2007 Renwood Viognier and 2006 Tablas Creek Mourvedre

Opened the 2007 Renwood Viognier, Lodi as an aperitif tonight. I've had this a few times recently and it's always been an enjoyable wine. Notes of orange blossom, vanilla, white flowers on the nose and a thick, sweet palate. Perhaps a bit too sweet for some, but I like it. Quite nice with homemade rosemary bread dipped in Blood Orange Fusion olive oil from The Tasteful Olive; a new olive oil specialty store in Overland Park.

For dinner I rubbed some grass-fed, hormone-free Kansas City strips from Homespun Hill Farm with dried rosemary, dried orange peel (notice a trend here?) salt and pepper and grilled them rare over a charcoal fire. The beef we get from our CSA is so dense and flavorful it could easily be mistaken for lamb. So I thought the 2006 Tablas Creek Mourvedre, Paso Robles would be a good choice. We picked up this particular bottle at the winery just over a year ago. The wine is incredibly dense with aromas and flavors of grilled meat, saddle leather, plum and black pepper. The 14.5% alcohol is also quite apparent on the nose. One sip of this impeccably balanced wine and it's easy to see why the Perrin Family is the undisputed master of this Rhone grape. It's very acidic and tannic; I'd go so far as to say it isn't particularly pleasant to drink on its own. But it really shines with the earthy flavors of the steak. Finishes with a pleasant note of bitter orange pith. A beautiful wine from an absolutely first-rate winery.