This was a special opening event in the Charlotte Wine and Food Weekend (held every other year.) The dinner was held at Bonterra Restaurant which is housed in a converted church. (Sigi commented that it was the noisiest church she had ever been in.) The proceeds support four charities to benefit children in the Charlotte area. Dan Kosta of Kosta Browne and Bob Cabral, winemaker at Williams Selyem, were present and the wine was donated. We were greeted with Laurent Perrier bubbly. We were supposed to try an unoaked Chardonnay from Williams Selyem with passed hors d'oeuvres but I somehow missed out on that pour. We had 2012 Kosta Browne One Sixteen Chardonnay with a sashimi of yellowtail tuna with ginger, jalapeno and some mini greenery (the menu said cilantro but to my relief it was something much milder such as watercress--I have had cilantro kill the taste of a white wine in the past.) The One Sixteen uses about 40% new oak barrels. IMHO the wine was okay but nothing special. Deborah, to my left, loved it. She liked that it tasted clean with no lingering unpleasant aftertaste.
A salmon course with green lentils was accompanied by the 2012 Williams Selyem Westside Road Neighbors Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley. (I have a bottle of this at home.) The grapes are from the following vineyards: Allen, Bacigalupi, Bucher, Rochioli Riverblock and the Williams Selyem Estate. This was my WTN. It was very aromatic with red plums, violets, and mild spice. Deborah had claimed she knows nothing about wine and couldn't see floral, buttery, citrus and all those other things in wine and then stated that this wine had floral scents. It was that obvious! (The Williams Selyem website says roses rather than violets and I won't quarrel with that and mentions red berries rather than red plums.) Another lady at my table was surprised that a red wine was being paired with fish and thought the proper pairing was white wine with fish so I explained to her that salmon was an exception and that in Oregon, for example, salmon is usually paired with Oregon Pinot Noir.
A dish of North Carolina pork tenderloin was paired with a 2010 Kosta Browne Garys' Vineyard Pinot Noir from the Santa Lucia Highlands in Monterey County. Cindy called this "heartier" and complained of a burning sensation and I said it had more body than the first Pinot and probably a higher alcohol percentage. It also had more viscosity and a lengthier finish. I described it in my notes as having a flavor of dark raspberries with some cinnamon and clove. I think our table all preferred the Westide Road Neighbors Pinot Noir but that is a matter of personal tastes.
The next course was duck breast paired with 2010 Williams Selyem Precious Mountain Pinot Noir. I had never tasted the Precious Mountain before because it is so pricy that I don't order it when the offer comes. I could see a similar flavor profile between this and the 2012 Westside Road Neighbors Pinot but this clearly needed a few years in the cellar. Again, it exhibited more viscosity and more body than the first Pinot (and both the Kosta Browne Garys' Vineyard and the WS Precious Mountain were darker in color that the Westide Road Neighbors Pinot.) Bob Cabral explained that the owners of the Precious Mountain Vineyard are the Schatzbergers which roughly translates to Precious Mountain. This vineyard is at a higher elevation in the Sonoma Coast appellation.
For dessert we had flan or custard flavored with rosemary.
Both Dan Kosta and Bob Cabral stopped by our table during the evening. Deborah and I were able to have an extended conversation with Bob Cabral after some of the diners had left. I enjoy hearing about the children of the winemakers and heard about some of the things Bob's daughter Paige (sp?) is into. At a previous Charlotte Wine and Food Weekend I chatted with Ken Wright about his children. It reminds me that winemakers have other interests in life than the wine.
It was a fun evening and Deborah and the couple at my table came to the conclusion that ours was not a "stuffy table." We had some good laughs. (Deborah is a lawyer who works for one of the agencies benefiting from the Charlotte Wine and Food Weekend--the Council for Children's Rights. As a mother of two daughters, one with Down's Syndrome, her work is both professional and personal.)