Williamsburg Lodge - (December 2015) As part of their New Years Eve celebrations, the lodge had a wine tasting using some of the wines from their cellar. This was presented by Michael Harper, their sommelier, the chefs of the lodge and their wine geeks (servers). This was to be a tasting as well as an educational experience.
Each of the wines could be tasted with cheeses selected to go with the wines. The cheeses were Marissa, a sheeps milk cheese, and coca Cardona, a goats milk cheese, from the Carr Valley in Wisconsin and a merlot bella Vitano, a cows milk cheese from Satori in Wisconsin. There was also a tomato confit, spiced with nutmeg, which could also be tried with the wine. I tried each cheese and the confit with each wine.
We started off with a glass of sparkling wine from Austria; one of the best spimonets available, it had apple and fig flavors. Unfortunately, we were not told of the brand. We moved to a pinot gris (the French word for the Italian grigio), a 2012 vintage from la Crema, from the Monterey region of California. I found a pear aroma followed by citrus on the palette. I found the Marissa paired well with this wine. Our final white was a 2009 chardonnay from WindRacer. This wine from the Anderson Valley of California has a slight malactic acid fermentation. It has a creamy texture with a buttery finish; I noted hints of vanilla and nutmeg. I enjoyed the coca cardona with this wine.
They went local and served the 2010 vintage of Williamsburg Winery's Adagio. The blend of 42% cabernet franc, 30% merlot and 28% petit verdot was very good and has aged well, but I'm not sure it this is the same vintage that just recently won the Governor's Cup. I liked the confit when paired with this wine.
Our final tasting was to be the 2007 vintage of Krug's Generations, but when the imperiale size bottle was opened (we learned that there are many sizes and this is not the largest available), it had gone to where it was a cooking wine and not a drinking wine. As a consolation, the signed bottle was given away to a lucky winner. They had to choose one which had enough quantity for the tasting, which was about 200 people, and they chose the 2010 reserve vintage of merlot from Waterbrook Winery in the Columbia Valley of Washington State. The merlot bella Vitano complemented this merlot well.
Once all the wines were poured, they brought out dessert. The plate consisted of bite size portions of apple cake, chocolate fudge cake and New York style cheesecake. I asked for a bit more of the two I enjoyed the best, the chardonnay and Adagio, and tried all three desserts with them. The chardonnay paired well with the apple cake and the Adagio did best with the chocolate fudge, but the cheesecake was best with both wines.
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