The holidays are a time of friends and family, shopping and presents, food and beverages, adult beverages to be more precise. To be even more precise, wine, and if you are lucky, many bottles of wine. I have been lucky, I have six new bottles of wine to taste, four that came in a wine basket loaded with all kinds of goodies and two that came from my favorite coworkers. They are not my favorites because they gave me wine, but it helps.

This year we are nineteen hundred miles from my family and friends so Christmas dinner consisted of just Mitch and me, and not even on Christmas day. Mitch had to work on Christmas so today, the day after Christmas was our holiday dinner.

The dinner menu was:

Prime Rib w/ au jus and horseradish cream
Baked Potatoes w/ butter and sour cream
Italian Green Beans
Tossed Salad
Pumpkin Pie w/ whipped cream

The wine I chose to complement the Prime Rib was a bottle from the gift basket my wonderful friend sent us, Talaria Vineyards, a Dry Creek Valley, California Cabernet Sauvignon, 2013. It had 14.5% alcohol content and was a dark reddish almost purple color in the glass. We decanted the wine, but poured a taste in each glass prior to decanting to compare.

The wine before decanting had a high alcohol smell, smoky and a hint of blackberry. After decanting the wine opened up a lot. There was no alcohol smell when I stuck my nose in the glass. I swirled the wine and took a sip, gone was the woody smoky taste and more blackberries emerged as I chewed. The wine was dry and grabbed the sides of my tongue, leaving a full finish.

The wine went very well with the prime rib, the wine and meat melded together for a very nice holiday dinner. Even though it was just the two of us this year, it was still a special holiday dinner, maybe more so.