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The Last Eleven, #6 and #7: Soul Growers, Equilibrium Blend, 2016 and Eden Barrel Aged Ice Cider

This may come as a surprise to you, but I happen to love throwing parties. I love cooking, I love sharing meals with my friends, and I love when they tell me how good of a cook I am. So, given that I only have a few more weeks with my friends here in SF I decided to host a little get-together to see everyone and knock out a few of the Eleven.

My best friend came over around 5 and we started cooking up a storm. I was roasting a leg of lamb (my first time ever cooking something like that) and making pasta, she was making some vegetable cabbage rolls and tomato sauce for the pasta. There aren't a ton of people I like to share a kitchen with, but she's definitely one of them. We just work well together, and we both love what we're doing. By 7:30 everyone else arrived and we started pouring wines.

The first, the one I specifically was making the lamb for, was Soul Growers Equilibrium 2016. It's a delicious wine from the Barossa Valley in Australia made by a friend of mine! The short version is that I did a project on his winery during my junior year of college so we met via Skype a bunch of times. He always said if I was ever in the Barossa to give him a ring, and eventually I made a trip there so I did! He showed me around the facilities and we went out to lunch with the other winemakers, they're all classic Australian goofballs and we had a blast. We drank a few bottles of their Riesling which they affectionately refer to as "sports drink", i.e. Gatorade, because it's sort of sweet and low in alcohol. Truly adorable. Flashforward to a year and a half later, one of my close friends from college was going to visit the Barossa and she asked if I could possibly set up a tasting for her. I put them in touch and she had just as much fun as I did. Then, when I met up with her the following March, she gave me a bottle of the wine I had loved trying when I was there! My winemaker friend remembered and gave it to her to pass along.

I've had it for nearly a year but this was the perfect time to break it out--it was DELICIOUS with the lamb I roasted. Perfectly savory, a little peppery and juicy and just downright yummy. And to think it made it to my table because one friend remembered I liked it and another friend brought it across the world for me...that's why I love wine people.

We had the ice cider for dessert. I had meant to pair it with a magnificent croquembouche (tower of cream puffs held together by caramel) but I totally botched it. I didn't have enough normal flour for the pastry so I had to cut it with whole wheat which weighed them down so they collapsed a bit and didn't get the nice crunch they were supposed to. The pastry cream, although absolutely delicious because I loaded it with amaretto and cream whiskey, wasn't thick enough to pipe properly. I attempted to make the caramel and assemble it after dinner which means I was a few glasses of wine in by then so you can imagine how that went. Bottom line is we had the cider for dessert instead, which is always a better idea anyway.

Ice cider is made the same way that ice wine is, in that the grapes are pressed while they're frozen. Since the water content of the grape is tied up in ice, the only liquid that comes out is the syrupy sweet part. When they ferment that, it comes out as a dessert wine and it is DELICIOUS. This one was no exception! It was like apple butter and cinnamon and warm hay. I got this particular bottle in Boston when I went to visit an old friend of mine. It was really rad to share a bit of home with West Coasters who had never really had anything like it before.

All in all, a fabulous evening with a little bit of everything I love. Who could ask for more?


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