Festival of Indulgence, Round Two

What you see on the left is a result of last night. To celebrate the first edition of the International Heliski Film Festival the participants and special guests were invited to a feast worthy of, well, overindulgence. Koko BBQ'd her wonderful spatched marinated chicken while Joel personally rubbed his 10 pound filet mignon with dijon. To go with the feast I started with a mini-vertical of the Leasingham Magnus that I enjoyed last week. We drank the 2000, 2001 and 2003 blindly; I have to give it to Joel, he correctly identified the 3. Very enjoyable little test. The Verdict: The 2000 won hands down, earned a WOW overall - this was Joel's favourite on the night. The later two magni got a GOOD each. Followed this with a little palate cleanser - the Concha y Toro Trio we had earlier this week. Very different, but held it's own, Big Fish Carlo chose it as his favourite (he's always been impartial to Chilean fruit bombs). Then the wines came fast and furious. Super guest Jimmy the Greek brought a Farnito, Cabernet Sauvignon supertuscan, 2000 to do battle. It was an elegant, already mature, smoothie. It earned a GOOD. Heli-star Wayne, not to be outdone, brought the tried and true Rosemount Estate Show Reserve 2001 Shiraz, already branded pretty much as a WOW, plus an untried dark horse - the Stella Aurea, Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 from Chile. I've seen this wine with it's cool label in the shop but have never bought it. So, rubbing my hands with glee, off came the cork to reveal a pink tinge. Not a blockbuster, but a smooth drinking effort, compared well with the Farnito. The Verdict was GOOD. Running out of the good stuff fast, Joel whipped out one of his old stanbys, the Domaine d'Auphilac 2002 from the south of France. It struggled in comparison with the competition tonight, could only manage an "OK". That prompted him to bring on the St. Hallet's, the Blackwell Shiraz, also recently reviewed, to save the night. Lovely as always.

I vaguely remember a Lebanese wine crawling out of the mists around midnight, can't really comment on it since I was off in la-la land by then. I'll have to ask around to find out how good it was.....

Oh, and by the way, the Best Film Trophy went to the dynamic "Powder Lords", a CH film in collaboration with Crush Studios. It's available free to all who would like a copy, for a limited time only. Just leave your address in the "comments" box.

There'll be no postings for the next week since my liver has to recover.

CHEERS!!