I cooked last night for a group of deer hunters at my farm...kinda
like "Escanaba in da Moonlight" one of my all time favorite comedy
movies about deer camps. I made venison meatloaf with roasted poblano
peppers and queso fresco topped with double smoked bacon, fingerling
potato and carrots and braised mustard greens and started out with a
pheasant terrine. I opened a bottle of 2001 Chateau Vergnes-Beaulieu
Bordeaux Superieur that I bought a case of for $15 a bottles a couple
of years ago. Light bodied, a bit of gravel and red raspberry.
Nothing to brag about but a decent quaffer with snacks and terrine.
With dinner I started with a bottle of 2002 Shafer Relentless which
is, iirc, a 75-25 blend of Syrah and Petite Syrah. This wine needs
years to come around. It's massive right now with deep black fruits,
blueberry, bacon and smoke with a fair amount of oak. We followed that
with a bottle of 2002 Crocker Star Napa Valley Stone Place Cuvee, a
Cab-Merlot blend that was a medium bodied, well balanced wine that was
quite pleasant to drink. Nice sweet cassis and exotic spice notes and
a touch of oak. Nobody complained and I didn't have to do dishes so
everyone was happy.

On Nov 12, 12:52�pm, "Bi!!" > wrote:
> I cooked last night for a group of deer hunters at my farm...kinda
> like "Escanaba in da Moonlight" one of my all time favorite comedy
> movies about deer camps. �I made venison meatloaf with roasted poblano
> peppers and queso fresco topped with double smoked bacon, fingerling
> potato and carrots and braised mustard greens and started out with a
> pheasant terrine. �I opened a bottle of 2001 Chateau Vergnes-Beaulieu
> Bordeaux Superieur that I bought a case of for $15 a bottles a couple
> of years ago. �Light bodied, a bit of gravel and red raspberry.
> Nothing to brag about but a decent quaffer with snacks and terrine.
> With dinner I started with a bottle of 2002 Shafer Relentless which
> is, iirc, a 75-25 blend of Syrah and Petite Syrah. �This wine needs
> years to come around. �It's massive right now with deep black fruits,
> blueberry, bacon and smoke with a fair amount of oak. We followed that
> with a bottle of 2002 Crocker Star Napa Valley Stone Place Cuvee, a
> Cab-Merlot blend that was a medium bodied, well balanced wine that was
> quite pleasant to drink. �Nice sweet cassis and exotic spice notes and
> a touch of oak. �Nobody complained and I didn't have to do dishes so
> everyone was happy.

As a postscript I forgot that adding to the "Escanaba" mood was a
bottle proudly proffered by one of the hunters of 2006 Johnson Estates
NY State Ives. I don't know much about the Ives grape except that
it's a Labrusca variety native to the US and grown in the wine country
of NY State. It was without doubt the worst wine I've ever tasted in
my life. I almost puked. It was sicklingly sweet, very, very foxy
and musky. It tasted like Welch's Concord grape jelly gone bad. The
owner of the bottle was a bit put off by my/our reaction and poured
everyones glass into a large tumber and chugged it down in a couple of
gulps. He finished the bottle with dinner and complained that my
dinner wines tasted "sour"......hmmmmmmm.