A Valentine's Day Digression

It's not good to talk about cycling all the time. So I thought I'd write about the food and wine I had last night with my sweetie on Valentine's Day. We started by going to see a movie she'd seen already but I hadn't. It was "The Artist" and was fantastic in every way. We had popcorn with the movie and it was the perfect combination. On arriving home I started the soup, a mushroom clam veloute that I've made for years - more on that later. I then put tiny Yukon Gold potatoes in the oven to bake and popped the Champagne, a bottle of Duetz brut. We had some sweet cured olives and almonds to nibble with the bubbly, and it was good. I've always loved Duetz's house style. Some of my fondest memories of early extravagence are of bottles of Cuvee William Duetz. A few minutes later I threw some asparagas in the oven, sauted some scallops, deglazed them with a splash of the Champagne and then served everything up. We opened a bottle of 2007 Campion Edna Valley Pinot Noir and decanted it into the world globe decanter that Heidi had given me just hours before. The flavor revelation of the evening was the combination of the Pinot with the mushroom soup. I guess I don't normally drink wine with soup as I've made this soup so many times in the past and never noticed its effect on Pinot. It absolutely perfected the wine. In aroma the wine was move complex and elevated than I have ever percieved it. And this is a wine I have drunk many bottlles of. The textures on the palate were pure velvet. It was a textbook example of food improving wine. The Campagne and the scallops were of course superb together, but that was no surprise or revelation.