Wine, Fly Fishing & BBQ

Wine, fly fishing lessons and BBQ! Sounds like a fun packed Saturday afternoon to me, and it was! My brother Mark is a BIG BASS fisherman! So I ask him, since he is Mr. Fishing Expert, to teach me how to Fly Fish. Well, he never got into that area of fishing, yet. But his best buddy, Bill, is a major Fly Fisherman. Perfect! We will all get together and Bill can be teacher for the afternoon. And that is exactly what we did yesterday. All of us got together at Bill and Tina's house for lessons. And, since the temps are reaching 90's now, we would need lots of beverages and an outdoor BBQ. The guys started with beer and Tina and me had, you guessed it, WINE!

Since Tina is just getting into wines, I took an assortment with me to start her out. First we had a Ste. Michelle Riesling. It was nicely chilled and was perfect on yesterday's hot afternoon with it's loads of fruit on the palate. Then I introduced her to Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, since it is one of my favorites at the moment. Tons of concentrated citrus fruit, that wonderful grassy flavor, and so zippy on the palate. I then opened another Sauvignon Blanc which was from Fetzer's. Following the Oyster Bay, it seemed a bit weak. But, after a few sips, we pulled out the fruity flavors and nice acidity the wine offers. The last Sauvignon Blanc I wanted to introduce her to was the Chateau Bonnet White Bordeaux. We had to clear the palate to get the full flavors of this wine. Pleasing citrus, grapefruit, on the palate again with a nice crisp finish. By this time, I think Tina was over tasting wines. She picked the Fetzer Sauvignon Blanc as her favorite. For her the Oyster Bay was a bit too powerful for her palate and I think the Bonnet was too acidic at this point. I enjoyed all of the wines and we had fun with our little tasting.

Tina had a perfect BBQ prepared for us. We grilled out pork chops that had a wonderful glaze on them and, also on the grill, were these wonderful veggie packs. She loaded those up with all kinds of fresh veggies, sprinkled some dried basil, salt, pepper and pads of butter, all wrapped up in foil and tossed on the grill to cook. I tossed together a fresh lettuce salad with the greens that I purchased at the Farmers Market that morning. We also had a lovely rosemary bread that I picked up at the Farmers Market with an accompanying olive oil dip.

All of the wines I brought paired well with our great dinner.

Thanks again gang! Mike and I totally enjoyed our day of wine, fly fishing lessons and BBQ!

Cheers!