Awesome Winemaker's Dinner at Joel Palmer House

Went to a great dinner last night. Featured the combination of a five course Joel Palmer meal with many wines from ADEA Wine Company. We make our wines at ADEA, so we're not completely unbiased, but Dean and Ann make some really nice wines there.

First course was a gazpacho that was really two soups - a tomato ginger and cucumber lemon poured side by side into the same bowl along with a pickled chanterelle. Matched wonderfully with the 2009 Rose.

Then we had elk and mushroom consomme (that was definitely a first) along with some wild mushroom risotto. These were matched with two 2006 Pinots - the Dean-o's and the Momtazi. Big wines for big flavors - dark and meaty and earthy - I loved the Momtazi with those dishes.

We moved to wild salmon with chimichurri sauce that was matched with a pair of 2007 Pinots. Never would have thought of trying a spicy sauce with Pinot, but the acidity of the 07's made it work. Main course was a buttery piece of Filet Mignon from Painted Hills matched with an 04 and an 05 Dean-o's. Chris said he spent three days on the demi glace and it showed. A spoonful of the sauce and the chopped mushrooms followed by a taste of the 04 Pinot was the best match of the night.

I kinda remember the dessert course - some really fresh berries, and oatmeal scone and cheese I think. Good match for the 2008 Pinot Blanc (from our vineyard) which has a little residual sugar to match the sweets.

Really great dinner and a lot of fun. Thanks Joel Palmer and thanks ADEA. Forgot the camera so I don't have pictures. I'll remember next time.

Vineyard Update

Wow, it seems like it's taken forever for the vineyard to get going. The cool spring definitely slowed things down, but we've had some great weather over the last month and we're finally making some progress. We had a good crop set - you can see a picture of the clusters. And you can also see Charlie, the guardian of the vineyard, protecting the immaculate Pommard 1 block at the top of the hill. Looks totally vicious, doesn't he. He'd absolutely lick you to death before you could set foot in that block :-)