Christmas Dinner

Christmas Eve was the night of my first sommelier "contract". No real contract, as I was only having dinner at my aunt's with my dad and cousins. My aunt gave me a menu two weeks ahead and I had to choose the wines. You'll only find wine and food pairing in this article, as my aunt's glasses are the worse for technical tasting and I can take a break from class.
The menu was as follws:

Endives, green apple and walnut salad with walnut oil
Duck breasts with blueberry demie-glace, Anna potatoes
Blueberry creme brulee, although it was originally a cranberry creme brulee.

Since it is only family, I looked for wines under 20$ per bottle. For the endives salad, I remembered tasting an Orvieto in class and it was almost a consensus that it would pair well with endives, and it did. No notes on this wine. Served: Ruffino Orvieto Classico 2008, 11.95$ at the LCBO

Second course, the duck breast. I never had duck prior to that evening, making it the hardest course to pair with wine. I know my aunt, and when she does a fruit sauce, she always puts a lot more fruit than what is asked for in the recipe. A "fruit bomb" Merlot from California would at least go with the sauce. Since Californian wines have a tendency to be extracted to have the maximum of colour, flavour and alcohol, and give to its wine a strong back-bone, why not try a Californian Merlot. Best wine-food match of the evening.
Served: Ghost Pines Winemaker's Blend Merlot 2006, 19.95$ at the LCBO. Decanted 1.5 hours prior to eating.
On this wine, I did notice a strong aroma of something between burnt toast and tar, almost as strong as in Nebbiolo based wines.

For dessert, a blueberry creme brulee with demerara sugar. I was expecting more from my wine, a 2007 First Frost Vidal from Huff Estates. It was not as sweet as I expected, and the creme brulee sweeter than hoped. On its own, it was a good wine. With hte creme brulee, it might as well have been a dry wine. I would rather pair this wine with a cheese or even honey roasted almonds.
Wine served: Huff Estates First Frost Vidal 2007, 19.95 at the LCBO.

My cousin and her boyfriend were joking and saying everything should have been paired with Labatt 50. They never stopped making jokes about the most glorious profession of sommelier.