From the very beginning of our relationship Christmas Eve was always our holiday. Since we don't have children, we have always found ourselves traveling to spend Christmas with our family so exchanging presents or stocking Christmas Eve just made sense. It has grown to include having Sara make a delicious dinner, and then exchanging presents followed by a watching the traditional Christmas movie "
White Christmas."
This year another tradition of ours was a bonus to our Christmas Eve festivities, watching football. Thankfully the NFL got it right this year and didn't schedule any night football games leaving that time for the family to get together. Unfortunately, this year our favorite teams were playing each, Her the
Philly Eagles, Me, Them
Dallas Cowboys. Thankfully, the early win by the Giants made the game less important, however with Philly pride hanging in the balance it still had important meeting. And with the Eagles spanking the Cowboys in the end, Sara was happy.
To go with this heated rivalry, the wife made a delicious appetizer of Old Bay shrimp cocktail, homemade cocktail sauce, and garlic and herb boursin with crackers.
She had also selected a surprise choice of wine, a chardonnay. Typically we don't favor chardonnays and being such a special occasion we usually reach back in our reserve collection for our wines. However this was no ordinary chardonnay, it came from a favorite of ours
Chateau O'Brien. We had picked up this bottle at their Holiday open house a few weeks ago, however it was far from their most recent vintage. This was their 2006 reserve Chardonnay.
No that was not a typo they still have a Chardonnay from 2006.
The shrimp cocktail was fresh, and the homemade cocktail sauce really made the appetizer, however I would hardly recommend doing the old bay boil when preparing your shrimp for cocktail.
This 5 year old Chardonnay grown locally near
Markham, VA displayed a nose of butter rich smell. It had hints of fresh lemon juice and herbs.
This wine continued with a burst of acid on the front of the tongue, but aside from that it was very smooth, composed a nice medium body, contain little hint of fruit or oak because of the age, and contain a mineral finish. At points I also detected flower taste like dandelion or buttercup. This wine paired real well with the boursin cheese and crackers. I would recommend this pairing to almost anybody.
Overall this wine has peaked and is probably in the drink immediately stage, but for those looking for non-fruity, non-California chardonnay this would come as a recommend, just don't delay. It is ready right now.
In part two, I'll be covering our Christmas eve meal and selected VA wine pairing. It too is a Chateau O'Brien wine. And for those of you looking a head, there will be a part three where we cover dessert and a rare appearance in my blog of a red dessert wine.
P.S. For you animal lovers, I'm sharing the below photo of my youngest kitty who can't wait to open his Christmas presents.
