Food and Wine

The husband's birthday was 2 weeks ago, and it was a brilliant weekend of wining and dining with family and friends. The celebrations started with an evening of drinks at home with his best mate and a few good wines.

A Penfolds Barossa 2009 Viognier that I picked up in Adelaide in April - cellar door release only. Very light nectar taste. Absolutely beautiful.

Got this Yarra Valley Cab Sav from the Yering Station cellar door in 2006, and kept it till now. Took a bit of time, but it was brilliant with amazingly complex flavours once it had a bit of time to warm up and breathe in the glass.

Smoked cheese and brie - surprisingly good with cherry tomatoes.

For the husband's birthday pre-dinner drinks, we headed to Wine Connection at Robertson Quay to wait out the 1 hour or so before our dinner reservation at a pseudo Japanese-European fusion restaurant at River Valley (which I'm not blogging about because we were quite disappointed with the food). We had the Wine Connection platter ($18) consisting 2 cheeses, mixed olives, duck rillettes, smoked salmon mousse, spiced beef rolls, parma ham and crostini. This was quite good value for money with a pretty good assortment of different items. The beef rolls were very nicely done - moist and tender without being too salty.

The platter was amazing with a 2008 South African Cab Sav. The husband had a 2005 Bordeaux (not pictured).

I recently went to Le Carillon again at Ann Siang Hill, and realised with horror that the price of their escargot has gone up from $18 to $24, which is a 33% increase. I don't think it's worth the money anymore, although it's still as delicious as ever. The eats at Wine Connection are much better value for money.