Burns Night Dinner

The celebration for Burns Night was simple. but quite delicious.  There were pan seared and oven roasted lamb chops, a few mixed vegetables and a small dish of "neeps and tatties."  The chops were rubbed with garlic and olive oil, salt and pepper, and a tiny bit of Dijon mustard.  The neeps (turnips) and the tatties (potatoes) were cooked separately and then roughly mashed together before being popped back into the oven to re-warm for the last few minutes with the lamb. 

The wine of the evening was a new vintage of an old favorite.  It was a 2006 Gianfranco Alessandria Langhe Nebbiolo.  I picked up two bottles of this a week or so ago and two hours before dinner we decanted one of them.  The 2004 vintage of this wine is tremendous and a total value for a mini-Barolo.  This bottle was no different.  Medium red color and a nose of bright cherries, earth, and a classic nose of roses.  The taste was pretty much the same, wonderful sweet red cherries some sensation of flowers and a hint of earth.  The wine was loaded with tannin, but it only served to carry along the other flavors.  For the sale price if $18 it was a total steal.

The tannin and the lamb were a match made in heaven.  Rich tasting lamb soothed by drying tannins and the tannins themselves smoothed out by the flavor of the lamb.  The wine surprised me by being very good with the turnip part of the mash.

There were several Scottish whiskies throughout the evening.  It started with a before dinner glass of 12 year old Caol Islay, pictured at the left.  Immediately following dinner was a wee dram of Dalwhinnie Distiller's Edition.  At the end of the evening there was a small amount of Lagavulin Distiller's Edition 1991 to carry one into the land of sweet dreams.  It was a very good evening.

Good wine, good food and good spirits.