This past Saturday some friends and I enjoyed left overs from the cooking over fire meal. I brought along two Merlot/Cabernet blends to duke it out mano-a-mano. The contenders were Chateau Patris 2008 from France and, as usual, an Ontario VQA: Mike Weir 2008. Again, both were under $20.
We enjoyed some mild and strong cheese with pepper jelly and red pepper dip with crackers while tasting prior to the meal. As a group we were torn between the two wines and, as we went back and forth tasting and re-tasting, we kept changing our minds about our favourite. Here is a new one: Mike Weir Merlot/Cabernet is a great match with Chateau Patris Merlot/Cabernet if you find yourself in need of such a match. So the verdict was a tie. The wines were distinctly different both in the nose and on the palate and both wines opened up nicely in the glass and in the open bottle. The tasters had no trouble guessing the French from the Canadian.
I really enjoyed this tasting. It was done with a smaller group and and with fewer wines and this seemed to create more discussion and more thinking about the experience. I will definitely do this more often, especially when I hear of a fabulous wine from another part of the world and want to see how Ontario's would fare in battle.
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