Archive for the ‘review portugese wine’ Category

I didn’t do this on purpose.

I planned my meal first, something I really like that I don’t often cook because my spouse isn’t all that wild about it. And then when I was halfway through cooking my dinner, I thought, “Oh my God, what wine am I gonna drink with this?”

Now, even though I’m in the wine business, I don’t have an inexhaustible supply of great wine lying around my house. Tonight was a case in point — I had a few sample bottles to choose from, and I had no idea what they tasted like.

So I held my nose and jumped off the high diving board, and here’s what happened…

The entree I was so keen to prepare was a Thai Chicken dish. If you want to hurt me, you’ll remind me that I always say you should match your wine to the dominant flavor in your dish, and in the case of this Thai dish, the dominant flavor is the coconut milk, lime and cilantro that make up the sauce. There’s a wonderful interplay of sweet, tart and aromatic that is luscious and exotic, but I didn’t know how it would pair with my available wines.

I looked at the two wines I had on hand. One was a Chilean Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, which I figured had to be earthy and tannic and a truly awful match with the coconut milk. The other was a red table wine from Portugal, which I’d requested from my distributor because I’d heard that Portugal is now doing some good red table wines. It seemed like a better bet than the Cab, so I popped the cork. Read the rest of this entry »