#105 - Lola-Style Skirt Steak & Yuca Fries With '05 Colonial Estate Envoy

Sometimes, good enough is actually welcome...

...welcome because of what didn't happen to the food and wine compared to what did.

It wasn't great. The wine was a little short and a little muddled but there was much to recommend, like watching a perfectly pleasant little movie that never made you feel like you wasted your time while watching it even though you probably wouldn't ever dare to watch it again lest the shine wear off quickly or you find a reason to absolutely hate it.

Last night's pairing was akin to watching the movie Once.

Food: Skirt steak with pickled onions and pickled jalapeños with yuca fries and a arugula/parsley salad with pomegranate seeds and Lola steak sauce

Salt-sugar-coriander-ancho chile powder-rubbed and marinated Paulina skirt steak with pickled onions and pickled jalapeños on top and Lola steak sauce to drizzle over the top.

A Michael Symon hanger steak recipe.

I had a completely random, out-of-the-blue Lola Bistro hanger steak craving and Mrs. Ney mimicked it, substituting skirt. We've had it at Lola twice now (chronicled here and here) and it's why food is good. Topped with Lola steak sauce that brings a beautifully silky, low-level acid that ties the pickled elements to the meat in a great way. And more pickled elements will be showing up on the plate in the Ney house with attempts to marry them with silky sauce. Just great stuff that made the skirt come off very light, clean and fresh.

Yuca fries with spicy mayo for dipping = staple and it had been awhile since the last time we had them.

Arugula and parsley salad with pomegranate seeds. Pomegranate because they had to be used up and pomegranate was in the wine tasting notes. Parsley because it's become oddly essential in our world and is freakin' delicious with skirt steak. Who knew?

A meal that completely satisfied the Lola hanger craving and made us feel happy. And easy-squeezy to make. Not fancy-foo-foo.

Wine: 2005 Colonial Estate Envoy ($20, down from $40 two years ago - WDC)

Grape: Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre

Region: Barossa Valley in Australia

Vintage (WS): 97 Ideal weather made balanced, generous wines

We bought three bottles of this one two years ago after a 50% markdown was too irresistible to pass up at Wine Discount Center. It's shown a dramatic arc in the last two years of drinking them.

Close to finished now as it's lost most of its interesting depth and the fruit has turned from a more intense darkish fruit to something resembling macerated red fruits that have sat out for a bit.

Short finish and the fruit isn't particularly lively but the structure was still there, if hanging on for dear life. A bit gamey on the nose showing slightly dried dark cherry on the palate mixing with something a bit tobacco-y. Had a very abrupt, Frank Costanza-like "stop short" halfway down, leaving the finish a tad empty and hollow with a very slight perk-up way down at the bottom.

Fine enough but we're glad it was our last bottle. Fun to see how it matured but it's old and gray now and dangerously close to smelling like an old person who pushes ribbon candy on unsuspecting visitors.

But for all that, it was a gamer with the food.

Pairing: 88 The old dog still had some game in those creaky legs

With tons of pickling and big skirt flavors on the plate, the wheels of the bus never really fell off and even slightly enhanced some things.

It was kind of like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. With the skirt and pickled jalapeño with a touch of sauce, the wine's fruit dominated in almost pretty way. Add some pickled onion in the mix and...not so much. But with the former, the wine was better and the sauce's inherent goodness really shined.

Overall, the wine was probably best with the yuca fries and mayo, something that showed itself to be true in the past with Australian wines. They're a nice match with Australia's more fruit-forwardness but this was a more subtle GSM compared to a Shiraz and it still produced the same effect. Something about the crispy element mixed with a little spice forced the wine to reveal itself very early in the mouth. It woke it up and even seemed to take a few years off it.

It may have been ever so slightly dull at times and we wouldn't do a match with this wine's vintage again but a lot could have gone wrong and it didn't.

I tried to watch a few minutes of Once a couple of months ago on HBO and had to turn it right away. Something was being destroyed. My memory of the experience of watching it the first time was being rotted and I started to see it through a more critical eye. The pairing last night, I suspect, would have a similar effect if we did it again.

We found a nice place with the wine and food and we'll just leave it right where we left it.

#51 - Hanger, Fish Tacos & Three Mediocre Wines

Let's combine two meals this week that were eaten with three wildly mediocre wines.

Food: Mustard-red wine rubbed hanger steak with onion tart and arugula salad

Good hanger steak with a nice char, something that I thought would help the wine beautifully.

Traditional-style onion tart made with bacon had a good earthy taste and a fluffy crust. In fact, I'm eating the leftovers of it as I write this and it's still good stuff.

Arugula salad drizzled with balsamic and olive oil. Again, good capper.

Should have been a great meal. Both of us, though, thought it missed some brightness.

And some of that could have been mitigated if the wine revealed itself in the same way it did that last time we had it.

Wine: 2005 Colonial Estate GSM Envoy ($20 - Wine Discount Center)

The meal seemed to match well with a Rhône. Originally, we had the new 2007 Chateau Des Tours (brother of the Domaine Des Tours Vin de Pays that we absolutely love and is probably one of the best QPR wines we've ever had - both are wines from the venerable Châteauneuf-du-Pape winery, Château Rayas), but I had a bit of the sniffles so we deferred to an Australian done in the Rhône style.

Last time we had this, it came off much darker and much bigger with herbal, tar and spice elements.

This time, unfortunately, the dark fruits were gone, replaced by exclusively red fruits with some raspberry and cherry, medium-to-short finish, medium tannins, somewhat concentrated but not in the least distinctive.

Had that in-between mouthfeel that good Australian GSMs have, something between the New and the Old World. Not syrupy, more like deep. But everything had a manufactured feel to it and the fruit had an over-extracted sense that showed well two years ago but now is coming off a bit flat.

Just didn't distinguish itself. Would be a decent little table wine under $12 but this one used to sell for $40 once upon a time.

Pairing: Meh

Clunky. Good enough with the hanger steak but didn't enhance anything. Got by on its fading glamour, but didn't deliver the goods.

One bottle left of this. What used to be somewhat held back to match a meal in the very least has become a sandwich wine. If the wine would have stayed in the dark and deep range it showed previously, that could have brought the meal to a different level where the mustard-red wine rub began to pop and the onion tart went deeper.

It's not a bad wine - nothing disjointed. It simply isn't interesting anymore.

The same world last night compared to Tuesday when it comes to wine.

But fish tacos is a top 10 meal in our world.

Food: Mahi Mahi tacos with jalapeño sour cream, Mexican slaw, guacamole and hot sauce

Recipe taken directly from here.

Duncan Gott, the brother of winemaker Joel Gott, has a place in Napa that serves up some serious deliciousness.

Spectacular marinade on the Whole Foods mahi, garlic-y with a deep spice. Jalapeño sour cream that I could drink by itself. Easy slaw that adds crunch and depth without getting cabbagey. Insanely fresh guacamole.

It can't be emphasized more, this is great stuff.

We've had it one other time since the beginning of FWW with the ridiculously good purple corn sangria, swapping out mahi for tilapia and altering the slaw.

On that purple corn sangria, there's no better match for these fish tacos. Nothing.

And certainly not these.

Wine: 2003 Prager Riesling Bodenstein Smaragd ($14 - WDC) and 2007 Bokisch Albariño ($4 - Binny's)

I could be fine with the Bokisch albariño. It was $4. Not offensive. Not good, but not offensive. Mrs. Ney found some hard-boiled egg notes, which was worth the $4 by itself for its hilarity.

But the 2003 Prager Bodenstein is done, over, finito. Felt kind of burned by the signage at WDC on this one that said it was still drinking beautifully despite the major critics saying it was done three years ago.

Even the faintest hint of fruit is hanging on for dear life. As it came to near room temperature, I thought I found something that might have resembled orange peel or kumquat.

It's done. I have another bottle. Anybody want it?

Pairing: Nothing

Both wines added nothing. But in our world, that didn't matter. Unlike so many other meals that scream for good wine to make it better, nothing was going to detract from the greatness that is fish tacos with this recipe.