Rose' Champagne

After the proposal, we went and looked at this house that we thought we were going to 'steal' at auction, but it didn't actually end up working out, we popped open this bottle of champagne we had been saving for a good occasion. We got it in Napa in January 2008, so we were really holding on to it for sometime. I think it is my favorite champagne.

Exotic Mushrooms and Tennessee Wine

A couple weeks ago, Randy and Diane had us over for dinner. Before we ate Randy wanted to show off his latest find in his back yard. Randy and Diane live about a mile from us, but their house is next to a nature preserve and a small lake. So they always have cool things in their backyard from deer, to exotic bird and now to exotic mushrooms. I don't eat mushrooms, but these did look very interesting. Randy and Diane looked them up and thought that they might be the famed Morel or Morchella Mushroom. There are lots of sites on this type of mushroom and they are very expensive. Apparently they have quite a few in their backyard, so if anyone knows how to cook them properly let me know and I will get you some. 

After examining the Morels, we had a delicious dinner prepared by Diane and some good Tennessee wines to go with it all. We had brought over some from Stonehaus that we got in Crossville over Thanksgiving. It was a nice sweet Homestead White. Randy had just done some work in Paris and we had a nice Merlot. I will say that these were two great wines and hey we were supporting our state economy right? 

Swine and Wine

Shannon, Avery, Tony and I attended a wine dinner with a little piggy theme at Andrew Micheal Italian Kitchen last week. We had a great time and I was really adventurous and tried (almost) everything.  Our menu read: We welcome you to our first "Swine and Wine" dinner to showcase pork in all its glory. This is traditionally the time of year, in Italy, when the hogs are prepared for the feast. To honor that tradition, we felt it was appropriate to celebrate our first wines for your enjoyment. This evening we are featuring Newman Farm Berkshire Pork."

Ready to Swine and Wine

Our table set up looks so elegant

The surprise 1st Course Hogshead Cheese, I tried but could not eat this course. And yes I told the chefs, they were ok with that. 

2nd Course-Baby red perella salad, blistered grapes, almonds and crispy pig ear. To be honest, the strangest thing in the salad to me were the blistered grapes, but I still ate them and really liked them. The pigs ear tasted like a chewy pork rind. The wine with this course was La Carraia Orvieto-loved it and ordered two bottles of it! 

3rd course and my favorite :) Braised pork trotter agnolotti dal plin, barbera sugo and figs. Yes this was pigs feet and tail ravioli, it was wonderful!! I loved the flavor with the figs, it was sweet and almost bbq flavor, but Michael said it had not bbq in it. The wine paired with it was Prunotto Barbara d'Asti, Barbara is the grape grown in the Northern Region of Italy and means strong young boy. Hmm, I like those strong young boys, so we bought a bottle of this too. 

4th Course-Porchetta, smashed cannellini beans, wilted spinach and fennel two ways. This reminded me of a pork tenderloin and the spinach and fennel were actually IN the pork. It was yummy, but I don't do beans, so I skipped them. This was paired with an Allegrini Palazzo del Torro, it was the most expensive wine, so of course Tony loved it and bought a bottle of it 

5th Course-Butterscotch budion and vanilla shortbread cookie. Wow, this was amazing! I would call this a butterscotch mouse, bc it was so light and cool. And if you cant tell the sugar is caramalized on top and it was yummy to eat too. The Zardetto Prosecco was paired with this and we didn't order it, we actually have a fridge of Bubbly now! 

With one of the Chef's Michael Hudman

The whole gang, Tony, me, Brian, Amy Katie, Michael, Shannon and Avery.

Michael gave Shannon and Tony some Hogshead Cheese to go! They couldnt resisit ripping it open and eating it in the car! 

Tutto ma la oink!

Going to This Tonight..

So looking forward to checking out some new fashions and wine..and for a good cause of course! 

Sip, Sip, Sippin on some..

We attended this year's Kidney Foundation 'Sip Around the World' at the Botanic Gardens. I totally recommend this event to anyone that loves wine and a good time. It was well worth the $65 admission.  Loren and Mike have gone the past 8 years and have always recommended it. Tony and I decided to go with them, and Avery and Mary Ruth went too. We also saw Jessica and her roommate Brittany, Patrick in from Atlanta and Peter and Beth Lucchesi. It was pretty simple, you walk in and are given a wine glass and then your off for the sampling. There were over 30 stations of 6-7 bottles of wine. So over 200 wines to sample. Wow, there is no way I could even do half of that, although I tried..Tony kept encouraging me to get smaller pours. My plan wasto start out with all the white wines and then go from there, didn't really work too well, so I just went to each table and with Loren's advice, asked for the most expensive bottle to sample. I even got some information on some of the wines, these people did know what they were talking about, but I'm not sure what I remember. This isn't the type of wine tasting where you are going to learn a lot, just drink a lot. They also had a live auction that we participated in. Got a pretty good package that included Grizzlies Tickets, dinner at Opus restaurant and brunch at Owen Brennan's. We split this package with Avery and Mary Ruth. Loren and Mike got the dinner at Felicia Suzanne's and have invited us to share this with them! We can't wait. After sampling 100's of wines we decided to move the party to Dan McGuiness. Another fun spot. We stayed there for awhile, it was packed. I like how they have it separated into a smoking side and a non smoking side. Until the next event..

It's a Vicktory

So glad these dogs are getting such positive publicity. Just in time for the holidays..wine inspired by the Michael Vick dogs. I love the labels..order some today! And if you can't have it shipped to you, buy the artwork. Michael Vick filed to be reinstated next year. I just don't see this happening. I don't see Roger Goodell letting him back in. I know Vick has paid his 'debt to society' but what he did was so sick and calculated. Lots of guys in the league mess up and do stupid things..get DUI's, say stupid things, hang around stupid 'hangeroners', but Vick thought about this and did it over and over and over...Ewww...this is getting me in a bad mood, I gotta stop here.