Last year Betsy stumbled across a cooking show on PBS featuring Kylie Kwong, a Chinese-Australian chef. She liked the show and made a few dishes which turned out well. So I got her KK's cookbook for Christmas. We've had multiple recipes from it the last 2 nights:
Tuesday chicken wings with oyster sauce, fried rice, and baby bok choy. 2 Rieslings made an appearance
2001 Carl Schmitt-Wagner "Longuicher Maximiner Herrenberg"Auslese (AP #18) (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer) Not a producer that I really know, but a solid performance. I worried that it might be too sweet, but it's actually showing nice sugar/acid balance, floral nose, lots of petrol over yellow pit fruits, more graceful than powerful. Good length, petrol more intense on day 2. Holds up well. B+
2008 Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Himmelreich "Anrecht" Spatlese Clean white peach fruit laced with citrus, excellent nervous acidity, good length. Fresh, lovely, a real delight. Maybe even better on day
- A- Last night she made stir-fired duck breast with 5 spice, steamed silken tofu with spinach and garlic, mushroom/arugula/fennel salad, and steamed shrimp wonton (Dave declared while he liked previous night a lot, this was his dream meal. I declared it might be my dream meal if I wasn't doing the cleanup!).. We had the leftover Rieslings, but Dave prefers red and I thought the duck could use some. Didn't want to go with pricey Burgundy with those spices, so turned to Bordeaux. Opened the 2005 Quintessence de Peybonhomme (1er Cotes de Blaye). Nose of crushed berries accented with just a little vanilla, on palate a combo of cassis and redder fruits (plums). Light tannins, good length. Solid example of satellite Bordeaux, not profound but satisfying. B
Grade disclaimer: I'm a very easy grader, basically A is an excellent wine, B a good wine, C mediocre. Anything below C means I wouldn't drink at a party where it was only choice. Furthermore, I offer no promises of objectivity, accuracy, and certainly not of consistency.