Saturday Betsy made these little individual shrimp-garlic casseroles;
while at Eastchester Seafood she had gotten us a half-dozen Kumamoto
oysters as an appetizer.I confess that I was only able to open 4 with
a knife, 2 of the little *******s looked like rocks and I couldn't
find a hinge for the life of me, so we ended up with 2 raw and 1
steamed each.

Wine was the 2001 Laffourcade Savennieres. Not a stellar vintage, not
a producer I know anything about, but how wrong are you going to go
with a $7 Savennieres? Good acidity (if maybe a little lower than I
expect for Savennieres), waxy/wooly Chenin notes, warm apple fruit.
Enjoyable if not exciting. Unusually for Chenin it doesn't hold up
well overnight, next evening lots of oxidative notes. But good value.
B

Sunday we went to a pre-Valentines Day party. Big bash, the primary
wines out were mags of Yellowtail (and probably no one but me cared).
I did sample a couple nicer wines:

2005 Discovery Sauvignon Blanc (Marlborough)
Gooseberry and citrus, a bit of flinty minerality, someone cut the NZ
SB with a bit of Sancerre. Good. B

2005 Clos Roche Blanche Cabernet
Ripe sappy/juicy red fruit but with an acidic spine, a little green
pepper and uncured tobacco. Fun yet serious little wine, B+

We went home earlier than we would have liked, Betsy had 2 big dutch
ovens of "chicken bouillabaisse" (kind of a Provencal fricasee with
fennel, garlic, and a finishing dash of Pernod, with an aioli
accompaniment, from an Eric Ripert recipe). Betsy delivered one dutch
oven to a family with an ailing chef, then we had a nice family
dinner. In past I've found rosé is a good choice with this dish, but
apparently my still rosé supply is zero (I buy mostly in summer). So
I grabbed a white, the 2005 La Vieille Ferme Cotes du Rhone (am I
crazy, or isn't this usually labelled Cotes du Luberon?). Nice simple
white, maybe a touch dilute, with bright apple fruit, sufficient
acidity, clean finish. Some floral notes. Not complex but at $6.xx
certainly a fair value (and I seldom say that about Rhone whites). B/
B-

Grade disclaimer: I'm a very easy grader, basically A is an excellent
wine, B a good wine, C mediocre. Anything below C means I wouldn't
drink at a party where it was only choice. Furthermore, I offer no
promises of objectivity, accuracy, and certainly not of consistency.