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We had our friends Joel and Eunjae over this evening, and had a great time. Joel knows his music, and always shows up wherever he goes with an iPod chock full of 80’s songs. We plugged that sucker into our local sound system (the front input of my TV, as it turns out), and it was party time. Joel also brought a great wine which was the hit of the evening, and taught me something new.

We started out with appetizers, and I had a bottle of Don Salvador Monastrell open for those (which I wrote about before), which was a success - heck, everyone we serve that to just loves it. (And incidentally, for the ultra-small number of people who might see this, the Whole Foods in Vienna bought a bunch of cases on close-out, so they have it for $6 right now!) For mains, we served more of the New York strip steaks that Sonnet did a trial run of the other night. I also made some twice-baked sweet potatoes - baked once until soft, and then the potatoes are scooped out and mixed with sour cream, homemade chipotle paste and roasted garlic before being stuffed back in the shells and baked a second time for a crusty top.

I had intended to serve a red wine from Vacqueyras with the steaks, but fortunately, as it turns out, our friends had other plans. They brought a Barbera from Sonoma Valley - Seghesio Family Vineyards, 2004 vintage. Now, I had only ever heard of Italian Barbera; I didn’t realize that the grape was grown in California, but apparently so. This wine opened up with beautiful cherry fruit on the nose, and that carried over to the taste as well. At 14.8% alcohol, it’s a big wine. It rounded out the steak beautifully, without overwhelming it with oak or anything else. Our friends say that this is available at Total Wine in Fairfax, and I’ll be making a trip at some point to pick up a bottle or two.

What I paid: Nothing! (Hard to beat that!)
What I would pay next time: $20

Barbera from California - who knew? Not me, but I certainly won’t forget it.