Text 18405, 128 rader
Skriven 2007-08-01 01:31:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: saturday cot'd 914
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There was to be a test to see if bad wine could be improved
(instantly aged) by magnetism, the way the gadget catalogues
suggest (Burt brought this up). I had promised to provide a
powerful magnet, but things being as they are, I forgot. Burt
did not forget and provided a wine that 1. he was sure would
be lousy; and 2. cost him twelve buckaroos!

Castel Grisch Baco Noir 05 (Finger Lakes) - a sludgy red.
Aroma of Band-Aid and mint. Palate very acid, iodine-y, and
a little tannic. Impression was of stale wine improperly
stored. Finish acid and rather painfully spicy, the way I
would expect battery acid to taste. Someone rustled up some
fridge magnets so we could perform an approximation of the
planned test, but after treatment the taste was not improved,
in fact, not noticeably changed.

Dale, pitying us, brought out a bottle that Hap's friends the
MacDonalds had sent home with him: Andrew Will Sheridan Vineyard
Cabernet 00 (Yakima) - one sip, and I said that it didn't belong
in the plastic glasses we had, or, in fact, in anything but the
best hand-blown (or mouth-blown, as the current and more sensible
usage goes) crystal. This had deep currant and mint flavors, lots
of acid - but not corrosive the way the Baco Noir was, lots of
tannin. Long finish of earth and spices. It was almost like a
too-young classified Bordeaux. I looked this up on the Internet
and found that it was also priced like a too-young classified
Bordeaux. One of the most impressive wines I've had all year.

But in the spirit of cleaning out the basement, he also brought
out a couple honey wines from Berrywine Vineyards:

Yemar Tej is medium-plus in sweetness, strong floral and honey
taste, a little oxidized. Too intense to be pleasant. About a
quarter of it survived to see another day; the Baco Noir did not.

There was a Honey Mead that nobody had the gumption to open.

A by-product of a smoker is extra smoke, and the Shipps made
applewood-smoked almonds, which tasted pretty fine but were a
little limp-textured. Clean Dave attempted to remedy this by
sauteing them in batches; this worked unevenly. I'd have tried
roasting them for a few minutes in the oven.

Ferrara Torrone came out - orange, lemon, vanilla, and
chocolate-covered. I didn't. The next day I had an orange and
a chocolate; pretty much as expected but a little fresher
than usual.

Other desserts included 

peach cobbler (Ruth) - a nice no-nonsense dessert, very
southeastern, good peaches, pleasant very plain cakey topping;

pecan pie (Gail) - I'm a sucker for pecan pie; hers has a good
balance of filling and nuts and is not too sweet. I had two
slices plus one the next day;

baklava (Brian) - also nice, but as it had been made ahead, not
crackling crisp; it could have stood a short stay in the oven,
I reckon, but I wouldn't know how to accomplish the reheating.

Confectionery included

Bear & Friends strawberry-rhubarb gummis - almost convincing
strawberry flavor and mild but quite noticeable rhubarb flavor.
Good tartness.

Lidl chocolates:
Kul-Kul Papua New Guinea 78% with cacao nibs - intense
chocolate, fruity, a bit hard to melt. I don't know what
the cacao nibs added;

Arriba Superior Ecuador 81% with chile - nice ordinary
chocolate, a little green tasting, and then a bit of chile
heat hits you, messing with your taste buds. I liked this;

Ambanja Madagaskar 72% with red peppercorns - quite peppery
spicy; I would have guessed black peppercorns (these are,
according to the label, Schinus terebinthifolius, a different
genus altogether from regular pepper, including regular
red peppercorns, but have a similar flavor; looking it up,
I find that it goes under the names pink peppercorns, rose
peppercorns, Brazil pepper, Florida holly, etc., etc.). I
thought the pepper masked the chocolate too much, and I didn't
get much chocolatiness to begin with.

Manny had sent along some contributions, including some
weird-shaped gummy things in the form of eyeballs and
such - these all melted by the time we got to them, so
we didn't bother with the mess. He also gave us Bertie
Botts all-flavor jelly beans (a Harry Potter knockoff),
of which Dirty Dave, Burt, Shirley, and I tried some.
I had only the weirdies, of course (couldn't find any of
the earwax ones, though) -

bacon - a nice smoky tang, not much pork flavor though;
black pepper - very convincing;
booger - a less sweet nothing-flavored bean with a lot of salt;
dirt - quite a good job; tasted the way topsoil smells;
grass - very grassy green;
rotten egg - sulfurous, not horribly unpleasant, though;
sardine - a tad of smoke and a bigger tad of fishiness; one
imagines that they couldn't make it stronger lest someone be
offended eventually (the ingredients list has the entry
"natural flavorings (cod fish)");
soap - floral lavenderish, soapy;
vomit - a little acid, stale-tasting; just a hint of the
rottenness of real vomit.

Dave S. brought along pate de tete de porc from la Ferme Marty:
originally Carol and I had taken it back from France, and I'd
trucked it to Dave's, where in a weekend of voluminous tastings
it stayed quietly on the table until we were all too full to
try it. A short reprieve, as a couple months later we opened
it up here! Aroma between pork and corned beef and some kind
of stew; texture mostly pot-roasty with a little fat and skin
(not much) and a fair amount of juice. A little salty to the
taste but otherwise quite pleasant. The ingredients listed are
pork, white wine, salt. Nothing else.

Cleggett Malian sparkling Bronze Cabernet - brownish goldish red, 
cherries, berries, fairly dry; pleasant. A novelty, as it is
made from another mutant Cabernet Sauvignon found in Langhorne
Creek; but it might sell.

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