Hide And Seek With My Wine Geek

vino incognito

Every other month or so, I'm energized to make dinner for a small group, usually after being inspired by a recipe or eating something amazing in a restaurant that propels me back into my entertaining mode.  And sometimes, it's a special occasion that re-charges my culinary battery, (and gets me to check for cobwebs on my lamp shades).  When I finally rebound from the last dinner party, after at least a month of recovery, I relish the reunion with my favorite cookbooks or surfing the pages of Epicurious.com all over again.   It's my goal to build a menu that's seasonal, colorful, balanced, a bit ambitious, and most importantly, tasty.  And if my husband, Tom, has a say, it should be wine-friendly too.

In our house, the wine-friendly part is a given, since Tom was a sommelier in a French restaurant before we met.  His professional wine career ended in the late seventies, and now, over thirty years later, he is an encyclopedia of wine knowledge and still has what it takes to taste wine blind (not knowing what it is before tasting) and identifying its grape, vintage, or producer.   Occasionally, he can nail all three.  Back in 1982, he won The French Wine Tasters' Open because he was able to do this better than the rest, simply by drinking too much beer the night before the tasting, and waking up with a dry-mouth, and in turn a super sensitive palate..  I'm not sure if this was a planned strategy or just happened fortuitously thanks to his grad student lifestyle, but I suspect it was the latter.  The French wine snobs who hosted the event were not impressed, but c'est dommage.

check out those shoulders

This weekend,  we're looking forward to having a special wine-centered dinner for friends, initiated by Tom.  It's not often that he plans our social engagements, but when it involves drinking wine with fellow wine lovers, he jumps at the chance.  No need to worry about guests rolling their eyes when the conversation includes words like "finish" and "flabby" and "leather or spice in the nose."  And  since two of our guests are working towards sommelier certificates, and the final exam will ask them to taste wine blind,  why not organize a study group, where Tom could not only be an oeno-instructor, but also hone his skills as well?  This means we'll need skinny paper bags to conceal not just a bottle's label, but also the shape.  French Burgundy bottles, for example, have sloping shoulders vs. the squared off shoulders of a Bordeaux-a dead giveaway.   It also means I have to clear the menu with Tom;  it's key to avoid  vinegar-based and overly spicy foods, and artichokes, and preferred to have  a main course that will pair well with red wine.  Sorry, white just doesn't have the proper gravitas.  Certain types of fish could pass, but are usually reserved for the appetizer, when white wine or champagne are perfect openers.

I think I've got it figured out for Saturday: arugula and mushroom salad with grilled shrimp to start,  followed by grilled, butterflied leg of lamb with a tomato, feta, and basil salad and new potatoes with mashed peas and mint (no recipe required).  I hope it all tastes good, looks pretty, celebrates summer,  and leaves everyone feeling just right.  But if it brings out the best in the wine, so that its identity erupts from the glass and helps our guests get the answers right come test time,  then that will be the icing on the cake. Which reminds me, I still haven't decided what's for dessert.  Except that it has to be chocolate.