Shameless plug - Katya's Bistro Bethel Heights/Penner Ash Wine Dinner - Dec 3rd 2009

This could be a really excellent wine dinner at Katya's in Richland. I really wish I could go, but I am otherwise disposed that evening. Bummer ... I really enjoy these events, and as proof here's a report from one last year that was most enjoyable.

Hopefully the menu and wine options below will tempt a few readers of this blog (ok - I know there's not many!) to go along. If you do, let me know how it goes .... we need more of these in the Tri-cities!

Join us

December 3rd at 6 pm

for a

Wine Pairing Dinner with Oregon Wineries Penner Ash & Bethel Heights

Their outstanding and award winning wines will be accompanied by a five course dinner

Course 1

Crab Stuffed Shrimp

Baked Dungeness crab stuffed shrimp topped with a citrus Beurre blanc

Accompanied by 2008 Bethel Heights Pinot Blanc

Course 2

Seasonal Salad

Fresh mixed greens with dried cranberries, apple slices, red onion and tossed with a Dijon mustard Viognier vinaigrette topped with candied pecans and goat cheese

Accompanied by 2008 Penner Ash Viognier

Course 3

Cedar Plank Salmon

Cedar plank grilled wild Alaska Salmon with Lentils and mustard herb butter

Accompanied by 2007 Bethel Heights Estate Pinot Noir

Course 4

Grilled Duck Breast

Grilled duck breast topped with a cherry port sauce and served with a wild rice medley

Accompanied by 2007 Penner Ash Willamette Valley Pinot Noir

Course 5

Kobe Beef Tender

Kobe beef tender medallions topped with a pinot noir sauce and served with fingerling potatoes

Accompanied by 2007 Bethel Heights Casteel Reserve Pinot Noir

Ending

Chocolate Truffle

A surprise wine will also be presented

Make your reservations on line or give us a call. The price for this outstanding event is $65 per person excluding gratuity and taxes.

Bethel Heights & Penner Ash wines will be available at winery prices during this event.

Katya’s Restaurant & Wine Bar

430 Geo. Wash. Way Ste 201

509-946-7777

www.katyasbistro.com

Petaluma Riesling - Memories are made of this ...

Some wines sit like memories on my tongue. They are recalled as vividly as the first time I saw Genesis, walked along the harbour front at St Tropez, or carved a perfect arc in the snow, gaining velocity as my skis flexed on the ice-cream like surface. They make you crave for more.

Petaluma Riesling is one of these wines. It was around a decade ago that I first encountered the wonders of gently aging Clare Valley Rieslings. Sat in a decent Thai restaurant on Blues Point Rd in North Sydney on a steamy January evening, I uncorked a mid-1990s Petaluma that had sat on my wine racks for a couple of years. The revelation was instant. The intense acidity and limey-ness of youth had been replaced by a toasted, citrus, restrained elegance that lingered like a Jehovah's Witness on your doorstep on a Sunday morning. This wine had no intention of being a casual acquaintance to my taste buds.

Since then Brain Croser has benefited considerably from my purchasing. The odd vintage hasn't aged quite so well, but, well, shit happens sometimes, and it's not like Petaluma Riesling is a $100 bottle. A wine like the 2003 Hanlin Hill I opened tonight makes up for the occasional disappointment. Like Germaine Greer, it delivers intensity and interest in an aging frame, and shouldn't be taken too seriously. This is a beautiful wine to simply sit back and enjoy. I hope I have some more hiding, somewhere.

Amity 2006 Winemaker's Reserve Pinot Noir

Amity seduced me with the quality of their Gewurtztraminer several years ago. On the back of that, we've visited the rustic Willamette Valley winery a couple of times and learned more about their array of Pinots, a delicious bone dry Riesling, and a few other odd but interesting wines.

So when they emailed me about 25% off the 2006 Winemaker's Reserve Pinot, I had to indulge. We'd bought a few bottles of this very wine on our last visit a year ago, and loved it's silky mouthfeel, robustness and intense, concentrated dark fruit. There's another 6 on the wine racks now, and I think I'm going to enjoy opening these over the next few years. I've still to explore the 2007 Willamette Pinots, but they've received mixed reviews and I won't be buying without tasting. Until I get chance to visit, I think I'll keep snaffling any 2006s I can find. A fine vintage indeed.

Tri-Cities Wine Festival 2009

Ah, what a difference a venue makes. I doubt I'd have paid $60 to return to the country-hick, dark, cramped, back-to-the-70s Pasco Red Lion. For the show case event of Eastern Washington wine, that venue portrayed everything that is so last century about this area, and in such contrast to the modern, vibrant wine industry. Without a doubt, moving the 2009 Tri-Cities Wine Festival to the Three Rivers Convention Center in Kennewick erased all these misgivings. A shiny, new, almost cavernous room housed the public tasting, professional service breezed through the crowds providing for everyone's needs, and an excellent array of wines were available to sample. This time I felt firmly wedged in the 21st century.

I like these events as they afford an opportunity to try new wineries, as well as getting to sample the latest releases of favorite producers. This year's discoveries included:

Steppe Cellars: The collection comprised a fine 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon and an especially elegant 2006 Merlot (they delivered the Gold Medal prize about 9 seconds after we raved about it!), along with a balanced, powerful, spicy 2008 Gewurztraminer and muscular Syrah Rose. A stop in Sunnyside will have to be scheduled soon.

Basalt Cellars: Their creamy, apple and pear 2008 Semillon caught my eye. Another fine example of the quality of Semillon that can be produced in Washington State. Their reds were equally impressive - a 2007 Malbec and the 2006 Syrah and Rim Rock (cab, syrah, merlot) giving us a reason to go to Clarkston next summer.

St Laurent: I vaguely knew of these folks from Malaga (near Wenatchee, I think) from tasting their wine on the Leavenworth Wine Walk. Last night the 3 Wahluke Slope sourced reds shone, with the stellar 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon a true star, just shadowing the 2006 Syrah and Merlot.

Vin Du Lac: This is another producer we vaguely knew from a visit to their beautiful Lake Chelan winery a couple of years back. Their super clean, lean, taste-machine 2008 Lehm Rieling, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris are what I want to drink sat in the sun overlooking Lake Chelan, and their 2007 Barrel Select Syrah sat happily in the top few of the reds I tasted last night. The 2007 Barrel Select Merlot wasn't far behind.

Abacela: It's a long way from the Rogue Valley in Southern Oregon, so it was a delight to see these wines. I knew their 2008 Albarino was top stuff from various restaurants in Seattle. I didn't know their brooding 2006 Tempranillo was even better. The lighter 2007 Garnacha sat happily in the same company.

I should also complement the organizers for the addition of food vendors this year. Some of the snacks were really delicious, and all were worthy of a sample or two. This contributed immensely to the evening - sure a huge step up from the rubbery cheese of the Red Lion (the cheese was still pretty ordinary, but who cared!)

My only quibble? Get an announcer who can add something to the evening beyond mind bogglingly dull facts, and definitely not with the monotone tenor of a bingo announcer. The evening was fun and the overall vibe excellent, as long as you ignored this tedious background drone (the jacket was a bit of a shocker too - sorry!).

This was a truly excellent night out. Worth every cent. Finally, Eastern Washington has a wine festival that is a true showcase of the region's superb wines. One I wouldn't be embarrassed to drag west-siders and sophisticated city slickers along to. I'm looking forward to next year already!

Hogue 2008 Terroir White Table Wine

I'm rather partial to quite a lot of Hogue's wines. With the discounts they offer, it made it worthwhile to join their Wine Club, which I did about a year ago. They don't deluge you with wine that costs a fortune, and they send interesting new releases that are always an informative slurp.

The latest package contained the 2008 Terroir White Table Wine (can't find anything about this online). One to drink soon, I reckoned, so I threw it in the fridge and it was destined not to survive past Friday night. I opened it and tasted without really paying attention to the bottle, and was quite amazed by the soft, lean, fruity aromatic wine that hit my taste buds. Another sip and I was guessing chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, and something like viognier. Strike the chardonnay and replace with semillon, add some muscat and gewurztraminer, and you have a killer of a white blend.

I loved the balance, the contrast between the lemony semillon and spicy aromatics, all seamlessly progressing through the taste profile on a solid acid foundation. This is the best Washington white blend I've tasted for a long time. Top stuff indeed.

Good pub food in Betws-y-Coed

Let's be honest, food in the UK when I lived here was pretty dire. Take away some homely traditional dishes, and only stodge and chips and soggy vegetables in multiple inseparable forms was available. Thankfully, things are definitely now different. In London, we had some really imaginative and tasty food at the Duke of Cambridge in Islington. And tonight, our B&B in Betws-y-Coed recommended the Pont-y-Pair pub a few blocks away as 'better than average' pub food. They were right.

We started with meaty, gamy local pigeon terrine and risotto with Welsh 'Red Devil' cheese, to add a little chilli to the creamy sweet potato dish. After a hectic day of sight seeing with no lunch, these were highly satisfying dishes,


Mains comprised a monster lamb shank with killer, succulent and sweet braised carrots and new potatoes, and a half rainbow trout that had been treated well by the chef. All locally sourced ingredients goes without saying.

Add a couple of interesting real ales and cider, and pub food like this gives you somewhere to dine with out having to research options too much. It seems a growing trend in the UK - long may it continue.

The Coconut Kitchen, Abersoch

On some nights, you just know the food gods have got you on their minds and are smiling in your directions. Sunday was one of these nights. We rolled into Abersoch in North Wales about 8pm, expecting to be lucky to find a chippy open for a take away, and a beer in a deserted pub. The Riverside Pub/Hotel beckoned, so we checked in and headed out to find food in this tiny seaside village.

One the way into town I spotted briefly a restaurant that mentioned Thai food, and had cars outside. This was enough evidence of food to investigate. We walked the 200m along the harbor and discovered the Coconut Kitchen, a small, bright restaurant that was as packed with people as an Alex Ferguson press conference is with whinges. Fortunately, they had a welcoming bar to seat us at, affording excellent views of the dishes and busy kitchen operations.

What followed was a steady, delicious flow of food, characterized by quality ingredients and delicate, spicy broths. Crisp, light fish cakes, plump with chunks of fishy wonders, were enough to quell hunger, really hitting the spot. My sesame-crusted seabass was bathed in some sort of miso-ginger broth, sat on layers of cabbage - it was excellent.


Jan's duck confit raised the quality bar again, with the star anise-infused sweet and sour broth it inhabited being a splendid companion.


A lemon grass and ginger creme brulee rounded out a really unexpectedly good dinner.


Fine Thai-ish food in the wilds ot North West Wales? Weird, but true. It's sure worth the drive from Manchester though.