long as it wasn’t in the States.  Also, the villain and one of the main actors was paid a fortune to not work, in the film, and he may have the last laugh, because the replacement actor, I only remember as a villain in the latest series of James Bond films.  We went to a huge I-Max theater presentation where you had to select your seat, which was kind of silly, as there were only eight people in the audience, the clean-up crew outnumbered the attendees.  I guess the old days of a Saturday matinee with popcorn, Pepsi, a candy bar and return bus money for a buck is history, or maybe a figment of my imagination.  

It was a date night, at least in my generation, a movie and a film with your wife is a date.  We had some gift cards to a chain restaurant and I really want to get rid of all the gift cards we had amassed, before the lockdown, as I am not sure how stable any of the chains are that survived.  On top of that, I do prefer independent restaurants, as I think they work harder to keep the customers satisfied.  We were kind of full from all the popcorn we ate and my Bride wanted a Caprese Salad, but this was house made Burrata cheese and grape-tomatoes with a light dressing.  She had a large pour of Chloe Wine Collection Pinot Grigio Valdadige DOC 2020.  Romanian born Georgetta Dane is the winemaker for the Chloe Wine Collection and they are based in Northern California, but she sources wines from famed regions.  This is one of my Bride’s favorite varietals when she is out and about, and this wine came from an area that is known for Pinot Grigio in Northern Italy.  I am sure that this wine was produced in Stainless Steel with minimum aging.  The wine was a soft straw color and offered white fruits and soft floral notes.  On the palate fruit forward tones of peach, apple and honeysuckle with a crisp finish.  

I started off with a bowl of Lentil Soup with Italian Sausage and there was a nice little zing to it.  My entrée was the “Shrimp & Scallop Linguine Alla Vodka” in a tomato Vodka cream sauce.  I paired it with their suggestion of Il Borro Pian di Nova Toscana IGT 2018.  Il Borro is located in hills of Tuscany and have forty-five hectares of famed international varieties and also Sangiovese, planted in 1997.  The grounds are mostly loamy and sandy with excellent drainage.    The majority of their portfolio is a collection of Toscana IGT wines.  While this wine is an entry level product for them, it still gets a lot of attention.  The wine is a blend of seventy-five percent Syrah and twenty-five percent Sangiovese.  The two varieties are vinified separately, but under the same regimen of maceration for two days in Stainless Steel and fermentation for ten days and then the juice is left on the skins for an additional twenty days.  After the racking of the juice, the wine is kept in Stainless Steel to mature for six months, then the wine is decanted and the two wines are blended and matured for twelve months in used oak barrels and then aged for an additional six months in the bottle before distribution.   The wine had a nice ruby red color with notes of black and red fruits, floral and spices.  The wine offers tones of black fruits and mellow tannins and has a medium length finish of fruit and spices.  A delightful affordable wine, even in a restaurant setting.          

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What is Going On?

Posted on May 9, 2022 by thewineraconteur

My dinner club has been slowly getting back into a real schedule, for almost two years, a society that has been in existence for getting close to one-hundred-fifty-years was almost scuttled by the harridan that can’t fix the roads that she promised.  The club has slowly but surely been picking up steam and getting more members back to the fold, each successive meeting.  My group’s turn was coming up, and the club secretary contacted me, to see if there were any changes for the meeting.  I contacted the restaurant, first of all, they have a private room and second, they have good food.  I am talking to the manager and he eventually found our reservation, and then he told me that he was going to charge me a hundred dollars just for the enjoyment of having the room, which I refused.  He said that he had to make sure that the waitress would get compensated, and I told him that with about twenty-five men having dinner and drinks, with the mandatory group tip rate, the waitress would be finely rewarded. 

The entrée selections for the evening were a New York Strip Steak with a choice of starches and vegetables, Chicken Piccata or Broiled Whitefish.  The meal would begin with a house salad, except for me, as I love the Black Bean Soup and I even ordered a quart of it to take home, after I paid the group’s tab.  When the manager saw the menu selected, he said that he knew that the evening would be beneficial to the waitress and dropped the idea of a room charge (a good business man, seeing that the group goes to the restaurant about four to five times a year).  I guess I was in sticker shock when I got the bill, I didn’t expect a New York Strip Steak to be over forty dollars, thank God it wasn’t Kobe or Wagyu, as I might still be washing dishes. 

My wine drinking partner in crime was in attendance, and we usually share a bottle of wine, as it is more advantageous compared to the offering by the glass from the bar.  He prefers Pinot Noir, and he is a regular at my local wine shop as well, so we can usually agree on a wine.  We handicapped the wine carte and, in the past, I have won him over with a couple of Merlot selections, that he would have never tried, if it weren’t for my insistence.  We ended up having the Celani Family Vineyards Robusto Napa Valley 2019.  Celani Family Vineyards was established in 2005 at the foot of the Vaca Mountains.  Seventeen acres of vineyards planted on twenty acres of land, originally planted in the Nineties with Merlot and Chardonnay.  The original Robusto was a Proprietary Red Wine, but it now is pure Merlot and aged for nine months in a mix of French Oak barrels.  I have never denied that Merlot is one of my first loves, back in the Sixties and Seventies when I first started learning about wine.  This estate wine is just a deep inky wine with notes of red and purple fruits, strawberries, cherries and some pepper.  A nice wine with balanced tannins and a nice medium finish.  I drink Robusto before meals, as well as during meals, it is great with appetizers and conversations, and I like it with pizza, as well as fancy elaborate meals and my wine partner now agrees as well 

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We Had Two Non-Vintage Wines

Posted on May 7, 2022 by thewineraconteur

After the appetizers, we had The Caller and his wife move into the dining room which was also renovated since they had been here last.  It was fun, because he was looking at the room and trying to remember the color scheme and the décor and some aspects of the change, he missed, but that is understandable.  I mean, we do get together for wining and dining and not for studies of architecture and design.  I worked hard, but then so did my Bride and she made another fine dinner.  She started off with her famous Caesar Salad that she learned when we were on our honeymoon and it has been a hit here, ever since, but we do not do tableside service.  She made Brussels Sprouts with bacon, Armenian Pilaf, Coquilles St. Jacques al crème de Xeres (Sea Scallops sautéed with mushrooms and garlic, pan-sauced with Sherry and cream) and Roasted Lamb Chops marinated with garlic and rosemary.  For dessert, Mrs. Caller made a very light cake of lemons and peaches with a whipped Citrus Icing, which was both light and rich. 

We started with EL Ixsir Cuvee X’eme Anniversaire Red Non-Vintage.  It came in a custom box and was number sixteen of an issue of one-thousand, and the box held three bottles of this special edition wine as well as a beautiful “coffee-table” book The Wines of Ixsir.  Ixsir Winery was founded in 2009 in the northern part of Lebanon in Batroun which is a coastal area.  They are a mountain winery, and one of the highest in elevation for the Northern Hemisphere.  The name Ixsir derives from the Arabic word “Iksir” the original Arabic word for “elixir.” History has recorded that man has searched for the perfect elixir for eternal youth and for love.  The winery is very progressive and has been named one of the greenest buildings in the world.  The winery owns one-hundred-twenty hectares in the Batroun with several different vineyards capitalizing on the terroir.  The winery grows Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Tempranillo, Caladoc, Cinsault, Merlot, Obeidy, Viognier, Muscat, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Semillon.  Quite impressive for a young company, as far as I am concerned.  The EL Ixsir Cuvee X’eme Anniversaire Red Non-Vintage is a special bottling of three very recent vintages of their EL, which is their top cuvee and a blend of fifty-five percent Syrah, thirty-five percent Cabernet Sauvignon and ten percent Merlot.  Each of the wines had aged for twenty-four months and then had been blended and aged in French Oak, of which half were new barrels. The concept of having the three bottles in the case was that the first bottle should be tasted in five years, and then at least ten years for the second bottle and the last should be held even longer.  As a reference point, this wine was issued 30 April 2019 and the Wine Advocate awarded it a score of 93 Points and a suggest “Drink Date” of 2022-2040.  When we tasted the wine, we were told that the 2014 vintage which was the real powerhouse of EL was leading this wine and it was big and inky and really overpowering; it was way too young and feisty to be properly enjoyed and there was real merit in cellaring this wine.  Since 2022 was the first year to try this wine properly from notes from the winemaker, I was impatient, especially since this was a Christmas present from my Bride.  The wine was a deep purple-red with note of red fruits and a touch of incense.  On the palate was red and black fruits, almost like a liqueur with tinges of mint and cedar, and a nice long finish of limestone terroir.  It was big and totally awesome, better than from the tasting that made my Bride buy it for me.

I decided to get another wine from the cellar and I decided to continue the theme of a non-vintage wine. We then had the Roberts + Rogers “Napa 5” Cabernet Sauvignon NV.  The wine came from five different vineyards, all from the rockiest part of the Louer Vineyard.  It is non-Vintage, as it is blended from a couple of vintages and very proprietary for a Cabernet Sauvignon wine.  Hand harvested from the loamy terrain, the wine was aged for a total of eighteen months in French Oak and the initial release was June 2018.  There were three hundred cases produced and all were done with a screw cap.  This was a beautiful red, fruit forward with plenty of deep red fruit and a surprisingly long finish with a lot of terroirs.  They felt that a screw cap was the perfect way to offer this casual wine that could be drank immediately or it could be cellared.  The rave reviews for these two wines from the other tasters, was enough to make sure that our order was filled with these two for sure, somehow, we can always squeeze some more room for a couple more cases of wine.  This deep colored wine offered notes of black cherries and red fruits, and on the palate, it was a big jammy Napa Cabernet that didn’t miss a beat and had a nice long finish of terroir.  It was a crowd pleaser.    

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