My favorite players the week were…

C.J. Stroud Texans quarterback

That’s 2 weeks in a row for Stroud, but I couldn’t skip him.  Stroud set a number of records in the game.  He is the youngest quarterback to win a playoff game, the highest drafted rookie to win a playoff game, & he tied the rookie record with 3 touchdowns.  His total yardage wasn’t huge at 236 yards on 16/21 passing attempts, but it wasn’t indicative of how good he was.  All 3 touchdowns came in the first half.  I expected more in the second, but before Stroud really had a chance, Joe Flacco imploded.  Flacco threw pick 6s on consecutive series to turn the game into a blowout.  The Texans leaned a bit more on their running game & Stroud went to the bench with 11 minutes or so left in the game.  I don’t think anyone in training camp would have guessed that Stroud would be relaxing on the bench during a blowout playoff win.  It has been a great season for Stroud & the Texans no matter what happens against the Ravens on Saturday.

As an aside, why are the Texans always slotted into the early game on Saturday during the playoffs?  This has been going on for years!

Puka Nacua Rams wide receiver.

The Rams lost the game, but Nacua was electric.  He was targeted 10 times, & made 9 catches for 181 yards, which is a rookie record.  One of those catches was a 50-yard touchdown.  He had 5 catches for over 15 yards.  If he could have made the last catch they likely would have won the game, but it was broken up. With Cooper Kupp out for the first part of the year I think the expectation was that the Rams would miss the playoffs.  They made a late push & Nacua was a big part of that. 

The vote for offensive rookie of the year is going to be a tough one with Stroud & Nacua doing things that no rookie had ever done.

Jordan Love Packers quarterback

Love isn’t a rookie, but after sitting behind Aaron Rodgers, this was his first year as a starter.  In his 1^st playoff game, he completed 16/21 for 272 yards & 3 touchdowns to help blow out the Cowboys.  It kind of looks like I just cut & pasted Stroud’s statistics, but I didn’t!

Laremy Tunsil Texans tackle

There was a ton of talk about Miles Garret in the week leading up to this game.  There seemed to be an assumption that Garrett, a defensive player of the year candidate, would make life miserable for a rookie quarterback.  Instead, Tunsil, mainly by himself, handled Garret.  Garret finished with 3 total tackles with no sacks or quarterback pressures.  Tunsil was also solid in the run game.

A.J. Klein Bills linebacker

Most people would be sad if their vacation to Key West was canceled & you were in a Buffalo snowstorm instead.  Klein is not one of those people.  He & his wife were packed & about to drive their RV to Key West when the Bills called.  He had been on & off the practice squad but wasn’t on the squad at the end of the season.  He was signed to the practice squad & then elevated to the 53-man roster the day of the game.  Then Tyrel Dodson & Terrel Bernard were injured during the game.  That put Klein in the game at middle linebacker, which meant he had to call out defensive alignments for his teammates!  This was after not playing in a game for a month. He played 44 snaps & led the team with 11 tackles. 

Harrison Butker Chiefs kicker

Butker hit 4 field goals & 2 extra points in freezing weather with gusts up to 30 miles per hour.  That was impressive.  That had to hurt! I wonder if his toes were bruised the next day. 

My favorite wine of the week was…

Bodegas Tradicion Palo Cortado Vors 30 years 21% ABV bottle #1550 of 2200 $130  183 cases made.

Aged in a solera system in American oak for an average of 32 years.

100% Palomino Fino

A little after 9 AM on Sunday instead of getting ready to watch football I was getting ready to sample Sherry.  Our study group was on a video call with Pedro Ballesteros MW.  He talked to us about Sherry production in general & then walked us through tasting 10 Sherries.  We sampled everything from light Fino Shery to a couple of amazingly rich PX Sherries.  This Palo Cortado was my favorite.

There is a lot of confusion in the marketplace about how Palo Cortado Sherry is made.  I think that some of this is encouraged by the producers to make it more mysterious. It is often pitched as a wine that starts as a Fino, but somewhere along the way the flor dies & because of its high quality it is destined to become a Palo Cortado.  That might be the case sometimes, but Pedro described much of the marketing as “poetry” which seems like a much nicer thing to say than BS.

In reality, this wine was made from the first pressing of the palomino grape.  This is usually reserved for Fino or Manzanilla Sherry that undergoes biological aging under flor.  In this case, the wine did not see biological aging.  It was fortified to prevent the development of floor & was placed into a solera which is basically a sequence of barrels.  The barrels are never completely emptied, but when wine from the oldest barrel is removed for bottling, wine from the next oldest barrel is added to top it off & so on.  That’s a quick & not complete description, but it is essentially the case.  That means that there will be some very old Sherry in the barrel along with newer wine.  Some soleras are over a hundred years old.  In this case, the wine was bottled at an average age of 32 years in oak.

During that time some strange & awesome things happen to the wine.  It oxidizes & turns from pale to tan or brown.  Nutty notes appear along with interesting fruit notes.  The wine isn’t quite as indestructible as Madeira, but it becomes an extremely long-lived wine.

This was a great example.  It took a minute for it to open up & really show its best, which is somewhat unusual for me with Sherry.  Usually, it doesn’t seem to change drastically when open since it has already been exposed to so much oxygen over the years.  Initially I thought the wine was a little hot from the alcohol, but as it opened up the fruit & other flavors balanced the alcohol & it was in harmony.

It had bright, acidic notes (7.39 g/l of total acidity) that made the wine crisp.  As it opened it showed orange notes & almost an orange liqueur flavor.  There was orange peel, ginger, nuts, apricot, & a nice touch of saline.  It also showed a lovely perfume on the nose & on the insanely long finish.

In some ways this almost reminded me of a light Scotch (sherry aged of course).  I wish I could have tried some Glenmorangie sherry cask aged Scotch for comparison.

If you pick up a bottle of this wine, you can have a glass at a time for months & it will reward you every time!