♫Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow....

Sunday dinner was interesting because of the left over wine from Saturday, the 2006 Vina Alarba Old Vines Grenache. The day was dry, but cloudy so I made the attempt to use the outdoor grill for the two lamb chops pictured at the right. The bottom grates that allow the air to come in were frozen shut so it took several attempts to get the fire lit. There were also some artery clogging potatoes in the oven, artery clogging in the sense that they were roasted in duck fat. The lamb was good and the potatoes were wonderful.

The same can't be said for the wine. On Saturday night it was alive and fresh, and even though the remains were sealed under vacuum it tasted old and tired by Sunday night. It's rare that I get a wine this young that fades this quickly, but this one did. Fortunately it was part of a mixed case where there were no more than one of any wine. We won't be adding any more 2006 Vina Alarba. The fruit didn't taste fresh, it tasted almost prunish. There was still some acid, but the entire wine was out of balance. At 14.5% alcohol one would have thought 24 hours wasn't asking too much for it to remain fresh. Apparently it was asking too much of this wine.

The weather we were expecting in this area on Saturday surprised us by coming in unannounced just as dinner was concluding. By this morning we have about an inch of powder snow covering everything and no doubt the grates on the grill are frozen shut again. Temperatures are headed down and the coldest weather of the year is in store for this week.

I always liked the old proverb, 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade." In a sense that's what we did after dinner. We sat in the front window and watched it snow while sipping some more of the Gould Campbell port and munching on more of the Stilton. Neither of those two items had faded at all.