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July 04, 2004
Wine, Food and Friends
Last night a few of us went down to the Black Crow for a fancy-pantsed dinner. My friend, Jessie, used to work there before departing for San Francisco where he now works for a French wine distributor.
It was a thematic evening, as far as the wine went. Jessie's a wine snob now so he brings his own. This time it was four bottles from the village of Givry in the Côte Châlonnaise area of Burgundy. The first bottle, a white we had with our appetizers (oysters on the half-shell, shrimp and scallops baked with red pepper-nade, and duck with a sesame-orange confit), was a nice chardonnay, not as oaky or buttery as the stuff you get here, but slightly nutty and flowery.
The other three bottles were all red Burgundies, that is, pinot noirs, and they all had their own characteristics. The first was the most traditional Burgundy and it tasted like no pinot noir I've had since I'm used to the pinot noirs of California and Oregon. The second seemed almost like a Côtes du Rhône. It was a little fuller in body and the nose was more like a syrah/grenache blend, but it still had the cherry and rasberry characteristics of a Burgundy. The last bottle was the most similar to a modern California pinot noir. It was oaky and had more chocolate hints along with the berries.
After dinner we went around the corner to a little bar, called Jim's Little Bar, that was as far as one can get from The Black Crow, culturally. There were four old men sitting at the bar when we walked in and they only gave us the fish-eye for a minute or so as we sat down at a big round table and ordered gin and tonics. The bartender gave us a deck of cards and we proceeded to play Texas Hold'Em for about an hour. We were just advised to keep an eye out for the sheriff while we played. I love small towns.
Posted by Half-Cocked at July 4, 2004 08:12 PM