Judgement of Paris trip… sort of
Jul 6th, 2008 by Ashley
the goal of this trip is to visit the NAPA wineries that participated in the famous blind tasting event that change the wine world’s view of California wine.
We headed to Yountville to pick up the wine Welton ordered from Continuum. Carissa Mondavi, granddaughter of Robert Mondavi, was going to meet him but eventually couldn’t make it so left the bottles at a family favorite restaurant, REDD. Guy, the manager brought the wine to us and mentioned that Carissa would like a buy us, a glass of champagne (okay, buy Welton one. But I was there. They had to pour me one, too. XD) They opened Drappier for us which was very nice. I rarely had champagne or sparkling that I like, and this is one of the few. Enjoying the champagne, I asked for the menu and we decided it’d be a shame if we passed the chance dining here.
We ordered Warm potato and leek soup with shrimp tempura and smoked salmon panini as appetizer. I had prime new york steak tartine, balsamic onions, aoili, onion rings and Dominus Cabernet Sauvinon to go with it. Welton had patrale sole, creamy jasmine rice, clams, saffron curry nage and had Far Niente Chardonnay.
Before we got the entree, our waiter brought up a plate, said it’s courtesy of the chef. (!) Turned out it’s the Glazed pork belly, fig purée, burdock, soy caramel, which is absolutely delicious. I can’t help but thinking… it does have its perks to be somebody.
Afterwards, we had peach pudding (it does have a fancy name which I don’t remember) and chocolate mint variaties + coffee.
The entire lunch took us around 3 hours. So it didn’t leave us much time to visit the wineries. But I have to say, the meal itself was worth the trip. We visited Chateau Montelena, and their wines are still overpriced and not impressive. Then we visited the newly opened Castello di Amorosa, which is owned by the owner of V Sattui. They offer a wide variety of wines, not spectacular but not too pricey, either. And the castle is a good place to walk around.
