Easter Dinner

What could be better than a wonderful Easter dinner of roast beef, potatoes, and plenty of other tasty foods? An Easter dinner with friends!

That's what we had last night. Good friends, good food, good wine, good times!

One person I was talking to last night was the girlfriend of our friends' oldest son. Her name is Caitlin (spelled the same as my daughter) and she has done both the WSET 2 and WSET 3. I was really pleased to hear how much she enjoyed WSET 2 - she said that she would have been happy to keep on going each week to class indefinitely! That sounds great! She also wants to take her WSET 4 but the price tag for that (~$10,000) is a bit out there.... The WSET 2, by the way, is still no bargain at $1000.

The first wine was one that we brought. It is one of my favourite Okanagan grapes, the Cabernet Franc - ($31.99). This is another of Tinhorn Creek's wines and is a very drinkable wine. There were some tannins (which made it go along fairly well with the roost beef) and some tastes of plum and currant (although I couldn't place if it was red currant or black currant - still working on that palate). It was nicely balanced and, even though it is just a 2013, I think it really was good to drink now.

After a small glass (I was the family designated driver, after all), I tried a wine that another friend had brought. The Alamos Malbec ($13.99) is an Argentinian Malbec that the friend loved because it tasted good and was inexpensive. I found it to be a smooth wine but not overly complex. It certainly is drinkable and I can imagine having this with a grilled steak with a bunch of guys hanging around the barbecue. It's not as strong a taste as most malbecs that I have had which was interesting.  Interestingly, their website only has wines as recent as 2013. It seemed to me that this might be a good weeknight wine - especially with some sort of beef or pork dish.

After our great dinner, we headed home.

The last tasting of the day was a Meadow Vista Cloud Horse ($22). Full disclosure - my daughter, Caitlin, works in the wine industry and is the manager of Meadow Vista. Meadow Vista makes honey wine - or mead - and I wouldn't usually go out and buy honey wine. However, she often will bring us a bottle to try and sometimes I am surprised.

Cloud Horse was one of those surprises. It was a pleasant wine for drinking - light and clear. It had a honey taste (so surprising) as well as a butter hint as well. It would make a good drinking wine or perhaps with some cheese as it's a bit sweet and would offer a good contrast. Maybe I'll actually have to go out and buy some.....

That's it for my Easter weekend - I will continue to post whenever I learn something interesting or drink an interesting wine. Feel free to drop me a comment!