Mas de la Dame

Easter was about typical Easter food - ham, green beans, baked beans, potato salad, etc. It was also about the first rose' of the year.

In this case it was Mas de la Dame (Farm of the Women) 2008, a beautiful pink wine from Provence. The wine is 50% grenache, 30% syrah and 20% mourvedre. The nose was like one had stepped on and crushed a few ripe strawberries. Pale pink in the glass, there was good acid and body to go with the strawberry and light raspberry taste. It was particularly good after a slice of ham with a honey, mustard and horseradish sauce, and a raspberry pie for dessert did nothing to diminish the wine.

There was also a 1998 Kilakanoon Oracle shiraz from Australia. This wine was still tightly wound and full flavored. It tasted heavy and sweet after sipping the rose' but it was still a good wine. The same can't be said for wine #3, a 1998 Oak Knoll pinot Noir from Oregon. This is a wine I have had before but this bottle was old and tired. After a tiny burst of fruit at the start it was nothing but tannin and shrubbery.

The picture above? Actually it's a composite of two pictures. The foreground is the wine sitting outside on Scott's grooming table. The sky was from another shot early yesterday morning looking east at sunrise. I just like the colors and effect of the two together. Just like wine the best picture is sometimes a blend of more than one part. The wine was shot in the evening on Saturday with the sun directly behind the bottle. A fill in flash was also used to highlight the label a little.