Easter Brunch Festive Dining with Fine Wines
Easter weekend featured festive dining with family with home cooked preparations matched with fine wines. Easter eve featured Mayacamas Napa Valley Mt Veeder Merlot 2006 and Chardonnay 2009 served with lasagna and baked chicken respectively. We tasted and just received these wines from our recent Napa Valley Mt Veeder Appellation Trail Wine Experience visit to the winery. We featured these for sister Jan visiting from Cal accompanied us on the trip but left early and missed the Mayacamas visit and tasting.
Easter brunch at home after church featured Eggs Benedict with lobster medallions, with hollandaise and asparagus spears. Also featured was a remarkable blueberry french toast bake. The wine accompaniment was Dr. Heidemanns-Bergweiler Bernkasteler Badstube Riesling Spatlese 2006.
Easter evening we tasted Elan Napa Valley Atlas Peak Cabernet Sauvignon 1994 with artisan cheeses and medallions of beef filet with carmelized onions. The Elan tasted remarkably like a vintage Bordeaux with huge floral scents, earthy leather, black fruits, smoke and black cherry with hints of anise and cedar. This wine originally tasted at the winery with producer Richard Elliott-Smith and his lovely wife Linda back during our 1998 Napa Wine Experience (see picture and caption below).
It was true to Richard's Bordeaux roots in flavor, character and apparent age-worthiness as this seventeen year old is not only holding well but is revealing itself more profoundly than earlier tastings. Tasted with artisan cheeses and medallions of beef filet with carmelized onions it went well with the hearty blue cheese and aged cheddar. RM 90 points.
Easter weekend featured festive dining with family with home cooked preparations matched with fine wines. Easter eve featured Mayacamas Napa Valley Mt Veeder Merlot 2006 and Chardonnay 2009 served with lasagna and baked chicken respectively. We tasted and just received these wines from our recent Napa Valley Mt Veeder Appellation Trail Wine Experience visit to the winery. We featured these for sister Jan visiting from Cal accompanied us on the trip but left early and missed the Mayacamas visit and tasting.
Easter evening we tasted Elan Napa Valley Atlas Peak Cabernet Sauvignon 1994 with artisan cheeses and medallions of beef filet with carmelized onions. The Elan tasted remarkably like a vintage Bordeaux with huge floral scents, earthy leather, black fruits, smoke and black cherry with hints of anise and cedar. This wine originally tasted at the winery with producer Richard Elliott-Smith and his lovely wife Linda back during our 1998 Napa Wine Experience (see picture and caption below).It was true to Richard's Bordeaux roots in flavor, character and apparent age-worthiness as this seventeen year old is not only holding well but is revealing itself more profoundly than earlier tastings. Tasted with artisan cheeses and medallions of beef filet with carmelized onions it went well with the hearty blue cheese and aged cheddar. RM 90 points.
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| Linda & Rick, Richard & Linda, Phil W. and AJ tasting Elan Cabernet Sauvignon at Monticello Winery in 1998. |