Tuesday, January 1, 2013

New Year's Eve 2012 (New Zealand / Ontario / France)

A quiet night at home, just the way we like it ... ordered Chinese from our favourite place (Magnolia in St. Catharines), got our favourite oriental dishes to send off the old year and bring in the new - even made us a plate of brownies to eat before the new year's diet kicks in on the 2nd ... plus a few movies sure to keep us entertained until midnight:  Barney's Version, The Gauntlet and The Expendables 2 (that should bring the New Year in with a bang).  Thing is ... we never made it to midnight, we fell asleep about an hour short, but we still had great wines, a great meal and each other to ring the whole thing in with, both the night before and the morning of ...

The wines we rang old the Old Year with were eclectic: My wife, the Riesling fan, chose a 2011 Quarry Road Riesling from Tawse (she finished the whole bottle) from right here in Ontario.  I went outside the province, the country and the continent - going all the way to New Zealand for a bottle of Akarua 2011 Rua Pinot Noir for its black cherry, cranberry, coffee and licorice nose, which leads to an earthy, cassis, black cherry and licorice palate - think I'll let my other couple of bottles sit a few more years and come back to them.  I'm sure the Riesling paired better with the Chinese than the Pinot but it was still a delicious bottle of wine.

The next morning we did what all great alcoholics do - start the day with a drink - we did not pop the cork on the Champagne the night before so it seemed only right to pop it at 6:30 the next morning (only 6 and a half hours late):  Louis Roederer Brut Premier (non-vintage) with delicious almond biscotti and crusty bread notes ... after a nice hefty glass to ring in the New Year we did the unthinkable (to some - sorry Carolyn) we made Mimosas (you know combined orange juice and sparkling wine, I would say 75-25 in favour of the wine) ... and that really got the day started right ... we also finished the last half of the Expendables 2.  Happy New Year Everyone.


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