If you can’t be with the wine you love, love the wine you’re with.

I feel like such a Nz wine slut.  Last week I had my team over for dinner.  We first opened the 2009 Esk Valley Gimblett Gravels cab blend.  Wow, I thought.  Sure, it’s a higher awarded wine (no secret), but still it lived up the hype.  A big wine, loads of fruit, but also complex and hints of tobacco.  I love this wine.  But I was busy cooking and there were people at the house with me with younger livers; I turned around, and the wine was gone.  Well, they liked it…that’s something.  So I then opened a Central Otago Pinot; one I thought would be appropriate for my medical crowd.

Fortunately, just after opening this bottle, dinner was served (read, my guests got distracted), so there was some of this wine left over, and the little that remained was my ‘Thank God it’s Monday’ wine.  It hadn’t lost a step in the several days it was left on the shelf.  Fruit forward, but with lingering tastes of bacon, pepper and cheeries.  I loved that wine.  My favorite Central Otago Pinot so far?  Sorry Esk Valley, but there is a new girl in town.  Doctor’s Flat, you’re my new love

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Until tonight.

The 2010 Church Road Reserve Syrah (from Hawke’s Bay).  Is this the best Syrah I’ve ever had?  A dense wine, deep dark red.  Bursting with soft fruit, and lingering with a smokey aroma.  Church Road, where have you been all my life?

See what I mean?  It’s so difficult to remain true to any one wine, but when I move on, I do feel guilty for the last bottle.  I had said it was my favorite…but then along came Church Road.  I’m so sorry.  I didn’t mean to hurt you.

We did open a white last Thursday.

This was a young Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.  It was clean, fresh and fruity.  Just a bit too fruity for me (I like a drier white, at least at the dinner table) so I used the rest of it to poach my salmon last night…which was amazing with the Doctor’s Flat pinot.  Maybe that was my favorite…no wait, it’s the Church Road Reserve.  I’m such a smuck.

Cheers,