On the weekend, I looked through the freezer to reduce the backlog of frozen items. I found some very tasty chicken sausages that we had last night, and I also found some mystery meat.

Unfortunately, our freezer tends to be full of burgeoning mystery meat. It looks like pork chops or chicken thighs or sirloin steaks when it goes into the freezer, but after it's frozen, and because I don't bother labelling anything, it all just looks the same after a while. Which does make life a little more exciting because you never know what you are going to get (yes, yes, thank you Forrest).

The mystery meat was in a freezer bag and was wrapped in butcher paper so I was hopeful that it was some thing tasty  - perhaps a nice pork chop or a piece of lamb?


Today, after I arrived home from my work day, I was pleased to discover that it was actually two nice New York steaks! After warming up the grill, it was time to choose the wine.

Last time, I blogged about how I ended up with three Cab Sauvs by mistake when I told my favourite liquor store expert that I was looking for Cabernet Sauvignon instead of Sauvignon Blanc (rookie mistake..). Well, I decided to try one of them tonight.


I selected a Wakefield Cabernet Sauvignon 2015 from Clare Valley in Australia ($19.99). The Clare Valley is in Southern Australia and is a continental climate with cool to cold nights and warm to hot days and is higher in altitude. Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz (which is the same thing as Syrah) are the main feature although many other varietals (such as Riesling and Merlot) are also grown there.

The colour was medium to high intensity - I had a hard time seeing through the wine but my glass is a lot bigger than the tasting glasses - hmm - maybe I should use the tasting glasses at home. The nose did not seem that strong and, surprisingly, I had a difficult time picking out aromas. I was a bit worried that it had gone off due to cork taint even though it was a screw cap. Apparently cork taint can be in the air of a winery during bottling if other wines are using corks and can get into bottles even without an actual cork. Luckily, there was no cork taint. I did smell jamminess and fruit but not much else.

On the palate, it was a different story. There were strong tannins, tastes of red fruit like cranberries, as well as black fruit like black cherries. There were also definite tobacco flavours. It was a rather bold wine that probably was a bit young with medium acidity. The finish was nice - medium for sure.

Finally, for my WSET course, one of the homework assignments was to have a red wine with something salty so I added a bit of extra salt to a piece of the steak and the wine really complemented it well! The youngish taste actually dissipated a bit!

Can't wait until tomorrow's WSET class!