An Evening with Brian Carter

I went to "An Evening with Brian Carter" at Vino 100 in Bellevue last night. We tried the latest offerings from Brian Carter cellars paired with food. Brian Carter himself was there to describe the wines, his thinking behind each one and so on. Quite a treat.

The pairing of the Oriana Southern Rhone White Blend with a Nicoise inspired salad with fresh Crab instead of tuna was outstanding. That experience of having both the wine and the food taste better because you have them together is one of the things I really enjoy about having wine with dinner.

Basically tasted the whole lineup of wines:

TUTTOROSSO, Super-Tuscan Style Blend
ORIANA, White Wine Blend
SOLESCE, Bordeaux-Style Blend
BYZANCE, Southern Rhone-Style Blend
L'ETALON, Bordeaux-Style Blend
ABRACADABRA, a Magically Whimsical Blend

The Abracadabra was described as being the result of the surplus after blending all of the first label wines... magically, this wine appears each year. In actually, we quite liked it as it had a very nice balance and was enjoyable to drink.

L'Etalon was our favorite and at $30-$35/bottle (same price as a few years ago) it's quite a good deal. I've drinken a couple of bottles of the 2002 which had more structure (most notably tannin) but tended to be more bitter.

There are trade offs of course, the 2004 we drank at this event was smoother right from the get go but didn't finish as long and I think the maturity date of the wine will be much sooner than the 2002.

Good event.