Wine Country with Lesli - September 23
Images 14-17
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[St. Francis]
[Chateau St. Jean]
[Matanzas Creek]
[Pride]
[Domaine Chandon]
I was exhausted. We had a bit of time before our dinner reservations, so we stopped at a coffee shop in St. Helena. I caffeineated up with a double espresso. We then stopped in a wine shop. They had some very nice wines available for sale there. I showed restraint and didn't buy any wines. I did find a drip stop wine bottle collar I liked (has a bow tie on it) and bought that. Then we headed off to dinner. It was a good think we started early for Domaine Chandon because there was a big traffic jam at Niebaum-Coppola due to some big event there.
Domaine Chandon
Dinner at Domaine Chandon was wonderful. My favorite meal was available - foie gras for my appetizer and loin of lamb for my entree. The foie gras was mesquite grilled. Interesting, although I didn't really taste the influence of mesquite (nor did I really want to). I had a glass of 1997 Dolce as a pairing (recommended by our server. if I had known they had a sauterne on the menu I probably would have ordered that, but the Dolce was excellent). The grilled foie gras was very tasty (have rarely had foie gras that wasn't), but I've had better. Lesli had a tasty heirloom tomato salad for her appetizer and she started with a glass of one of Domaine Chandon's sparkling wines.
For my entree, my lamb was cooked on the rare side of medium rare. It was very red, which was actually quite fine with me. The lamb was so incredibly tender (my mouth waters when I think about it). The lamb could have used a little more seasoning, but no real complaints here at all. I had a half bottle of Turnbull Merlot which was pretty good, but was inferior to the wonderful Merlots that I had tasted at both St. Francis and Pride. Lesli had the beef tenderloin, cooked well done which she enjoyed.
Although we were both stuffed, we couldn't really pass up the dessert. We decided on the gooey chocolate cake, which was the first recommendation of our server. This wasn't really what I would call a "cake," but was really a chocolate torte and vanilla ice cream. Suffice it to say, it was TDF (to die for. apologies for ending in a preposition...).
[St. Francis]
[Chateau St. Jean]
[Matanzas Creek]
[Pride]
[Domaine Chandon]
