Canadian Christmas - Part Uno

And here I am, still a bit jet-lagged, back after three and a half amazing weeks in Canada.
Despite the lack of snow and a "real" Canadian winter, we had such a lovely time. It was a great period and of course we did not miss the occasion to open some lovely bottles together accompanying a big varieties of meals, including a sumptuous turkey on Christmas Eve and sailing from an enormous hot dog at Tubby Dog to foie gras, from truffled honey to Vietnamese sub and from lovely homemade gnocchi to cotechino with lentils.

Tubby Dog

With such a variety of food also the range of wines was very extensive and it was a real hard job for the poor sommelier to make decent pairings, but here I will try to list the wines that hit more my palate:

Champagne Blancs de Blancs Cuvee' Speciale Pierre Peters 1999

What an amazing Champagne, probably the best one I have drank. It paired absolutely fantasticly with an apero of crostini with truffle fondue and with some different salami.  Not an easy bottle to find but definitely worth the effort.

Riesling Eden Valley-Pewsey Vale 2009
On a night dedicated to white wine this was the absolute surprise for me. It destroyed the competition for its balanced mixed of lovely flavors and probably for the surprise effect. I would have never expected to find such a lovely Riesling from Australia, a pity that it will be near to impossible to find in Europe.

Christmas Day was dedicated to great wines, three especially were over the top:
Markus Molitor - Riesling Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Spatlese 2006 - When we go to Germany we are in another planet for Riesling. I cannot describe how perfect was the marriage with the foie gras!!!
Guigal-Cotes du Rhone 1994 - Everybody knows that Guigal is the master of the Cote Rotie but when I have seen in front of me a bottle of a simple Cotes du Rhone almost adult (it would have been 18 years old only in a few day) I was giving mentally not many chance to it thinking he would have been gone from a long time. Such an amazing surprise it was when after having pulled out a cork in perfect conditions (good sign,) we pour the wine. It was a lovely and  completely alive bottle and definitely a unique price-quality ratio.
Bodegas Aalto - Ribera del Duero 2004 (Magnum) - and here it is not a surprise, this is one of my favourite wines and he has never let me down. Maybe still a bit young but already very enjoyable. It was a great closure for a quality wine Christmas.

Here follows a short list of some other lovely bottles were opened in the course of the rest of the holiday. Especially I will remember a Valpolicella Superiore 1998 from Romano Dal Forno, a Brunello di Montalcino 2004 Il Poggione 2004 and another 1998, a Vin Santo del Trentino from Azienda Agricola Gino Pedrotti

But now I am sure you will be wondering....and what about wines from the host country???

I will dedicate a separate post to them later on.....I am too jet lagged to continue now!