Enoteca de Rham Wine Pairing Dinner
Friends Lake Inn
963 Friends Lake Road
Friends Lake Inn
963 Friends Lake Road
Chestertown, NY
Reservations: 518 494 4751
Website: www.friendslake.com
We were quite excited when a Facebook post from John & Trudy Phillips appeared last month announcing a wine "pairing" dinner at their restaurant - Friends Lake Inn in Chestertown. We certainly do not require any special reason to drive over to one of our favorite restaurants, but this particular event really piqued our interest. The food pairings were centered around the wines of Enoteca de Rham. Baroness Barbara de Rham runs the company, and she hosted the dinner last Friday. She added a most insightful and entertaining commentary about each of the wineries as each course was served. Her focus is on the wines of Piedmont and the Veneto in Northern Italy and has a special fondness for Amarone, and for wines made using a local production method called Ripasso. The wines produced using these methods are big, voluptuous, with very high alcohol content (often 15%), with a luscious viscosity and a nose to match. I just love them.
Amarones have become very popular over the last twenty years. I remember the first I tried - a Masi Amarone that appeared on the wine list at Caesar's Restaurant in Poughkeepsie in the 1980's. The grapes - mostly corvina's - are picked in October and then dried for three or four months to rasinate (to raisin) the grapes. This concentrates the sugars and the flavors resulting in a higher than normal alcohol level and a very intnense unique flavor. Paradoxically the wine is quite dry, (amarone means bitter) and the nose is full of the dried fruits that you would expect, but also chocolate and cherries, and to me - fresh tobacco. The wine spends a year in stainless steel, and then four more in oak before being bottled and released. A six year old Amarone is a very young wine. Ripasso (re-passed) wines, which are also made in the same region, take the pomace (skins and seeds) left over from those Amarone pressings, and re-use them with the new fresh grape pressings. This process too concentrates the juice. The resulting wines make wonderful matches for big red pasta sauces, or winter braises like short ribs or osso bucco. Or last Friday - a roasted veal chop appetizer. This was a serious meal.
Enoteca de Rham, which works with smaller, family owned, "boutique" wineries in Italy is represented in the United States by Frederick Wildman & Sons Importers. An old friend, Greg Taylor, who works at Wildman, was in attendance. Greg is a familiar face in the dining room. He and his wife Sharon were the original owners of the Friends Lake Inn and were responsible for first building the inn's well deserved reputation for food and wine.
The biggest surprise among the wines was the one bottle that stood out head and shoulders above all of the others (at least to me). We had five wines with five courses. Four reds - an Amarone and a Ripasso, and a Barbera D'Alba and a Dolcetta from Piedmont, and one white, a Marziano Abbona, Langhe Bianco DOC Cinerino 2008. I expected the white to be an amuse bouche, to whet the appetite but nothing more. I expected to blow past it and honestly I was anxious to get to the big stuff - the reds.
Silly me. The white turned out to be the most interesting and perhaps the best wine of the evening, but all of the wines were wonderful, well made examples of their respective styles. Recent DNA tracing techniques have revealed that this Italian white grape variety is actually a Viognier - a French varietal from the Rhone Valley, which must just THRILL the Italian vintners.
The menu for the evening follows, prepared by Executive Chef Matthew Bolton:
Amarones have become very popular over the last twenty years. I remember the first I tried - a Masi Amarone that appeared on the wine list at Caesar's Restaurant in Poughkeepsie in the 1980's. The grapes - mostly corvina's - are picked in October and then dried for three or four months to rasinate (to raisin) the grapes. This concentrates the sugars and the flavors resulting in a higher than normal alcohol level and a very intnense unique flavor. Paradoxically the wine is quite dry, (amarone means bitter) and the nose is full of the dried fruits that you would expect, but also chocolate and cherries, and to me - fresh tobacco. The wine spends a year in stainless steel, and then four more in oak before being bottled and released. A six year old Amarone is a very young wine. Ripasso (re-passed) wines, which are also made in the same region, take the pomace (skins and seeds) left over from those Amarone pressings, and re-use them with the new fresh grape pressings. This process too concentrates the juice. The resulting wines make wonderful matches for big red pasta sauces, or winter braises like short ribs or osso bucco. Or last Friday - a roasted veal chop appetizer. This was a serious meal.
Enoteca de Rham, which works with smaller, family owned, "boutique" wineries in Italy is represented in the United States by Frederick Wildman & Sons Importers. An old friend, Greg Taylor, who works at Wildman, was in attendance. Greg is a familiar face in the dining room. He and his wife Sharon were the original owners of the Friends Lake Inn and were responsible for first building the inn's well deserved reputation for food and wine.
The biggest surprise among the wines was the one bottle that stood out head and shoulders above all of the others (at least to me). We had five wines with five courses. Four reds - an Amarone and a Ripasso, and a Barbera D'Alba and a Dolcetta from Piedmont, and one white, a Marziano Abbona, Langhe Bianco DOC Cinerino 2008. I expected the white to be an amuse bouche, to whet the appetite but nothing more. I expected to blow past it and honestly I was anxious to get to the big stuff - the reds.
Silly me. The white turned out to be the most interesting and perhaps the best wine of the evening, but all of the wines were wonderful, well made examples of their respective styles. Recent DNA tracing techniques have revealed that this Italian white grape variety is actually a Viognier - a French varietal from the Rhone Valley, which must just THRILL the Italian vintners.
The menu for the evening follows, prepared by Executive Chef Matthew Bolton:
First Course
Applewood smoked calamari served on a cup of olive oil rubbed radicchio.
Marziano Abbona, Langhe Bianco DOC Cinerino 2008 (The clone of Rhone Valley's Viognier grape)
Second Course
Slow roasted veal chop, wild mushroom risotto croquette, thyme infused demi-glace.
LeRagose, Valpolicella Classico Superiore Ripasso 2007
Duck confit and Hudson Valley duck prosciutto, warm spinach with lingonberries and candied pecans.
Marziano Abbona, Dogliani DOCG Pap Celso, 2008
(From the Dogliani DOCG and one of the best Dolcetta's I've tasted)
(From the Dogliani DOCG and one of the best Dolcetta's I've tasted)
Entree
Bison Ribeye steak with cherry demi-glace, vanilla polenta and steamed cauliflower.
Bison Ribeye steak with cherry demi-glace, vanilla polenta and steamed cauliflower.
Marziano Abbona, Barbera D'Alba DOC Rinaldi 2009
Dessert
Warm tartufo quiche, candied figs and vanilla spiced red wine glaze.
Le Ragose, Amarone Della Valpolicella Classico, 2004
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The tab, including wine was $85. If you have not been to Friends Lake for one of their wine dinners, you really should. Usually held in late winter when the wineries have some down time, they are always fun, always educational (and always a good value).
If you do stop in please let our other readers know about your visit in the comments section.
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