This time we went to a special (and quite expensive) wine dinner at iFratelli, a very popular pizza place, of all things. However, this was held at the original restaurant where wine tastings are a weekly feature. I think they do these special wine dinners about twice a year.
This dinner featured the wines of Oyster Bay Winery in New Zealand. There were six courses with five wines. Now, only four of the wines are exported to the US, so our first one, the Brut, which was our very favorite of the wines, can be found only in NZ. Let's hope they export it to us sometime soon.
It was served with green-lipped mussels (also a NZ import) in a Gorgonzola and bacon sauce (delicious.) This was our favorite course. These mussels are about twice as large as our mussels, and are more tender. The shell really does have a green lip and the rest of the interior is pearlescent--like an oyster or abalone...pretty enough to be made into jewelry.
The "fish & chips" course with yellow curry sauce was loved by TR who enjoys spice a lot, but hated by me--I hate curry. The reasoning behind the course was the New Zealand theme they were using for the dinner. I let TR have mine. The Sauvignon Blanc was also quite nice, but this was the least successful course for me.
A lightly oaked Chardonnay was served with butter-poached lobster ravioli. Lobster--what's not to like? They decided to use Canadian lobster rather than importing NZ's warm water lobster, since the Canadian is sweeter and more tender...good choice. This was my second favorite course. Normally, I don't like oak in any wine, but this was lightly done enough to be quite good--especially with the lobster.
What they called "lamb roast" turned out to be two over-cooked and over-salted lamb chops. To be fair, I like my lamb rare and I hate salt on anything. It couldn't have been too bad, though, because I gnawed the bones bare (in the end, I can't resist lamb in any form). It was served with a very heavy Pinot Noir. I think red wine lovers would have loved this wine. To me, it was quite palatable with the lamb...not sure I'd have liked it with anything else.
A quite light off-dry Merlot was our last wine and was served with a roasted Portobello mushroom stack. The food might have failed for me if it hadn't been for the Gouda which was generously melted into the stack. By this time, I was slowing down and was unable to finish the course--I left about half of the mushroom on the plate--a shame because it was delicious. The wine complemented it perfectly, but I was going slowly and had some left to have with dessert.
Which was a mistake. Dessert was about the best vanilla ice cream made in Texas and was served with a melting honey candy. It was so sweet it totally drowned out the flavor of the wine which tasted like water with the sweet flavor of the dessert in my mouth. That said, that was about the best vanilla ice cream I have ever tasted.
We are looking forward to the next wine dinner at this unlikely restaurant.
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