Monday, July 26, 2010

#102 - Two Meals With Two Cheapies


A quickie today.

Two quick meals over the weekend with two cheap wines.

#1 - Beef tacos with pico de gallo, white cheddar (?), sour cream and lettuce in corn tortillas with 2006 Bokisch Graciano ($8 - Binny's)

Trader Joe's beef taco mix with homemade pico de gallo. Surprisingly good stuff. Tasted a bit like prepared mix but still satisfying. Very satisfying, actually.

The meal is worth noting due to the bargain wine drank with it. The 2006 Bokisch Graciano showed a bit different than it did six months ago. This time, the fruit was darker with gobs of plum and black cherry. Not sticky. Bigger and dark with a lean mid-palate, still plenty of fine tannin with nice earth and dark spice. Wouldn't pay for the original $24 price tag but at $8, it's one of the top four or five best bargain we've had in that price range. 100% Californian Graciano. Kinda rare. Pairing score: 87


#2 - Seafood sausage, white rice, sesame seed asparagus and a coconut-red curry dipping sauce with 2009 Pircas Negras Torrontés ($14 - Red & White)

What was thought of as being a quick dinner turned into something much more...and made us realize that we probably should have drunk the Crios Torrontés with it instead.

The price of seafood sausage has risen to a still wildly cheap $5.50 for four links at Trader Joe's. Just four months ago, there were, along with the Crios, was the most surprising wine pairing we had had in a long time. All delicious flowers.

This dinner was nearly as tasty as that one in many ways, made great by the superlative coconut milk-red curry paste sauce poured over the rice and used to dip the seafood sausage in.

But the wine, while pleasant enough, didn't come close to measuring up to the Crios. All pineapple cream soda with a touch of almond, somewhat crisp with a tiny hint of a floral element but nothing particularly pronounced. Fine enough, but wouldn't buy it again, even if it was $5 cheaper than the $14 we paid. Pairing score: 83

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