Virginia Blogger is richly rewarded...

In my last blog, I shared our Friday evening dinner, and is per the norm, we finished our bottle of wine with our dinner. Not ready to turn in for the evening, we decided it was time for dessert. Friday's dessert was a special treat from another winery we visited over Easter weekend, and so I sent my wife downstairs to pick out a good wine to go with our chocolate.

For those of you who have not visited Glass House winery, come prepared. They offer a variety of common Virginia varietals, but also their owner, Michelle Sanders, is an exceptional chocolatier who makes delicious chocolates on the premises. On our most recent visit, we weren't particularly impressed with their current vintages, but were impressed that they have moved to all glass corks for their bottles. It will be interesting to see if more wineries go that route. We ended up sharing a bottle of their Pinot Gris with our lunch there, but were drawn into buying some there delectable chocolates.

Our choice of chocolates for Friday's dessert was their Earl Grey Tea chocolate. My wife selected another bottle we had picked up on our Easter weekend wine trip. It was from a fairly new winery, and one we had not visited since their pre-opening in 2010.

Our initial visit to Duccard Vineyard had us most impressed with their viognier releases. Viognier is one of those wines that can be very bad if not done properly so for a new winery to have hit one out of the park off the bat left us thinking they showed great promise.

On this visit, the Viogniers were still very delicious, but it was their 2010 Norton release that had most impressed us. Norton is a grape that we have really enjoyed from VA made into wine. We are very excited and we can get a good release so when my wife popped the cork out of one of the bottle we have brought back from Duccard, I couldn't wait for glass to pair with my chocolate.

The initial nose was a classic Norton, blackberries and earthiness with hints of nutmeg and cassias. The wine was a dark inky purple with good legs. This Norton exhibited warm red fruit and light tobacco. It was very dry and left the mouth with velvety feel. It had firm mid-tongue tannins, but did bottom out a bit on the finish, however you wouldn't know based on the lingering full mouth feel.

Unfortunately, the wine kind of over powered the earl grey tea chocolate but by itself the chocolate was smooth with hints of fresh tea leaves that linger after eating. Overall both the dessert and the wine were very enjoyable by themselves. Even if they weren't a rock star pairing.

Flying Canine tackles Raw Fish......

Well my blogging for some reason has fallen way off. Maybe it is my goal to lose 30lbs by the end of June. Maybe it was the nasty bout of pancreatitis I suffered. No matter what the reason, I thought it was time to dust the shelf off and share my recent dinner night experience.

Our plan for the evening was a glass of wine to unwind, a dinner of Sushi from Yamazato, a bottle of wine, and enjoying an evening on the back patio. We called and ordered a variety of rolls from Yamazato while enjoying a glass of wine. Unfortunately, I hadn't got the wine in the fridge in time, so the Rose` from Flying Fox was a little warmer than would be Ideal. At this temperature it had a light strawberry nose, good acidic body, but presented a slighty funky after taste on the way down.

If you haven't been Yamazato it is slightly annoying to get to because where it is located just past 395 on little river turn pike. Thankfully for us the annoying length it takes to get to it, gave our wine a chance to cool while sitting in the freezer. Our casa gives Yamazato an A+ rating. Their fish is always fresh and tasty, and we hoped to have a great experience with our wine as we headed for home.

Once home, we gathered up some plates and headed to our back patio. Once all set up, I went to sample the wine again. Unfortunately, this time the wine had gotten too cold. All the fruit had been squeezed out of the nose and wine. It was really acidic, with an almost metallic taste on the finish. I set it aside to allow it a chance to warm back up. Focusing instead on some of the delicious sushi and our seaweed salad we had ordered.

Finally, the wine had warmed slightly and it felt just right. The wine's nose was a blend of under ripe strawberries and wet year watermelon. It displayed light acid and light body, not quite as dry as I like my rose`, but the fruit and acid balanced real well and made for an overall enjoyable experience.

I am one who likes a large amounts of wasabi in my soy sauce for dipping my sushi into, unfortunately the acid in the wine was strong clash with wasabi. It was a lesson learned that dry rose and sushi probably aren't the best pairing. Oh well, you can't win them all right???