Wine Dinner

My interest in wine has been constantly growing over the last year or so. At first I was completely clueless. I knew a couple of wines that I liked but other than that I was completely in the dark. Then, as my interest and knowledge of food began to grow, so did my understanding of wine. I started to better understand regions and vintages, and even a little of the winemaking process. All of this new found knowledge was incredibly helpful when it came to ordering a bottle in a restaurant or pairing drinks with my own food. However, until recently, I never really had much to do with wine unless food was involved as well (except for my summer excursion to Napa and Sonoma, but that was vacation.)

This past Sunday was the first time I ever cooked something to pair with wine and not the other way around. A friend of mine who works in a wine shop recently decided to purchase a bottle of 1998 Chateau Margaux Margaux (Cost=Much more than I can afford.) and asked me if I could make an appropriate dish to eat with it. I was truly honored and decided to make a dinner of it by bringing one of the harder to find bottles from my cellar, (the closest in my room) a 1981 Kartauserhofsberg Riesling.

I wanted to pick a somewhat elegant red meat to go with the Margaux and also find a suitably luxurious appetizer to come before the Margaux and pair with Riesling.

I thought foie gras was a logical choice as an appetizer and a great pairing with an acidic , barely sweet (Riesling loses a lot of its sweetness as it ages) wine. While lamb chops would be a logical choice for the Margaux.

The end results ended up being seared foie gras over brioche with grapes, hazelnuts and Bartlett pears and lamb chops and lamb meatballs over Israeli couscous with swiss chard, pine nuts, dried cherries, crispy mint and a cherry port wine sauce. (I actually meant to buy rib chops because they look nicer but was given shoulder chops. Either way, the taste was good.)

We also ended up having a delicious dessert blend made in the
port style from California to go with chocolates from around the world and some Non Vintage Perrier Jouet Champagne to go with some cheeses.

In the end both of the main wines we had were delicious and worked really well with the food. The Riesling was a nice foil to the rich foie gras but also complimented the grape and pear flavors. It was also light and a relatively low alcohol content so as not to spoil us for the next bottle. I thought the Margaux was really high quality wine, very full and with nice structure that gave the wine a powerful mouth feel while lacking the harshness of strong tannins. (That’s the best I can do.)

Was it worth the price? Not at my income level. But I do know that creating a meal around a bottle of wine certainly makes it memorable and I was more than happy to have my first delicious sip of a Chateau Margaux.

Dinner Menu

After much feedback and very little internal monologue, I've finalized the menu for dinner. as it stands, it's somewhere between 13-15 courses. I haven't had a large dinner in a while so there were some courses that I couldn't bear not to cook. Now the dilemma is serving the food so that everyone gets to eat everything and can finish the meal without exploding all over my house.

Below is the proposed menu. In order to make this post a little less self indulgent, I've also included a little dialoogue on my drink pairing ideas for each course. Enjoy!


Appetizers:

French baguettes, ricotta with pugliese olive oil and mixed herbs

Roasted pears, tallegio, prosciutto and balsamic vinegar

Bellinis and Mimosas. Who doesn’t love Bellini’s and Mimosas? A great appertif drink

Ceviche, tangerine, red onion, peach, habanero

Muscadet, I think the clean crisp taste of muscadet will help calm the heat of the habanero and accentuate the fresh fruit flavors of the dish

Raw scallops, mango horseradish puree, edamame, black salt

I have 2 bottles of the Highfield Sauvignon blanc from New Zealand. The wine has really strong tropical fruit and papaya flavors and goes really well with the mango horseradish puree

Lightly cured hamachi, black sesame, ginger scallion sake

I’d like to come up with a sake to go with this dish. I really like the idea of exploring sake, but it’s a drink I do not know much about. I’ll probably have the trusted folks at Chambers Street Wines help me out with this one

Fennel crusted halibut sweet corn, pesto, spicy tomato
Or
Cod, pea shoots, pine nuts, golden raisins, sherry ginger broth

I combined these two dishes into one course because I really like them both and couldn’t decide which one to choose. They can’t, however be two separate courses because the process of sautéing the fish for a crispy crust is very similar.

I’m thinking white Rioja here. I’m not really sure why, but it feels right. I also don’t have any wines from spain here yet.


Braised pork belly, 30 minute scrambled eggs, chives.

I think a german Riesling would be an interesting choice for this course. The eggs and belly will be incredibly rich and Riesling is a wine with enough acidity to cut the richness and add a nice little element of sweet to boot.

Herb gnocchi, sweetbreads, sage, butternut squash, brown butter

This dish has fall written all over it and I want to find a lighter, possibly smoky red wine to go with it. I had a great Temperanillo, Cabernet, Merlot blend the other night and I think I’ll be looking for something similar with this.

Duck breast, parsnips, hazelnuts, truffle honey

Pinot noir and duck is a favorite combination of mine.

Lamb chops, Israeli couscous, Japanese eggplant, port wine and cherries

Braised short ribs, potato beet puree, roasted carrots, radish greens

By this point in the dinner guests have usually had enough to drink and cant handle much more red wine. I think I’ll pick a heavier red to go with both the lamb and the short ribs simply so everyone can make it through dinner. I’m thinking Zinfandel or Cabernet from California for these two.

Frangelico strawberries, fried pound cake, espresso ganache

Apple cider donuts, praline butter, maple ice cream

Vanilla ice cream, sparkling chocolate

I don’t think there is any wine pairing that will stand up well to the frangelico strawberries, but I think I would like to serve a dessert wine. I’ll probably buy a couple of bottles of a Muscat Beaumes de Venise to go well with the donuts and the vanilla and chocolate and call it a night.

I think at this point everyone will have had the type of special meal with good friends, good food and a lot of good wine that gets imprinted in the mind and brings a smile to the face when remembered.