Friday, August 20, 2010

How far gone is too far?

Last night, I opened my last bottle of Pelee Island Winery's 2002 Baco Noir. We fell so deeply in love with this vintage when it first came out that we cleared out all of the shelves we could find and even went to the winery to ask if they had any bottles sitting in a corner somewhere (they did have a few!).

So here we are in 2010... a full eight years past the vintage date (six or so since release)... I thought surely (and with a little tear in my eye) I had let this one sit too long.

The cork was soft and saturated, but not crumbling, and the wine still hadn't soaked all the way through to the foil. A test taste told me that it did indeed still have the full flavour profile we had come to love - ripe red fruit with the perfect balance of peppery spice - but had indeed gone a bit too far on the acid scale. I said a little prayer that it would still work with our dinner of lightly seasoned steak (montreal steak spice, garlic powder, onion powder and Italian herbs), heirloom potatoes and super sweet local peaches-and-cream corn (all done on the barbeque).

Thankfully I was right on the money. The steak which, of course, was perfectly done thanks to Paul's expert touch, was moist and tender and still a bit pink in the centre and balanced the increased acid in the wine perfectly.

The moral of this blog entry? Just because a bottle may be a little bit past its prime doesn't mean it won't still work with the right food.

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