Last weekend while grocery shopping I met a lady in the checkout line who was buying a bottle of Talus Collection Pinot Noir. Being the wine lover I am, I struck up a conversation with her by asking her what she liked about this particular wine. She began to tell me that it had a great flavor and that it really wasn’t that expensive. Her main thing was that it went well with fish, which is what she was serving for dinner that night. I told her that the next time I was in the store for wine I would pick up a bottle and try it.

Well today, I needed to pick up a few things to go with the salmon I was preparing for dinner. I decided to stroll down the wine aisle and I remember this bottle of wine and the promise I’d made to this lady. I finally located this bottle on the bottom shelf in the Pinot Noir section. My first thought was “bottom shelf, must not be that great”. I immediately turned the bottle around so that I could read the statement on the back and was interested to see that the two food items the winemaker felt this wine went well with were roasted pork tenderloin and grilled salmon. So I decided to go ahead and purchase it to try  with dinner.

Prior to the completion of preparing my food I decided to sample a small taste in order to judge the wine pre-meal as well as during the meal. I was happy to discover that this wine had a nice spicy fragrance and that it was absolute in the initial taste. This followed by a smooth and but somewhat bitter finish. Now I must say I am not much of a Pinot Noir drinker as I find them all a bit to smooth for my taste. (I prefer more robust reds like Zinfandels, Syrahs and Cabernets). However, I didn’t find this wine bad. I felt it complimented the fish nicely. Which brings me to my point. For years I have heard that white wines should be served with poultry and seafood and reds with meats. I must say that I have never subscribed to that belief and have found some of my most interesting and delicious red wine experiences while eating a seafood dinner. So my question to you all is do you only do whites with seafood or do you mix it up and try reds as well?

Back to the Talus…at the end of the meal I decided to have a little more and found the bitterness becoming a bit more prevalent, again, not to the point to where I felt it wasn’t drinkable. Again, this wine went well with the salmon but I am not really sure how it would have stood up to a red meat.  I feel this wine is  average and I won’t be adding it to the Jackpots section because I don’t know that I will specifically search it out for purchase again. I also won’t be adding it to Craps because if I had to drink it again I could. Hopefully my opinion won’t   dissuade you. I think you should always try things for yourself because no two palates were created equally. Until next time, salut.

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