Wine Wednesday :: 2011 Domaine de la Solitude Cotes du Rhone Rose

Hello folks!  It's hump day again and from where I sit in Southern California, it is also a HOT day.  So today, I have a refreshing summery wine that will pair beautifully with a salad or a steak (preferably tuna steak but I'm getting ahead of myself).

I started hunting around for a wine for this week's post and asked my friends who know what to drink.  And here is what I came up with: 2011 Domaine de la Solitude Cotes du Rhone Rose at $12.99 a bottle at my still favorite wine shop: Wine Exchange. (Looking for it somewhere closer to you?  Check out Wine Searcher: http://www.wine-searcher.com/find/domaine+de+la+solitude/2011)  Does it get much better than that?   Good wine at fabulous prices!

So I have been promising to post pictures of the food I have been eating with the wine I've been drinking and I have finally done it!  Since I knew I was going to be drinking a rose, I decided to make a hearty salad and put the protein on top.  So this is what I ended up with: 

Somen salad with seared tuna steaks on top.  The salad is just somen noodles (I found them at my local Asian market but you could use any kind of rice noodle), lettuce, cucumber, celery, green onions, and cilantro tossed in a store bought Asian sesame dressing.  And then the hubby pan seared the tuna with a little sea salt and cracked pepper (the tuna was an amazing gift from a deep sea fisherman in our church!) and we were ready to eat!

The wine has some very apple-y notes when you sniff the nose.  Think crunchy, tart, Australian apple (I thought it tasted like a Brae-burn apple myself).  Blended in with the apple are some wildflowers and a hint of something spicy, like white pepper.  Don't know what that might taste like in a wine?  Good.  It tasted really good.  =)  And when paired with the sesame dressing on the salad and the tuna, it was amazing!  A wonderful, healthy, light summer meal.  

(If you aren't a fish person, you could easily use fish or pork tenderloin or some other lighter meat if you are going to pair it with this wine.  Traditionally, a somen salad would have char siu pork on top but I wasn't going to make any yesterday.  And I thought the fish was definitely a good choice!  Salmon would also be delish on this.)

Have a beautiful day and go find a good bottle of wine!