Catch-up! Dinner with Janet and Karen and Annie.

So, so, so busy.  Crazy busy.  Koo-koo ka ka busy.  And tired.  Haven't gone this long between posts in a looooong time.  But I'm back, saucier than ever.  In fact, I declare 2011 to be the Year of Sauciness.  This year, make an inappropriate comment at exactly the right (or wrong time).  Wear red lipstick.  Show some cleavage.  Life is short; sauciness makes it so much more...flavourful!  Pour it on thick, my kittens.

In the last 2 weeks I've been preparing for and exhibiting in a trade show.  It's kind of a big deal; I write a lot of my years' business at this show.  Therefore, there's been little time for wine-ing.  But it did go EXTREMELY well, my sweetie peaches.  So happy.  So, so, so happy.  It feels great when people love my artwork and then buy my artwork and then sell my artwork then lather, rinse, repeat.  I am incredibly lucky that I get to make my living by being creative.  Life goal achieved.

So another person who gets to live her life as a creative person/entrepreneur(euse?) is my aunt Janet.  My gorgeous, talented, clever, marvellous aunt Janet, who is a---wait for it---a mustard maker.  Wha? you say.  Mustard maker?  Is this a for real job?  Yes, kittens, yes it is.  You see, there are wine people, and there are chocolate people, and there are coffee people and there are mustard people.  I remember when I first heard about Janet's mustarding 20 years ago and thinking 'quoi?', but I came 'round real quick like upon first taste.  Because, my loves, this mustard--oh this mustard!--this mustard takes you on a magic carpet ride.  Yellow guck from the grocery store, I banish thee to the pits of hell!  Give me Hot Whisky mustard, Wasabi Lime mustard, Creamy Champagne mustard, Honey Tarragon mustard, Canadian Maple mustard...are you drooling yet?  This, my friends, is the condiment that bitch slaps all other condiments.  It's won international awares, y'all.  You so want this mustard.  I will provide you with the link, but not until the end of this post, because you will immediately abandon my blog in search of the perfect mustard.

ANYWAY, Janet was at the same trade show this week, selling her wares, and we finally, FINALLY got to have dinner together.  Mlle K was there, my eager helper and sales seductress (handy to have her there so she could dazzle my French speaking customers in their native language).  We met at the Holiday Inn restaurant at Janet's request. 

Wine list was really nice, but the company was what made the meal.  Janet brought her friend--and now MY friend--Annie.  There are people in this world who you can meet once and then instantly know they are the most decent, genuine kind of person who is a friend for life.  That was Annie.  She rescues animals.  Are there any better people in the world, I ask you, than those who take in abused dogs and cats and make them whole?  Annie has a halo.  Annie is the kind of person that holds up the universe.  Annie is the kind of loving person who stands at your back with pom-poms cheering for Team You.  I so love Annie.

ANYWAY, ANYWAY, food= nom nom.  Wine list was very nice, and I had a nice buttery chard to go with my shrimp and scallop fettuccine.  I talked Janet and Annie into buying a bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir (I told them the Belle Pente story.  Look at blog history for further details.  Life changing experience).  Graciously, both let me have a sip.  Good freaking goblins, there is NOTHING in this world like Pinot Noir from Oregon.  It is so distinct.  One wishes to dab it behind the ears, like perfume.  If you did, I'd follow you around, sniffing your earlobes. This particular PN was Amity 2005 from the Willamette Valley.  As gorgeous as you would expect.  And apparently available at the LCBO (thank-you, Dionysus). We all agreed we should try very hard to go to the Pinot Noir festival.  I'm thinking it'd be a good destination for my 40th next year.  What better place to turn forty, I ask you, than where the sweetest nectar in the world is made.  I am resolved!

ANYWAY, ANYWAY, ANYWAY, more importantly, Karen and I got to pick Janet's brains about Italy.  Janet, who is in many ways living my dream life, goes to Italy twice a year.  If you read this blog regularly, you know that Karen and I fantasize with alarming regularity about going to Italy.  Janet speaks Italian, and hosts a culinary vacation bi-annually in Umbria.  *le sigh*  This year she is thinking about making her fall excursion all about olive oil and harvesting olives.  Can you imagine, harvesting your own olives?  Pressing them into oil?  You should have seen how excited Karen was at the idea, it was adorable.  I so want.  I want to go.  I WANT TO GO.

Final note: Annie, whose family is from Basque, says there is a tradition where if you enjoy a really good bottle of wine with friends, you cut a slot into the cork and insert a dime, and then everyone who partook writes their name on the cork.  Like this:

Janet says she has a drawer full of these.  So soon shall I.

Visit http://www.mustard.ca/ for more information on Mrs. McGarrigle's Mustards and Fine Food Shoppe.

xoxo

'Til next time,

B.

The Rickman Rating System

Hello Winos,

I'm happy to announce that I am introducing the International Alan Rickman Wine Rating System to this blog. Who needs those damned 100 pt. scales when we have the thousand faces of the World's Greatest Actor to tell us what to think about wine? If you're not an Alan Rickman fan and have trouble interpreting this scale of wine-worthiness, you're probably some rye-drinking jerk who watches the Jackass movies, so get the hell off my blog. If, however, you think Alan Rickman is a living treasure and the epitome of mature hotness, please enjoy the following wine scores:

Clos LaChance Hummingbird Series 2006 Merlot from the central coast of California was a very jolly, drinkable wine. I gave it one smouldering Rickman, two dapper Rickmans and a Rickman snuggling up to a door (oh how I wish I were that door!).



Next up, we have Spier Vintage Selection Pinotage 2006 from South Africa. This smokey, intensely tobacco wine was hot, so I gave it four smouldering Rickmans in Period Costume.



Moving along, Wine by Joe's 2007 Pinot Gris from Oregon was fruity and a little tart. Lots of peach flavour but it made my mouth pucker. I gave it one Alan cuddling the door, one sexy young Alan making love to you with his eyes, and one Alan with forehead ridges.



Lastly, we have a wine from upstate New York: Caywood Vineyards 2008 Estate bottled Dry Riesling. As much as I loves the Finger Lakes, this wine was not my bag. I gave it one Severus Snape.



I hope this gives you a clear insight to my completely subjective responses to these wines/my Alan Rickman obsession. I'm sure this new method of grading wine will make sense to women in their 30's everywhere. And while I don't think it'll be replacing Robert Parker's 100 pt. scale any time soon, I for one think it's much, much hotter, n'est pas?

xoxo

'Til next time,

Barb

Pinot Purgatory

I am caught in Pinot Purgatory. Having tasted what was possibly the best wine I've ever had (Belle Pente's Pinot Noir), it's been a never ending search, always reaching, never finding another quite as good. Can you hear my soul wail at it despairs at being separated from the Divine One forever? Where are you, excellent Pinot Noir? Where? Where? Where?...(her voice trailing off into a whisper, Barb's pale visage sinks backward into a dense fog. End scene).

I've picked up a few bottles recently and here's my completely subjective opinion. All of these wines are available from a well-stocked LCBO (which means if you're from Midland, you'll have to go to Barrie. Quel Suprise.).

Le Clos Jordanne Pinot Noir 2007
This wine is supposedly some of the very best, award winning Pinot Noir Ontario has to offer. I had high hopes. They were dashed, or rather slowly deflated like air being let out of a balloon. I tried this wine 3 times to be sure. IMO, it was not worth the $40 I paid for it.
Darkish colour, very perfumey smelling, like walking into the florist shop. The smell I liked.
Taste: alcohol burn, strawberry, mouth puckery raw peas. Verging on the edge of bitter. Ok, not great, I expected better.

Andrew Rich 2007 Pinot Noir Wilamette Valley Cuvee B
I found this Oregon Pinot Noir in the California section of the Barrie liquor store. I'm sure Oregon doesn't mind being considered part of California, right? Oregon is like California's very stylish hat. If you protest, write the LCBO and tell them to give Oregon its own dang section!!!
Colour: very, very light and super clear. Unbelievably clear. It looked like someone ran a Photoshop filter over it to make it appear clear and sharp.
Nose: lush, ripe strawberries from the garden, fresh and mossy smelling
Taste: super-smooth---UNBELIEVABLY smooth; very fresh strawberry; soft, ripe camembert; creme brulee. Gorgeous. Not the orgasmathon experience I had with Belle Pente's offering, but still, really, really good.

Cave Spring Pinot Noir 2008
I had high hopes for this next offering. Cave Springs makes the most excellent Riesling evah, so it was my hope that their Pinot Noir was equally as good. They didn't disappoint me.
Colour: dark!
Nose: Rose for sure, and maybe a bit of cocoa?
Taste: If the Oregon Pinot Noir was pretty, this wine is sexy. Intense flavour, like fresh, crushed raspberries. There's a bit of minerality there. Nice and smooth going down, no scrape across your tongue bitterness. I think this has the distinction of being the nicest Ontario Pinot Noir I've had so far. Not break the bank either; I think it was around $17.

Final assessment: there's a good, an even gooder and a forgetter. Still searching for that holy grail Pinot Noir though. I may have to sashay over to Oregon to get it. Yes, sashaying is my primary method of transportation.

I'll leave you with this Kate Bush video, which is eerie, because this is EXACTLY the dance I do Saturday nights whilst wandering the moors, looking for that delicious, elusive, perfect Pinot Noir. In fact, if you exchange the words 'Kathy' for 'Barb, and 'Heathcliff' for 'Pinot Noir', you have a song that precisely describes my condition. It's like Kate Bush used a time machine to travel into the future, spied on me, then travelled back to her own time and wrote this song.