Special Events

Mediterranean Wine Dinner
Wednesday, January 18, 6:30 p.m.
Thursday, January 19, 6:30 p.m.
Communal seating, $75 per person plus tax and tip

This is a five course dinner with five wines celebrating the cuisine of the Mediterranean.
We'll start with Chateau D'Oupia's Minervois 2003, a crisp, red wine verging on tart, with cherry, plum and bittersweet chocolate flavors to pair with an array of Mediterranean goodies such as cold marinated and pickled veggies, tapenade, and ratatouille.
The next wine is perhaps a bit perverse as a choice for a Mediterranean wine dinner because it comes from Trentino Alto Adige, one of the appellations of Italy that doesn't actually touch the Mediterranean (it's on the Italo-Austrian border). It is however, a small distance on a map (especially if the map is really comprehensive). The crisp, delicious 2004 Muller Thurgau by Muri Gries should be a nice quaff with Mediterranean Dirty Rice, which will be full of squid, squid ink, and other good stuff.
For the onion and almond soup course, we'll be serving a very special wine from Maury in France, the "ey" (pronounced ay-ee) Côte Rous Lavail, 2003. Nicolas Battle, winemaker, belongs in the vanguard of a dynamic new generation of enologists dedicated to sustainable agriculture. The wine is 35% Grenache, 35% Carignan, and 30% Syrah, deep ruby, aromatic and precise, with scents of candied cherry, cocoa and mint. Full-bodied and well-knit, it displays red fruit flavors together with nuances of chocolate and cedar.

For the entree, grilled lamb with lentils, we will be serving a forceful Bandol from Provence, the 1998 Cuvée Longue Garde from Domaine le Galantin.
We'll finish with baklava for dessert and a wine from Piedmont, Italy, a 2005 Moscato Sourgal from Elio Perrone, a medium-yellow sweet sparkling wine with a deep, perfumed nose and complex notes of flowers, mint, and green apples with terrific length and persistence.