For our eve of Easter dinner it was great to see Laird and Pat. Old friends wear well, and wonderful to see Pat looking and feeling so well. As for the fare, no Lucy dinner is ever ordinary, and this was no exception. Savory apple tart, pickled salmon spread on toasts, roast butterflied leg of lamb, green beans, roast potatoes and mashed sweet potatoes and Sunchokes. Even I spent time marinating the lamb, which could hardly have been better - succulent spring lamb from Cumbrae. Yummy with spring chokes from the market.

Wine choices for our Second Night Passover dinner were troubling me earlier this week. With first courses including Pickled Salmon, Chopped Liver, Gefilte Fish and Chicken Soup, finding a white wine to match all was no easy task.

With the pmlaw new spirit dinner coming up, and Lucy seeking out new spirit recipes, I approached the wine selections as a great challenge. After a few fits and starts, Lucy settled on a Moroccan spicing for Salmon and also spicy short ribs to round out the main course selections. Finding a white that was new (to me) would not be overwhelmed by the Moroccan spicing, but would also perform as a pre-dinner aperitif proved a challenge.

Now a minor grape in Bordeaux but a star in Argentina, Malbec is the core of Cahors in France but remains a mystery to me. Perhaps this is due to the shameless use of reviews as shelf-talker sales pitches. The collections of purple prose plucked from the publications of respected critics to the websites of nearly amateur bloggers have left me completely confused. The question remains - what differentiates a fruit bomb from a delicate, powerful and complex wine.

Globe and Mail cruise issues were dealt with on a warm January night in Toronto. A smidgeon of tequila gravalax was followed by a first course of sauteed mushrooms on Portuguese Cornbread toasts, and then a glimpse into the next holiday season with Moroccan Turkey. Steely, minerally 2006 Grosset Riesling was on the youngish side, but it certainly stood up and more to the mushroom dish. For the turkey, we reached into the cellar for a bottle of the brilliant 1996 Caprai 25^th anniversary Sagrantino. What a wine! Huge, tarry blackberry nose followed by a mouthful of beautifully balanced black fruit with notes of leather and cedar. This wine was good enough to cause us to close our eyes and smile. Wow! Match with the turkey? Yes, but a much simpler example with lots of acid and fresh berries like a mid level Aussie Shiraz or a Cotes du Rhone Villages is all that is needed. Still....

Prince Edward County Winemaker Norman Hardie is one of many alumni of The Four Seasons Hotel in Yorkville to go on to notable success in the broader world. Norman was about to be promoted away from his passions of wine and food at the hotel but decided to reject life as a suit. His courage and confidence led him to pursue the creation of wine from the "Heartbreak Grape" around the world, from Burgundy to Central Otago, eventually coming home to "the County" in Eastern Ontario (vinously) and Leslieville in Toronto (familially).

After acquiring potentially fine vineyard land near the western shores of "the County", Norman planted his chosen clones of pinot noir and while they matured, sourced grapes from some of the excellent plots in Niagara. Wine Atlas of Canada author Tony Aspler judged the 2004 Niagara Cuvee as the best Canadian pinot he had ever tasted.

Clare, a storied county in Ireland, is also gaining fame in Australia as one of its premier wine making areas. Ninety minutes north of Adelaide and 100 kms from the sea, Clare's towns were originally trail stops--today they are still important stops...on the Clare Valley Riesling Trail.

Several producers are now making outstanding Rieslings from Clare fruit, but it was Jeffrey Grosset who put the area on the Riesling map. Polish Hill, Watervale and Sevenhills (famous in wine circles) are valley towns surrounded by some of the great Riesling vineyards in the world.

We started our visit with a 2007 Riesling tasting led by Jeffrey Grosset.

Several years ago, a Mountadam Chardonnay was chosen by a friend of ours to accompany a delicate poached turbot. It had the iron core of an outstanding Chablis, with a touch of oak and it went on and on.  When I checked it out, I found it came from an unknown part of the wine world, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Australia. Some years later, the wines of Eden Value are not unknown, but remain mysterious to many and generally undervalued.

Tucked into the south corner of South Australia is Coonawarra, where Cabernet is king. Yet even in Cabernet Coonawarra, the masters have found pockets of Shiraz-friendly land, adding diversity where none was expected. In October, when the vines for the 2008 vintage were just getting under way, the concern of the cognoscenti was the Melbourne Cup. To keep an equine virus at bay, the number of contestants was limited and the Aussie world was expressing concern that the Cup tradition could even die, or at least be left gasping for breath. Alas, all was well in the end, and despite the coughs, the Cup will return to its rightful place in the social calendar in October 08. Those concerned vintners of Coonawarra are household names in the homes of wine lovers around the world. The cabernets of Belnaves, Redman, Wynn's, Bowen, Majella and Hollick wines are prized items, and not always so easy to find. Even in a world where winemakers and vintners are not known for their conservatism, Coonawarra has a disproportionately high number at the other extreme.  Your scribe was joined on this venture by a motley crew of other adventurers, as may be apparent from the photo below.