Patience Rewarded

Way back when I "accidentally" bought a half dozen bottles of Penfolds Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon. Finally got round to popping open a bottle of the other night cos iso and apparently peak drinking was between 2008 and 2020. Wow does it deserve its status as the pinnacle of Cabernet Sauvignon in Australia! It was like they bottled the year 1996, the creme de cassis flavour just knocks you for six, so powerful and vibrant as if it was still 1996 and the Macarena was on the airwaves. The tannins were as smooth as Tom Selleck, reaching perfection in its mature years. Such a well structured and well balanced wine, like Audrey Hepburn in that LBD from Breakfast at Tiffany's. If you don't get what wine is all about you will after having something like this. A moving feast that takes you back through time yet also reminds you of the rewards of patience. Proof that the class of 1996 was the best year ever!

More Champaggner?

The one good thing about getting older is you generally get more chances to enjoy the finer things in life, Champagne being a prime example. I'm talking about the genuine stuff from France, the best of which leaves our Aussie sparklers in the dust, the worst of which is a rip off.

On the subject of value I've always believed money spent on something you don't enjoy is money wasted regardless of how cheap it is. So a bottle of Bollinger is infinitely much better value than a bottle of Omni Blue, oh the horrors! So without further ado here are the champagnes, I'm still too poor to afford a taste of vintage champagne so it's all non-vintage stuff and scores are out of 20.

Moet & Chandon Brut Imperial 15
Had it on it's own after dinner and again with oysters. A fine mousse, nice flavours but seemed to lack a depth to them. Nice crisp finish. Not my favourite champagne, needs more depth of flavour and a bit more crispness, but it's obviously popular for a reason.

Moet & Chandon Nectar Imperial 16

Pommery Brut Royal 14

Piper Heidsieck Cuvee Brut 15

Lanson Black Label 12

Veuve Clicquot Brut Yellow Label 16

Mumm Cordon Rouge 17

Bollinger Special Cuvee 18

Pol Gessener 15

Cattier 16

Pol Roger 16

Charles Heidsieck 15

Come Fry with Me, Come Fry, Come Fry, Come Fry

Yeah, yeah I know I've been slack. Perhaps I'll revamp this blog, perhaps I won't, I just don't know.
Continuing the theme of my personal notebook, I've been trying out all those lean cuisines/healthy choice/airline frozen meals.

They're actually not too bad when you compare to them to the slop you get at the cafeterias at the places I've worked. They're slightly cheaper, if you buy what's on special you can get them for under $5 which is actually cheaper than most cafeteria meals. Surprisingly they actually taste better than the stuff that passes for food at cafeterias.

Oh and apparently they're better for you and judging by the nutrition box they are. They're also actually quite filling which is a surprise given that most of them contain only a quarter of your daily energy intake at the most. After some soup, yoghurt, fruit and salad this manchild feels quite full by the end of a day.

Here's a summary of my frozen meal findings so far with the meal name and ratings for taste, texture and how filling they are (5 stars max for each from bad, poor, okay, good to excellent):

• Nestle Lean Cuisine Lean Beef Lasagne [4 | 1 | 3]: Possibly could have overcooked this one, the bottom layers were rather leathery but still quite nice on the top layers.
• Heinz Steam Fresh Beef Stroganoff with Curly Pasta [4 | 4 | 3]: Good flavour, beef was suprisingly tender.
• Nestle Lean Cuisine Creamy Mushroom Tortellini [4 | 3 | 3]: Quite tasty although creamy pasta isn't my favourite, perhaps that's because it's usually rather greasy unlike this one. The green bits lost a bit of texture in the freezing and heating.
• Heinz Weight Watchers Pasta Italiano [3 | 3 | 3]: The pasta and sauce were quite nice texture and taste wise. They were let down by the quasi-salami, horribly textured and more frankfurter than salami.
• Nestle Lean Cuisine Sundried Tomato Tortellini [3 | 2 | 3]: The pasta and sauce tasted alright enough. Texture was quite dry and mushy at the same time, perhaps not microwaved right.

Plenty of water, tea and diet soft drinks also help keep a fat bastard quite full. Here's a few of my favourite ones so far:

• Pepsi Max: I hardly ever drink Pepsi, yet this is a favourite, definitely beats Coke Zero.
• Sprite Zero: Not too much of a weird taste to it, still very lemonadey.
• Fanta Zero: Actually I'd say this is better than normal Fanta, as it's not as cloyingly sweet.
• Schweppes Diet Dry Ginger Ale: All that gingeriness hides the artificialness quite well.
• Solo Sub: Again the lemon tang hides that saccharine sweetness quite well, then again some days I'm ambivalent.

Some people after my own heart, and brain

Whilst searching for a clear definition of cork taint, I came across the blog of someone obssessed with Shiraz. His latest blog post pointed me to this web page that magically determines the reading level of a web site or blog referring to various levels of education such as high school and post graduate. Interestingly enough my reading level was that of postgrad, a pleasant surprise given the lack of polish, from a humanities perspective anyway, in my writing being an engineer and all.



Update: Well it appears after adding some posts I've been dumbed down to undergrad level!



Interestingly enough, Defence Industry Daily, which I have no trouble comprehending garnered a score of genius...

Nice Wines

With age comes wisdom, or so they say. Over the span of my relatively young obsession with wine, I've come to realise there's quite a few awful wines out there but also that there are some very good wines for a good price. Obviously my idea of a good price will change over time but the prices I'm thinking of are such that you would be able to bring a few bottles to a party without hurting your wallet.

Sangre de Toro, blood of the bull in Spanish, is made by Torres in Catalonia, Spain. The wine is a blend of Garnacha and Carinena, which we know more commonly as Grenache and Carignan. On their own, these varieties make rather insipid wines although Grenache can apparently make quite amazing wine from old, low yielding vines.

However the Sangre de Toro is a very drinkable wine that can be had for well under $15. It is a smooth drinking wine with a spicy aroma and dark berry flavours. As with a lot of old world wines this wine goes great with food and with all that spiciness marries well with hearty meat dishes.

Chain of Pond's Novello Nero is another wine in the Old World style but made in our backyard in the Adelaide Hills. It is inspired by the home made wines of Italian immigrants being an unoaked blend of predominately sangiovese with some grenache and barbera. This makes for a very appealing and moresome wine that can be had with a fair bit of change from $20.

Being unoaked, the wine is smooth and crisp with the grapes speaking for themselves. On the nose there is an aroma of dark cherry with spicy and savoury overtones. The spicy fruit theme continues on in the mouth with some meaty overtones. The spicy fruit with savoury overtones recommends itself to game dishes and anything with tomatoes in it.