WTN: Tomato dinner at Zely & Ritz, Raleigh on July 20

This was either the fifth or sixth year for the tomato dinners. I started going the second year. This was also the third dinner of this season.
We were greeted with German Gilavert Cava Reseva, Penedes, Spain, N.V. which had a good steady mousse and with crisp with a slightly yeasty or brioche note. Organically grown fruit in Santa Fe de Penedes. Juice sits on the yeast for a time. Served with tiny heirloom tomatoes.

With gazpacho made with heirloom tomatoes we had 2010 LAS LILAS VINHO VERDE ROSE, DOURO VALLEY, PORTUGAL. I didn't realize that vinho verde is really from a red grape--I had always assumed it was a white grape. For the rose' the juice is left on the skins for a short time unlike with the regular vinho verde. A rosy pink to pale red color with transparency. Sprightly taste with watermelon or pomegranate? Hard to pin down flavors but attractive and a good pairing with the gazpacho. A little sweetness on the finish.

Next a 2008 MARKUS MOLITOR HANS KLOSTERBERG RIESLING, KABINETT, MOSEL, GERMANY with a Caprese-type salad.
Heirloom tomatoes, Chapel Hill Creamery Fresh Mozzarella Cheese, extra virgin olive oil, fresh basil, and sweet balsamic vinegar glaze. Tomatoes included Cherokee Purple, Hazel Mae, Azoycka (Russia) and Soldaki or Caspian Pink. The wine was a pale straw color with transparency and a strong, slightly pungent nose. Quite acidic with a sweet edge. Nancy Agasi mentioned the slaty soil giving the wine a slaty taste. One of the tomatoes was yellow with red swirls. The heirloom vegetable guy said it had two color genes.

Next a 2009 J. L. CHAVE MON COEUR COTES DU RHONE, FRANCE (about 80% Grenache and 20% Syrah.) This accompanied roasted heirloom tomatoes stuffed with Coon Rock Farm ground bratwurst, gypsy peppers and onions, with sweet corn and tomato risotto. The wine was a dark scarlet color with semi-transparency. Rich aroma or fruity dark raspberry or blackberry and a peppery finish. Some depth and savory elements. I thought it hearty for a Cotes du Rhone.

Next was a 2008 INSOGLIA, CAMPO DI SASSO BILBONA, Super Tuscan blend of Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot from Maremma, Tuscany, Italy served with slow-cooked Harris Robinette beef brisket with onion and tomato guts, grilled eggplant and grilled squash, and finished with grilled Amish paste (?) and orange banana roma tomatoes. The wine was leggy, dark and opaque. It tasted balanced with some spiciness and a long finish. I had crystals in the bottom of the glass.

Dessert was the ever luscious Sungold tomato panna cotta.
We had a chance to order the wines to pick up in a week or two. I ordered two bottles of the Portuguese rose' and one bottle of the Cotes du Rhone. Another great tomato dinner.

JC,

A bit of information on Vinho Verde. There is a demarcated region in northern Portugal running from the Spanish border to roughly the Douro where Vinho Verde ("Green wine") can be produced. This corresponds mostly to a region known as the Minho. While the most typical kind of VV is an off-dry white, low in alcohol (8-9% abv), and slightly fizzzy (think Casal Garcia), there are also rose and red versions of VV, and some styles can be dry, 12%-13% abv and totally still.

There are a whole bunch of native Portuguese grapes used to make these wines. Outside the Moncao/Melgaco areas up near the Spanish border, where Alvarinho is king, the most common whites include Loureiro, Trajadura and Azal. Oddly enough, your rose is listed as being made from Loureiro on the website of a well known NYC wine shop, which must be an error, since this is a white grape. One of the favored grapes for rose seems to be a lightly pigmented grape called Espadeiro, but other red grapes are used too. One of the more interesting grapes is VInhao, which can make an inky red wine with lots of tannins but a low alcohol content of 11% - some say an acquired taste! It is a very interesting region, and the wines are so inexpensive it is easy to experiment.

[Jenise]

Always enjoy your notes, JC. And of course, since it's about tomatoes and wine both, it's like porn to me. Or at least, what I imagine porn feels like.

The "grilled Amish paste" threw me too, so I looked and discovered that it's an Oxheart variety of tomato. Here's an entry from a seed catalog, with picture:

http://www.seedsavers.org/Details.aspx?itemNo=107

Thanks for the info Joe and Jenise. I had no idea that Amish paste was the name of one of the tomatoes or that Vinho Verde can be from a variety of grapes. That is confusing that the grape listed on the retail website was a white wine grape. This was definitely a rose' that we had at the dinner.