The weather has definitely taken on a
chill. The season for backyard BBQ’s has passed. So the Winos and their husbands
needed to move dinner inside and we were looking for a twist on a traditional
dinner party. My husband and I had read about an annual event in Healdsburg,
CA, called “Pigs and Pinot” which is held at Hotel Healdsburg and Charlie
Palmer’s Dry Creek Kitchen. It looks and sounds like an awesome event that also
raises money for charity events, but we all live 2,000 miles away. Lucky for
us, Wino Lisa’s husband is a fantastic cook and is a wiz with his backyard pit.
So it seemed only logical that we invite some wine loving friends over and try
our “Pigs and Pinot”.
We invited our friends to all bring a
bottle of their favorite Pinot for a blind tasting to begin the evening, and
what a treat that was. We had wine from California, Oregon, and New Zealand.
The
lineup was:
·
Craggy
Range Single Vineyard, Martinborough, New Zealand 2009
·
Talley Vineyards,
Arroyo Grande Valley, California 2009
·
MacPhail
Frattey Shams Vineyard, Healdsburg, California 2009
·
Winderlea
Estate, Dundee Hills, Oregon 2007
·
Sequana Santa
Lucia Highlander, California 2009
·
Domaine
Drouhin, Willamette Valley Oregon 2008
·
Papapietro-Perry
Nunes Vineyard, Russian River Valley, California 2009
My husband, Mike, was the Master of
Ceremonies for the blind tasting. We all received a scorecard, a blue chip for
our first place vote, a red chip for a second place vote, and a white chip for
our third place choice. Appetizers were passed during the tasting, pig inspired
of course, including water chestnuts wrapped in bacon and drizzled with Maple
syrup and Asian pork skewers with Portabella mushrooms. Both were a great match
for the Pinots! As we tasted we wrote our impressions on a tasting card spending
about five to ten minutes on each wine. After tasting all seven wines, we picked
a first, second, and third place winner and awarded the wines accordingly. A
first place vote was worth 3 points, a second place vote was 2 points, and a
third place vote received one point. All agreed it was tough picking winners
because we enjoyed all of the wines, but the Grand Champion was the Sequana
Santa Lucia Highlander.
Next it was on to dinner! Bart prepared
the majority of the meal in his pit outside and it was all delicious. We enjoyed
Pork Brozol in tomato sauce (a chef Bart creation), homemade smoked sausage, baby back ribs, and
chopped pork shoulder with a choice of Carolina sauce or a Texas Red Sauce. On
the side there was a cold green bean salad, Dutch oven potatoes, baked squash
with cheese and breadcrumbs, and a tomato, cucumber, mozzarella salad with
Balsamic dressing, and a homemade flatbread with Parmesan cheese. We enjoyed a
lovely Meiomi Pinot Noir with dinner. If you had room for dessert there was
Blue Bell ice cream with Papaya and a chocolate covered bacon stake.
Great wine, delicious food and wonderful
friends-it doesn’t get any better than that! So grab a few friends, a nice
bottle of wine and enjoy.
Cheers,
Beth
