Tasting the WGBY Wine Dinner-The Dress Rehearsal
One of the perks of writing about food is that you get invited to events as an ostensible expert. Last week, it was the WGBY Wine Dinner tasting (http://wgby.org/wine/index.html). The theme this year is Australia. I put aside questions of what exactly is Australian cuisine and how can I tell whether is authentic in favor of dinner and a chance to opine.
The Wine Dinner, which seats about 150, is set for February 28th at the Springfield Marriott this year. I join Charley Rose, Susan Lofthouse, and Marie Waechter from WGBY at the Springfield Marriott for a tasting of the dishes that will be served. I am not a wine guy and not expected to be. My role is to comment on the food and make suggestions while the wine guys do their thing. The wine guys, James Holsing, Chair of the WGBY Wine Committee and Michael Ferry, local Sales Manager for the Martignetti Companies, are enthusiastic and producers and bottlings fly back and forth.
We start with a Curry-dusted Barramundi in a coconut milk sauce. Purple rice and a sautéed baby bok choy accompany the dish. After a few bites, I wonder why they need me. There is nothing to recommend or change in this dish. Gewürztraminer seems to be the wine of choice for this and I sip the sweetest of the two whites in front of me to get a sense of the pairing. I polish off the food while the wine guys go back and forth over varietals, the Australian wine industry, and the usual happy arcana of wine aficionados everywhere.
The second course is corn cakes with an avocado-cilantro salsa. Are the cakes a little too floury? Will the cilantro be too much for the wine? Bill Rounds, the Executive Chef of the Marriott joins us after each course for our comments. Initially Rich Rueda, Event Manager Springfield Marriott takes charge of the comments, but as we loosen up, we all offer our suggestions directly to Bill. He explains his efforts to identify typical Australian dishes for the menu. There is the Asian influence as well as the European that he can work with, hence the curry, coconut and purple rice in the first course. As a chef, Bill is less of an artiste and more of a professional. This means that he actively listens to our comments and is interested in discussing alternatives and enhancements.
A Green Tea sorbet arrives after the corn cakes and a discussion ensues as to whether we’ve eaten enough to cleanse our palettes at this point. We debate changing the order of the courses so that the sorbet cleanses the taste of the curry sauce. We all like the knockout punch of the barramundi as a first course, but the order might work OK reversed. The wine guys veto the drizzle of honey on which the sorbet sits. It is too sweet and will coat the mouth and interfere with the next course’s wine. Chef agrees. Perhaps a sprig of mint to anchor it to the plate? He laughs and I cannot tell whether it was his original plan or too obvious. The mint will tie into the next course, however.
The main course arrives, a skewer of lamb kabobs crossed with a skewer of chunks of pistachio-flecked ostrich sausage. The skewers are sitting on a bed of mashed blue Peruvian potatoes. The potatoes are almost purple and my initial reaction is the scene in True Love where the mashed potatoes are dyed sky-blue to match the best men’s tuxedos. Then I remember the purple rice on the first course and think that the chef is echoing the dark purple of the wines. A big heavily-extracted red is the plan for this dish, whatever heavily-extracted means. We all love the presentation and the idea of ostrich sausage, but the actual sausage which is supplied by the Marriott’s meat purveyor is far too lean. A fatty Italian sausage would stand up to the wine better suggests Michael.
Dessert is a Pavlova, a meringue covered with whipped cream and fruit, kiwi and strawberries. Passion fruit is traditional, but out of season. The dish is sweet, the meringue a little grainy, and it is not chocolate, but it is very Australian and has to stay. The wine dinner attendees like their chocolate apparently and Susan and Charley debate offering a plate of chocolates on each table as a final course, with a Port or some botrytis Riesling perhaps.
And then the dress rehearsal is over. The menu is set. The dinner will be different, of course, with 150 attendees and the acutal wines, but I love the behind the scenes look.