Annual Celebration Dinner
Sunday Dec. 2nd



For over 10 years we have offered our 'Celebration Dinner' for our Wine Club Family and Friends. This gives us an opportunity to toast our favorite people with some extremely special wines and a multi course menu.

We always begin the evening reception with a tasting of the newly bottled Pinot's, in this case 2017 which was bottled in August. Having not tasted these wines and they will not release for at least one year, this is a great opportunity to taste the future.

From my Restaurant days, I love the menu, table setting, candle lit atmosphere. Plus help from a professional server, Thank you Ellen!

 

The reception is in our side room we called 'The Dining Room' which is emptied out other than 2 wine barrels, a redwood plank and the wines.

 

 

                  Mushroom soup shooters to warm everyone up from our first really cold Fall evening.

Local cheeses to cleanse the palate. Lamp Chopper from Cypress Grove and Hwy 1 Fontina from Valley Ford. Both these cheeses do well with Pinot Noir.

 

The line up of wines for the evening, mostly magnum's and one Jerobaum all from our library

 

 

Starting with local Tomales Bay Oyster Rockerfeller with our 2014 Brut Rose'. Let's get this party started.

                     2011 Chardonnay magnum with our great local Goat Cheese croquette.

The crab season just started and we can't miss the opportunity to show case our best local ingredients, Dungeness Crab Cakes. We opened the 3 Litre 2013 vintage Bohemian Vineyard. Orange and vanilla essence sauce high lights both the crab and the wine.

Sonoma County Lamb, creamy polenta and two Pinot Noir's from the same vintage, 2011 TNT Vineyard and Ruxton Vineyard. Magnums age slower so they were very lively Pinot's. The TNT was preferred with the lamb. Ruxton Pinot is typically our 'lamb wine' although the preparation was very rich and the TNT's acidity balanced everything.

 

 This experiment by Mat with Viognier as late harvest orange wine turned out pretty sweet in more than one way. We had to show case it for dessert, our first dessert wine trial. Only a couple cases of 375 bottles produced, no label = huge success. A beautiful not too sweet finish.

 

Paired with Torta Caprese, flourless chocolate and almond cake with candied orange rind garnish.

6 magnums, 4 sparkling, 1 x 3 Litre, 5 vintages of 2017 Pinot's and a few bottles of dessert wine, Yes, This was a Celebration!!!! The last of 2018 events for our Tasting Room.

Thank you to Chef Jeff who spent three days shopping and prepping and being so organized that the evening was painless and a pleasure!

Next up 2019