On Saturday, we repaid our friend Chris a favor for having watched Andrew while we attended Purdue's last victorious football game vs. Notre Dame by cooking her a dinner of paella, as she requested. So, with a meal of paella Valenciana, preceded by an appetizer of smoked salmon and salami* served with a baguette, we had the following wines:
2004 Knoll Grüner Veltliner Federspiel nose: intense minerality, white pepper palate: light body, good acidity, strong mineral streak
Chosen to pair with the smoked salmon (it did), it also went well with the salami. Now showing its age as the fruit has mostly faded, leaving an interesting wine that isn't to everyone's taste.
With the paella we opened:
1994 Remelluri Rioja nose: intense cherry fruit, a hint of tar palate: medium-full body, deep cherry fruit, not much complexity (or Brett)
2006 Kim Crawford Unoaked Chardonnay n: stones, melons p: medium body, good acidity, melon and minerals
Chris had requested a Rioja with the paella, so I chose to open the Remelluri because: a) the La Rioja Alta 910 wasn't the ideal match with a seafood-laden paella and b) Chris's tastes run more to "modern" big, fruit-driven wines. However, I was a bit concerned about this bottle, as I had read reports of Bretty Remelluris; fortunately, this wasn't one of them and was a big hit. It also was a passable match with the paella.
The Kim Crawford Chardonnay was brought by our other guest, who drinks only white wine (although he did sample a bit of the Remelluri). I was struck by how much like the Sauvignon Blanc their Chardonnay tasted. It lacked a bit of the richness that I expect in Chardonnay and had a little tail-end bitterness. Not a wine that I would seek out.
Mark Lipton