White Out

Perhaps this would have been a better choice?

Saturday night Beth made her Uncle Pete's famous pesto sauce with shrimp and cavatellis, so I followed the book and paired it with a Sauvignon Blanc from, you guessed it, Marlborough, New Zealand. 

Cottesbrook 2010 Sauvignon Blanc ($10.99)

I opened it while Beth was cooking and knew I wasn't going to dig it. I then broke out some cheese and crackers and still no dice. I thought it was really tinny, metallicish. Beth thought it was very grassy. Either way, I didn't like it. I didn't dump it (yet) because I wanted to try it with the Pesto, but I decided if wine was going to play a role in an enjoyable Saturday evening, I'd need to execute Plan B. 

Plan B:

Colome 2010 Torrontes ($12.95)


I grabbed this at Hi Times a while back for two reasons. One, Colome makes one of the better Malbecs around, and B, I'd only had Torrontes (that's a grape) one other time, which happened to be the Summer School, "Kermit" award winner from Crios.

It was very different. I thought it had a light, yet sort of floral taste, with pineapple. Beth tasted a lot of peach. We both wished it were crisper and thought it was bland, but an improvement over the Blanc.

The Verdict:
Neither bottle was very impressive, but I didn't want to open a third bottle with dinner out of principal. Should I have? I say no, and here's why I'm glad I didn't. Having been cheated of a good wine buzz after an awesome Saturday night meal, I decided to crack open another bottle after the kids were in bed.  I went with Clancy's, winner of the Summer School "The Seals" award.  I thought it tasted really tart. Not at all what I remember it tasting like.

I corked everything and over the past 2 nights revisited each bottle, cashing 2 and dumping 1. Turns out, I think, the garlic of pesto was too overpowering for anything I had to throw at it.

Numbered grading scale lives here

Grades: 
Sauvignon Blanc: D- / 1 (The dumper)
         Beth's Grade: D


Torrontes: C / 2 (Much better tonight with shrimp tacos)
Beth's Grade: C


FWIW, Clancy's went back to usual delicious self the next night.