Wine Dinners

The Legal Sea Foods team is thrilled to present the monthly wine dinner series at our flagship Park Square Wine Cellar restaurant, offering attendees direct access to renowned producers and winery principals. Initiated about five years ago, it’s a program that spans the globe, featuring many of the world’s leading wine personalities.  The 2011 roster has included up and coming stars, like Clay Mauritson (from his family’s Sonoma winery) and Ben Casteel (of Oregon’s Bethel Heights); internationally recognized icons, such as Alsace’s Olivier Humbrecht of Domaine Zind-Humbrecht and Philippe Marchal of Louis Jadot; and some of America’s most respected winemaking luminaries, including David Ramey, Randall Grahm, and Caymus’ Joe Wagner. How we develop the menus for these events remains somewhat of a mystery though, even to regular Wine Cellar guests.  I thought this month we would explain our methodology by highlighting the upcoming December 13 “Grand and Premier Cru” dinner with French wine expert Pierre Rovani, as an example.
 
First, unlike most dining occasions, where you might select dishes and then choose wines for their appropriateness as a match, we begin menu development by considering a balanced progression of wines and then create plates with compatible flavors and textures. As the dinners consist of four or five courses, this enables us to present wines in varying styles, generally beginning with lighter and drier examples and then building up to wines of greater intensity, sometimes more maturity, and, if there are dessert wines chosen, higher concentrations of sugar.

Mr. Rovani, who was the first critic Robert Parker ever partnered with at The Wine Advocate, specifically for his expertise in Burgundy, Alsace and other French wines, is now President of Burgundy producer Remoissenet Pere et Fils. An encyclopedically knowledgeable lecturer and great story teller, he is also directly involved with The Sorting Table, a small importing company that brings in several other highly regarded producers, including Domaine Zind-Humbrecht and the Chassagne-based Domaine Bernard Moreau. The wines we have chosen from this portfoliio are all “terroir”-based expressions of favored sites in France that feature somewhat understated flavors framed by the elusive mineral essences emanating from each of these vineyards.  In developing the menu for this “Grand and Premier Cru” dinner, we therefore deliberately focused on courses featuring subtle, less overtly spicy or flavorful sauces, in an effort to balance the delicate personalities of the wines.

For example, our aperitif, the Domaine Zind-Humbrecht “Gueberschwihr” Riesling, 2007, is a bone dry, earthy, super-minerally apple-scented wine that is quietly assertive in nature; we’re presenting it with buttery, lush-textured hors d’oeuvres, such as Poached Sea Scallops with a Braised Curried Fennel, and a Tartlette of Sherry Braised King Crab Legs with a mildly Roasted Aioli. The next wine, a Grand Cru “Brand” Riesling, from the same producer and vintage, is more concentrated and razor sharp in structure, with a profusion of fleshy, somewhat lemony fruit flavors. We’ve developed a rich Maine Lobster Soup, the tart intensity of the wine cutting through its mellow, palate coating opulence.

For the next two courses we travel to Burgundy to highlight two Premier Crus. The first, a marvelous Domaine Bernard Moreau Chassagne-Montrachet “Les Chenevottes,” from the spectacularly ripe 2009 vintage, is hazelnut scented, dry and medium bodied, with crisp green apple and citrus accents. For this we chose a delicately textured fish with flavors that echo some of those in the wine: a Sole Rollatini with a Crab Meat and Herb Mousse, drizzled with a Preserved Lemon Thyme Sauce. For our main course, we are using the Remoissenet Pere et Fils Beaune Premier Cru “Grèves,” 2008, a firmly structured Pinot Noir with a fresh cherry perfume, smoked bacon and lingering savory characteristics; as accompaniment, we are showing a simply Roasted Duck Breast whose natural juices create beautiful counterpoint to the wine’s delicate personality. Further synergies arise from the Mushroom Ragoût that echoes the Beaune’s earthiness.

To conclude, we return to Alsace with the Grand Cru “Rangen de Thann” Clos St.-Urbain Pinot Gris, 2008, again from Domaine Zind-Humbrecht. This is very rich and viscous on the palate, with honeyed spice accents and elements of tropical fruit that is a natural match for a pungent Meunster Cheese, as well as an extremely earthy Burgundian Époisses.

We work very closely with the culinary team at Park Square, headed by Chef Jose Davila, to fine tune the courses so that a magical balance is achieved between the flavors on the plate and those in the glass. It keeps our creative juices flowing and enables us to step outside the comfort zone of what we do on a regular basis. If you are in the Boston area, I would highly encourage you to attend the December 13th dinner with Mr. Rovani, and to receive information about our monthly series at Park Square. We are also presenting two visiting winemakers next winter at our new Legal Harborside location; Donald Patz from Sonoma’s Patz and Hall Winery, and Jon-David Headrick, importer of some of our favorite Loire Valley wines; please let us know if you’d like to receive information about these dinners as well.

Wishing you all the very best for the holidays! Sincerely,
Sandy Block, MW