The lasting power of the Douro!

Seabass with caviar

25 May 2011:  Richard and I totally indulged at a gastronomique dinner at Amber restaurant.  The menu was prepared by guest chef from L'Ambroisie, Paris.  I loved every single dish, but particularly loved the seabass with caviar and the very intensely flavoured lobster...It was just an amazing performance by the kitchen and the staff did a great job serving the food, doing their best to pronounce the dishes!

As I got there early, I had time to browse through the wine list and decided to surprise Richard with a wine he would most likely never choose, unless he was in Portugal.  It's the 2005 D+D.  I had heard about this wine and was intrigued enough to try it that I ignored the potential faux-pas of having Portuguese wine with first rate French haute cuisine (as well as Richard's disapproval)! 

D+D - Drinks and Dreams was a project formed by Emilio Moro from Ribera del Duero and his assosciate in the Duoro Valley, including Sogevinus, and other shareholders.  The first vintage was 2005.  The grapes in the blend are Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca and Tinta Roriz.  It's a Crianza, minimum requirement for wood ageing is 6 months and released after minimum of 2 years.

D+D 2005: Floral, berries, herbal, balsamic, chocolate, black pepper. Medium bodied, sweet ripe tannin, balanced by good acidity. Finishes sweet and long, slightly syrupy. Drinking rather young now, will continue to evolve over next 4 -5 + years. 15.5/20

Richard didn't like it too much at Amber and decided to stick with the wine-food pairing suggestions by the restaurant.  Without help, I didn't go very far with the bottle.  So I brought the rest of the bottle back home (and quite a lot of it too!).  We had done the usual thing of pumping out the air, etc.  5 days later, we opened the bottle again and it actually tasted as though it hardly developed at all.....still rather robust, structured, showing no fatigue and standing up to the chili beef stew that we had for supper!  These Portuguese grape varieties sure know how to stay in the game!