Dr. Jeckyl and His Friend

At times wines can have two personalities and the 2009 Michel Schlumberger Dry Creek Valley Maison Rouge house red certainly did over the last two days.

On day #1 there was fresh three cheese ravioli and a home made tomato sauce, full of garlic, tomatoes, shallots, anchovies, tomato paste, red wine etc.  The Maison Rouge was really pleasing with this.  Fruity and not a lot of tannins on the front end, it was full flavored and matched well with the hearty food.  I previously had a bottle of this wine and thought it merely OK, but this one was definitely good.

On day #2 dinner was left over roast chicken from the Burgundy meal one post below this one.  Talk about a mismatch - those two fought each other like bitter enemies.  The wine tasted over extracted, sweet and hot.  It had no finesse or joy to it at all.  It left a nice warm feeling in the mouth and at 14.9% alcohol that wasn't surprising. 

I saved one small glass and later that evening I lightly toasted a slice of baguette and tried the wine for a third time.  It was certainly better than it was with the chicken, but it still tasted sweet and hot.  The obvious answer here is to open this wine only if you have a good pasta with tomato sauce to go with it.

14.9% alcohol and $20.