Matteo Mollo
Matteo Mollo
Over the long labor day weekend I suprised my wife with an impromtu jaunt up north to Montreal. It was her birthday and a good excuse to get some time away from work (and bring some wines along that i have been wanting to check out). I had ambitious hopes to hit some great restaurants yet since i suck at planning i hadn't actually booked anything except a hotel. Also, as it turns out it was a labor holiday for the Kunucks, and we went on Monday, a day a bunch of great places are closed. Anyway, we got there and went exploring on those "crazy" public usage bikes that are all around town (the ones that would be deemed to "socialist" for anyone to handle in the lower 48). For our first night we found ourselves at a nice little neighborhood BYO to which I brought two wines. The first was the 2007 Didier Joris Marsanne from the Valais which was fresh and pretty. It drank like a combination of a young Meursault mixed with a funky and steely Chablis...cool. It went great with our starters of warm Chevre bruschetta and a wild mushroom tart. By this time i was anxious to open the red I brought: 2005 Les Cretes Coteau la Tour VdT (100%syrah). This wine was just plain brilliant. It was open right out of the bottle and had a combination dark, earthy underbrush with super soft tannins and a very well balaced acidity. Burgundy meets the Rhone? Yah,kinda. It was drinking much better than i remember this wine when i had the '04 some months ago. I finished the mushroom tart and some kind of veggie soup that rocked and moved on to sweetbreads which this wine absolutely loved. The meatyness of the syrah reared its head and it got all rhoney on us. Good minerals as well as a nice little black/green pepper note at the end of the bottle. We then got back on the bikes and cruised (swerved) all the way downtown!
The next night we paid homage to the great meatlovers mecca, Au Pied de Cochon. This place is just ridiculous. We were in great positon to watch the sous chef and his crew fire all the dishes in this huge pot-bellied wood oven. I quickly gained composure and ordered a wine fit to deal with the task, i was feeling something fresh so I ordered some Lapierre but it was out of stock of course. That was fine cuz they did have some Regnie by Charly Thevenet 2007. This went well across the board with all the porky selections including the Putin au fois gras...just silly. It was rugged and rustic with a streek of bluestone and iron minerality. It didn't seem to have the purity of a Lapierre but it was having a good day, not to mention that the owner Martin Picard was sitting with friends a couple tables down and he had a bottle on the table as well!
Anyway, this is my first post and figured it would be nice to share this little excursion we had that was quite nice.
Ciao ciao,
Matteo
The next night we paid homage to the great meatlovers mecca, Au Pied de Cochon. This place is just ridiculous. We were in great positon to watch the sous chef and his crew fire all the dishes in this huge pot-bellied wood oven. I quickly gained composure and ordered a wine fit to deal with the task, i was feeling something fresh so I ordered some Lapierre but it was out of stock of course. That was fine cuz they did have some Regnie by Charly Thevenet 2007. This went well across the board with all the porky selections including the Putin au fois gras...just silly. It was rugged and rustic with a streek of bluestone and iron minerality. It didn't seem to have the purity of a Lapierre but it was having a good day, not to mention that the owner Martin Picard was sitting with friends a couple tables down and he had a bottle on the table as well!
Anyway, this is my first post and figured it would be nice to share this little excursion we had that was quite nice.
Ciao ciao,
Matteo