The restaurant hosts about six tomato dinners over the summer to use up some of the heirloom tomatoes grown on their partner farm--Coon Rock Farm. The farm planted 4000 tomato plants this year. This year the menu and wines vary from dinner to dinner and the one I attended was themed around Italian wines. They have also had a Oregon and Washington wines and a French wine dinner already and have California wines to come and I think one with South American wines. Last night the representative from BFR was there to tell us a little about the wines. (BFR stands for Bordeaux Fine and Rare but they no longer distribute any Bordeaux wines.) The dinner was $75 including paired wines for each course. The reception course of tomato water and NV FANTINEL PROSECCO, FRIULI-VENEZIA GIULIA went together amazingly well.
Next we had mildly spiced gazpacho with FANTINEL SPUMANTE ROSE, FRIULI-VENEZIA GIULIA. The gazpacho was from heirloom tomatoes with cucumber, bell pepper, onion and garlic in the blender finished with basil oil. Delicious. The rose' even matched the gazpacho well in color.
Sarig Agasi (chef) did his version of a Caprese salad for the next course. The heirloom tomatoes on the plate were German Green, Cherokee Purple, Chocolate Stripe, Kellogg's Breakfast, and Virignia Sweet with Chapel Hill Creamery Mozzarella cheese, extra virgin olive oil, fresh basil, and sweet balsamic vinegar glaze. Nancy Agasi wanted a wine with a bit of sweetness to match the sweet balsamic vinegar glaze so diverged from the Italian wines to go with 2011 DOMAINE DE AUBUISIERES CUVEE DE SILEX, Vouvray, Loire Valley, France. The wine was nice but I prefered a Vouvray Silex I had at this restaurant once with squash soup. Not sure if it was the same producer and a different vintage or a different producer.
The next course was heirloom tomatoes stuffed with crabmeat and sweet corn served on a bed of creamy sweet corn risotto with roasted yellow tomato sauce and oven roasted yellow tomatoes and Thai basil. The wine (which the chef admitted might not be a perfect pairing but it didn't really clash either) was a 2007 La Maialina Chianti Classico Riserva, Tuscany. I had opened a 2007 RUFFINO RISERVA DUCALE CHIANTI CLASSICO at home the night before and although I liked the Ruffino, I liked the La Maialina better and ordered two bottles for later pickup at the restaurant. One lady at our table has an allergy to shellfish so had a tuna dish in place of the crabmeat-stuffed tomato.
2007 MIRAFIORE BAROLO, PIEDMONT was paired with overnight-braised Coon Rock ham served with eggplant, squash, and tomato ratatouille, caramelized oniolns and finished with dried Amish paste roma tomatoes, roasted tomato sauce and house made ketchup. The dish was delicious and I really liked the Barolo which was made in a style for early drinking. I ordered one bottle for pickup later. I looked up ratings on CellarTracker and some were less enthusiastic about this wine but I feel it its a decent QPR plus I don't need to cellar it for eight or ten years.
A couple who were on the Tuscany trip that I took last summer were at a table next to mine. At my table were some professors of plant biology at North Carolina State and a couple visiting from Rhode Island.