Archive for the 'Dinner Recaps' Category

Dinner 1 > Worldly Cabernets – Wine Redux

Friday, June 23rd, 2006

#1 is in the history books! My sincere thanks go out to Adrienne, Brian, Charles, Gary, John D, John P, Kevin, Paul, and Tom (and yours truly) for coming out last Thursday. They were first in, best dressed, and these gentlemen and lady were kind enough to dress up our inaugural evening! We had some intrepid travelers with us, with Adrienne going to DC and back on Thursday (lugging her bottle of wine in two directions), while John Durham joined us from San Francisco–we couldn’t have had our first dinner without a link to the west coast group live and in stereo. It was so great to see everyone out.

On the food end, we tucked in for the following:

Starters:
– cheese plate, crackers, fig spread
– grapes, olives
– Italian sausages

Main:
– Salad (Boston lettuce, arugula, mint, snow peas, walnuts, and endive).
– Grilled potatoes, mushrooms, onions, corn
– Grilled filet mignon, marinated overnight with garlic, salt, pepper, oil, and a bit of light soy

Dessert:
– Fresh strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, fresh whipped cream

But who really cares about the food? It’s time for a rundown of the wines, those dead soldiers who stood up and were summarily shot down by our thirsty bunch (in very rough order of consumption):

2003 Duckhorn Sauvignon Blanc (the welcome wine, 1.5L)
2002 St. Francis Nuns Canyon Reserve, Sonoma
1997 Kenwood, Artists Series Cabernet Sauvignon, Sonoma
2001 Heitz Cellar, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley
2000 Silver Cork…aka Silver Oak…yep, we found a corked bottle in the group
2002 Gemstone, Yountville, Napa Valley
1987 Beringer, Private Reserve, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley
1999 Dominus, Napa Valley
1993 Ridge, Monte Bello, Santa Cruz Mountains
1996 Leoville Barton, St. Julien
2003 Tor, Oak Knoll, Mast Vineyard, Napa Valley
2001 Torres, Mas La Plana, Black Label, Spain
2004 Inspiration, South Africa (dessert wine)

The crowd pleasers seemed to be the ’87 Beringer, and the ’93 Ridge (I can’t vote for the Dominus because I brought it, but it was yummy). If memory serves me correctly (and it may not after opening up some after dinner Absinthe), other than the Silver Cork, we didn’t have any real dogs among us. From the average prices on Wine Searcher (www.wine-searcher.com), we consumed over $1,000 worth of wine, with an average bottle value of $75 (the South African dessert wine can skew this quite a bit, for although it’s about $5, you can’t get it anywhere else but South Africa, so add on a plane ticket!).

Thanks so very much for those who were able to attend, regrets to those who could not, and we look forward to making this a regular occurrence (just not regularly at my house…we’ll rotate!). John Piccone has offered to host the next dinner in September, with Dave Morgan taking up the slack in October and Paul DeBraccio for December. Details will follow for dinner #2.