A Pinot noir we can love with two curries 気に入ったピノノワールと合いがけカレー

We usually do not particularly like Pinot noir including Burgundy. (We are not sophisticated enough to enjoy the subtleties of these Pinots). But occasionally, we come across a Pinot we really like such as the one we had recently.  So I decided it was worthwhile to post something about it. This wine was a bit unusual for Pinot (may be that is the reason we liked it). It was unusually dark in color for a Pinot—it was almost dark like Cab. The wine is called "Belle Glos Pinot Noir" Clark and Telephone from Santa Barbara. The grapes are from the vineyard located at the corner of Clark and Telephone roads. This is a young wine (2012 harvest, 9 month aging in an oak cask). It bursts with dark cherry, blueberry, caramel and vanilla up front  leading to a smooth silky tannin. We can really enjoyed this Pinot.

The appetizers may not have been a perfect pairing for this wonderful California Pinot but the threesome I served were (from left to right); Indian spiced braised cabbage with raisins (my wife made this, a subject of a future post), baked spicy tofu cubes, and baked chick peas. These dishes were not too spicy hot but had layers of spice flavors. For the tofu dish, this time I used Sriracha which added a nice flavor and heat.

For dinner, we had two quite different curries which my wife made. These two curries were made for a dinner for our friends; a mixed population of vegetarians and omnivores but because of bad weather they weren’t able to make it to the dinner. The left "red" curry is  lamb curry and the right "green" curry is spinach curry. For the spinach curry, instead of home-made cheese curd, we used cubes of Feta and smoked gouda cheeses. In Japan, "Aikake" curry 合いかけカレー is rather popular in which two different curries are served over rice on a single plate. The idea is you first enjoy the two curries and rice individually and then mix them up to create a new flavored curry.

My being carnivore/omnivore, I liked the lamb curry better but the spinach curry was totally different in flavor and texture and was excellent. Both curries had complex layers of Indian spices but were not too spicy hot. For some reason, this Pinot really went well with these curries.