TN: Three meals with wine

[Florida Jim]

With spinach and cheese pizza and Cesar salad:

2007 Dom. Vissoux, Beaujolais Nouveau:

Bright, correct, solid fruit with a charming, easy delivery. A balanced, flavorful rendition of a wine that gets no respect. 12% alcohol, imported by Weygandt-Metzler and about $20, full retail in a resort area; I’d buy it again.

A light pizza and a light wine – maybe not a typical description of either but they worked well together.

With lentil soup:

2005 Dom. Vissoux, Beaujolais V.V. Cuvée Tradionnelle:

Coming into its own with lovely aromatics; deep flavors, balanced and sappy; and terrific length. A walk in the park with someone you love. 12% alcohol, imported by Weygandt-Metzler and about $14, on release; I’d buy it again and again.

Matching richness here is primary and each of these carries the concept to its best without going overboard.

With rice noodles with stir fried veggies, salmon cakes, peanut sauce and yellow curry:

1999 Hirtzberger, Grüner Veltliner Smaragd Honivogl:

Smells of pears poaching in ginger-ale with a bouquet garni, penetrating and expansive; viscous and powerfully flavored with elements that follow the nose and add fresh sugar-snap pea and black pepper, balanced, focused, bright, bone dry and more open than I would have expected; endless finish that is even more precisely balanced than the wine on the palate. Not yet showing secondary development but not without complexity, finesse and breed. Very few grüner veltliner achieve these heights. 13.5% alcohol, imported by Vin Davino and about $44, on release; ridiculously under-priced.

The richness of the wine (not any sweetness) soothes the mouth after the yellow curry and brings the flavors of the veggies to the forefront. And the spicy/herb accents in the wine make the curry seem more about flavor than just heat. Symbiotic and very, very good.

Best, Jim