Halifax Busker's Festival & Lobster Night

Shanda and Maeve on the way to the festival.


We went to the Halifax Busker's Festival yesterday for a couple hours. We were AMAZED by The Flying Dutchmen. The one guy was on a 12 foot unicycle.



After that, we came home and Jim treated us to a Lobster feast... I've had lobster here many times, but this batch was among the sweetest and juiciest I've ever had. Soooooo good.


I also grabbed the bottle of wine that I enjoyed the previous night at Shanda's birthday dinner at il Mercato. The waiter said he had only seen it in the boutique wine place but I went to the local liquor store in Bedford (still not privatized like in Alberta) and lo and behold...



2005 Dogajolo (a blend of Sangiovese [80%] and Cab Sauv [20%])





Funny to read the description on the back... they say it has hints of berries, coffee, spice, and vanilla... I tasted the berries (Strawberry), the coffee (which actually was caramelly as well), spice (which was just a peppery taste) and the vanilla to me was more like a mild cigar but as soon as I read the word vanilla I thought "That's the cigar-ish flavour I was getting." Like walking into a humidore. Anyway, it was $20 and I thought I'd get it as a special treat with the Lobster dinner, although I knew it wouldn't be the best pairing. I really just let it breathe and enjoyed most of it after dinner. I was wondering how fresh the wine I got in the restaurant was... it tasted like it had opened up already but I wasn't sure if it was form the day before or what. It was slightly chilled too. So when I took it home, I tasted it right away and I was happy to taste some sulphury type of flavours (meaning I knew if I let it open up for about 20 minutes, those would likely die down and it would taste more like the wine it I remembered). So yeah, in the end the wine tasted very much identical to how it did at the restaurant, leading me to believe that they had opened it that day. It also didn't really get more depth, but it actually maintained its flavour nicely and my mom didn't drink it as fast as she normally drinks wine because she, like me, wanted to savour it. It definitely struck both of us as a wine of character and depth, and easy to drink. I see it paired well with Steak and Blue Cheese (which is what we're having for dinner tonight), but they already have some good bottles in the house here so we might as well expand the palate a bit.




On the waterfront, there are picturesque moments everywhere you look.