Siduri Winemaker Dinner

A week or so ago, Mr. Lush and I (along with Ms. G) went to a Siduri winemaker pairing dinner at a local wineshop/restaurant. I’ll have to say that the winemaker, Adam Lee, is pretty darn funny, a smidge on the raunchy side in fact. While I don’t mind the raunchy sense of humor, and in fact love it, out of respect for his privacy I most certainly won’t post the jokes/comments! Just know, if you get a chance to meet him - go!

Here’s the menu:

My favorite wine was a tie- the Santa Rita and the Sebastiano (also from Santa Rita). My favorite pairing was the duck with the Santa Rita; (below) the veal was a bit too fatty and the pinot wasn’t big enough to cut through it, at least not in my opinion.

It was an interesting dinner to try pinots by the same winemaker. Unfortunately for my visual friends, all the Siduri Pinots look nearly identical.

And of course, whenever we meet a winemaker, Mr. Lush and I pose with them – here’s us with the funny Adam Lee. (The picture is a bit hazy-I think the person who took it was under a light so it flooded it out – boo!)

Caymus dinner

Mr. Lush and I (along with Mrs. G) went to the Caymus Dinner at a local grocery store, Schnucks. (actually, the dinner featured the Wagner Family of wines, including Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon & Conundrum, the Belle Glos Pinot Noir, Meomi Pinot Noir, and the Mer Soliel Chardonnays)

The menu:

 
The winemaker/owner, Chuck Wagner:

 
The food:

The smoked trout paired well with the unoaked Chard (the Silver), really brought out the flavors, but it was really smoked butter bomb with the oaked Chard. The shrimp paired better with the oaked chard, but it wasn't nearly the spot on pairing as the trout.

I missed taking a pic of the Coq Au Vin, but it was far better with the Belle Glos Pinot; the Meomi was really heavy vanilla/marshmallow. (I've had other vintages and its not the same, so its possible it was too young - it was a 2010)

The dry aged ribeye was also fantastic. (although of course I wasn't able to order it my preferred "purple rare" ;) it was exceptionally tender - we used a butter knife to c ut it! It was paired with (shocker!) the Napa Cabernet (cheaper one; runs about $60ish) and the Special Selection ($110ish), both 2009. The Napa Cabernet was also pretty heavy on the vanilla, but it was young, so one hopes it would mellow and balance out over time. The Special Selection Cab was great - although of course it needs age as well- it was a more typical "cabernet sauvignon" with dark fruit, casis, etc. We've personally never had luck with the heavy vanilla going away with age, but its worth noting that we haven't had a ton of them - we're talking 3 or so, max. The Special Selection was better with the ribeye, but both were good. (we splurged and bougth a bottle of the Special Selection; the dinner was a good deal and we got a 6 bottle mixed pack so we got it for 10% off)

And for dessert- POPCORN ice cream with the Condunrum. (It was AWESOME!)

Here's us with the winemaker:

Mr. Lush bought a bottle of 2003 Caymus back in 2007, and I asked him when we should drink it. He said to email him - he'll go home and have some and let us know. (man, do I wish I could just pop home and open a bottle just because!!) When we visit Napa in January we hope to see Chuck again and of course, have some more Caymus!! All in all, good times!!

Mirassou pairing dinner

Last week I was invited to an event hosted by Mirassou winery, which has been around for 150+ years. The event was at Mia Rosa, a restaurant north of The Hill. They traveled around the country, visiting 5 different restaurants to come up with a wine pairing cookbook (some recipes posted online here) and invited various media/bloggers to the events. Evidently my blog and “association” with the St. Louis Wine Club made me a good candidate for an invite; luckily Mr. Lush was able to come as well. The attendance was smaller than I anticipated-only 8 plus the winemaker and marketing person. What else surprised me was that the other attendees were more “foodies” than “winos”. However, I was totally ok with this, because it allowed me to sit directly across from the winemaker, David Mirassou, and I pretty much had him all to myself to ask questions about the wine!

We started off with the Pinot Grigio. Normally I’m not a big fan of Pinot Grigio (or Sauv Blancs), but it wasn’t as acidic as others might be. Then we had the Sauv Blanc, paired with a garlic tomato flatbread. The Sauv Blanc was perfect with the flatbread, but I didn’t love it (or the Pinot Grigio) as much on their own. The wines were fine – although neither were the highly grassy acidic profile I expected, they just aren’t my preferred style of wine. Then we moved on to the Chardonnay with gorgonzola polenta fries. Oh, lovely Chard, it was so welcome after the other two! Now, for my non Chard lovers out there, only about 5-7% of the wine sees oak- the rest is all stainless steel fermented. This leaves a crisper, but still round in body Chardonnay. Its not a butter oak bomb, but it has a nice round mouthfeel. I didn’t love the polenta fries, nor did I love the pairing as much as the other, but I liked the wine a lot.

Then we had probably our favorite course of the evening – a smoked scallop Carpaccio drizzled with basil oil paired with the Pinot Noir. Oh….my…gosh. The dish was so good, the smoked fish went perfect with the Pinot.

We also had a warm beet spinach salad with goat cheese with a Merlot and veal madallions on garlic mash with the Cabernet, finishing off with a chocolate puff with the Reisling. It was a lot of food and a lot of wine!

I’ll leave it up to the “foodies” to really evaluate the food – almost everything paired wonderfully with the wine, but honestly other than the scallops I wasn’t crazy about anything I had and I won’t be rushing back to the restaurant. What about the wine you ask? Well, Mirassou makes their wine to be consistent year after year, so the grapes come from all over the state. The good news is that if you liked it last year, you can feel confident you’ll like this year’s vintage as well. The bad news is while there’s no bad year, there’s no great year either. But, in the spectrum of the wine world, I like to have some stable choices in addition to those stellar vintages, and its not like I have one winery I drink from exclusively, so I think that’s ok. I prefer a bit more oak and body in my Cabernets and Merlots, and the Mirassou ones are a bit soft – he uses almost exclusively not new oak. However, that’s just personal taste – once again the good news is you can buy it today and drink it tonight and not have to lay it down. Mr. Lush and I really liked the Chardonnay and liked the Pinot as well – we were lucky enough to each get a signed bottle of Pinot in our “media kits” and we’ll certainly have to have it with something smoky because it was pretty fruit forward. I also liked the Riesling, and will probably pick that up to pair with something spicy.

All in all, it was a great time and it was wonderful meeting the winemaker: