Monday, April 2, 2007

Marquis Phillips. Excelsior Cab, and Weekend BBQ recap








Marquis Phillips Shiraz

The Good-Marquis Phillips Australian Shiraz. You've probably read reviews in which a wine was described as "buttery." Well I always personally thought it to be hogwash until I got a whiff of the Marquis Phillips. I kid you not it was so buttery I almost thought about putting it on some popcorn and popping in a DVD. We're all familiar with overused term "Fruitbomb" but this wine may be the first to earn the moniker of "butterbomb." Apart from being terrific on the nose it was a solid effort with some strong fruit to start and a clean albeit tame finish. Certainly a wine I wouldn't mind getting 6 bottles just to have on hand. The wife as well as some of our guest all thought it was very good.

Excelsior Cab

The Not so Bad-The excelsior cab came recommended by some tall blond git from South Africa who strongly recommended as a good every day drinking wine. And truth be told it wasn't half bad it just didn't stand up as well against the Marquis Phillips. Perhaps I should try it again on its own and maybe give a bit better review at a later date. Ill go record as saying if the Marquis Phillips scored a spectacular touchdown the Excelsior scored a routine 24 yd Field Goal in a dome game with Adam Vinateri kicking the ball. Hey it is opening day for Major League Baseball....which is why I'm using the NFL reference.

To the food reviews....

We started off with a cheese/fruit tray using some Aged Tillamook Cheddar and two Imported English Cheeses-an aged English Cheddar and some English Variety of cheese knows as Cotswold.

The next picture is our meat tray showing some Cajun Shrimp Skewers, Caribbean Style Chicken Breast, Some Hot Wings I dug out of the freezer and cooked with some Franks, and one lone, soul, sad sausage I cooked for no apparent reason.

The next dish was vegetable mixed grill I cooked using a BBQ Wok, Jumbo Tiger Prawns, and some Colossal Sea Scallops. I marinated the shrimp and scallops in some sweet Vietnamese chili sauce, olive oil, and garlic. Certainly the nights most popular dish as the vegetables were perfectly tender with just a bit of texture to them and the seafood portions succulent and vibrant. The chili sauce marinade wasn't overbearing by any means and surprisingly not as spicy as I would have thought.

The last pic is just a closeup of the Cajun Shrimp and the Chicken Breast enlarged to show texture and moisture levels. All in all the night went very very well....until for some reason I decided to start drinking vodka. After that my memory is a bit hazy and I'm pretty sure it didn't go well.

And with all of this talk of English cheese...I may as well as post one of my all time favorite cheese related bits-



3 comments:

Upchucker said...

I'm not an expert and I have never drank the wine you reviewed. But I must say this. I have never heard of a red wine being called "buttery". It's exclusively white wine and almost always used to describe Chardonnay. Anyway, it most certainly is never used to describe a high spice red wine like Shiraz. Calling a Shiraz a butter bomb is like calling dog food a fungo bat. It doesn't make sense.



Buttery
Descriptor for rich flavor and smoothness of texture, somewhat akin to the oiliness and flavor of butter. Refers to oak-aged white wines ; many Chardonnays and white Burgundies are said to have buttery aromas and flavors.

A buttery wine is one with the taste or aroma of butter or butterscotch. It is usually used to describe white wines and often results from the wine’s time in contact with yeast during barrel fermentation.

BUTTERY
Describes taste sensation found in better white wines, particularly Chardonnay.

Ben Wall said...

Well, being an England I sure do miss food off a grill that looks like that...........

Im not about to stoop so low as to go out and get a kebab, either.

Anyways, solid video clip, two months ago I wouldnt have been very amused by that but since the Uk humour is starting to rub off on me that shit had me laughing.... What is that from?

Jason M. said...

The food looks and sounds GREAT, Hip. Karma for your pics!! Oh wait...

Upchucker is right that "buttery" is used most often in describing chardonnay, but I've also tasted the M.P. shiraz (as well as a few others from Aus) that absolutely DID have the taste of butter. It's a little odd, but unmistakable. Those wines also may possess a sort-of "slippery" or "slick" mouthfeel. I went through a huge Shiraz kick last summer, and came across this--not always--but often. At it's worst it can overshadow the fruit. Kind of like how heavy oak can dominate a Cali white.

BTW, if you can find it, an excellent Shiraz is Torbreck. They have bottlings at diferent price points. The cheaper ones are great (IMHO, of course), and the more expensive ones are REALLY great.