Beaming, I replied, "Jackson Hole, Wyoming," an option that hadn't even been on the table. He went:
. Turned out to be a welcome trek as in the meantime we bought a brand new camping van which needed a proper breaking in, so we made some reservations in Yellowstone National Park which neither of us have ever been to and gave ourselves enough time to play the rest of the trip by ear.
We pulled into Jackson on Sunday the 20th of July; the dinner was the following evening. It had been sweltering hot everywhere else and Jackson's elevation and coolness were quite a nice change. We drove around a bit and the town has changed and grown a lot since I was last there a couple decades ago, and not all the ways are good. They now have, for instance, a Ripley's Believe It or Not--which is my current standard for Officially WAY Too Touristy For Me. Key West, Savannah Georgia and a number of other places have already been written off by me for this crime. Here's our 'camp':
We got into town knowing that some inclement weather was expected in the area giving us a 50% chance of rain for the dinner. But where on sunny Sunday a day previous that didn't seem anything to be especially pessimistic about, by Monday morning the sky darkened hourly with purple clouds that would start dumping any second and call it any percent you want, no one in Jackson valley would be spared. The sprinkles started while we were driving over to The Wine Store They Kept a Secret From Mark Lipton in the high value zip code over by the ski slopes, planning to reload a few reasonable bottles before leaving for Yellowstone where we feared all that would be available was tourist wine (we weren't wrong).
Dinner was at the Mead Ranch just a ten minute drive out of the main part of town, where Brad Mead is the fifth generation to own and tend this land, one of five large ranches left in the state (average age of the remaining ranchers: 68 years old). Brad and his wife Kate, both lawyers, met in Arizona where they both practiced before moving back to take over the ranch (thankfully, their sons, both in their early 20's, plan to do the same) from Brad's parents. They have 1100 acres total between their best pasture land around the ranch in Jackson which is saved for birthing and fattening up the mature cows later, and some grazing land 45 miles away in Thermopolis for the time in between. Brad runs the overall ranch and their new distillery which produces an excellent (but expensive, $50) small batch bourbon, 'W' Wyoming is the brand, while Kate manages the herd, calling the shots on the keeping and selling of calves and, eventually, the beef. The herd is exclusively Black Angus, and I mean black Black Angus because, as Kate explained, though some Black Angus can be born brown or red, those are culled early because in the ridiculously biased cattle market place, nobody will buy a non-black Black Angus even though the meat is identical.
An opening Sauvignon Blanc was served on the patio near the house along with samples of Brad's bourbon. The wines served this night were all the product of one winery, Niner, which is located in Paso Robles and owned by a couple who actually live in Jackson. Upon hearing "Paso" my heart kind of sank because I'm not a fan of the super ripe Paso style, but I found every one of the wines served us that night exceptional considering their origins, and the deft and grassy Sauv Blanc was no exception. 14% abv, but clean and bright and unoaked, even a little taut--definitely not a fruit bomb. But it wasn't long before the rain reached Biblical proportions (notice hands in the air holding down the wine tent which had just dumped its entire saved contents on the top of my unfortunate head), and forcing everyone who couldn't fit under the overhangs to seek refuge in the house, an element of hospitality the Meads obviously had not expected to extend but ever so graciously did. Several appetizers were passed during this period, including an exceptional wonton crisp topped with the unlikely but heavenly combination of kim chee and pulled pork with a spicy aioli. The appetizers were prepared and served by the Robinson family, who also raise cattle and pigs for meat sold locally in addition to organic produce.
In the meantime Jim Denevan explained that in the five years the Meads have hosted this, never have they ever had rain. So this caught them somewhat unawares and without any other option than to set the dinner tables up in the barn which is a real, working barn and home to a number of horses so resplendant with the strong aroma of horse dung, enough to encourage the organizers to pull out another couple cases of Sauvignon blanc and extend the happy hour just in case those clouds moved on like the radar kind of indicated they might.
And they did. So while the tables were being relocated to a pasture, we went on a hayride.
Almost four hours after we arrived, it was finally time for dinner.
The dinner was prepared by a local chef who works as a private chef, and he was assisted by a guy whose wife owns an extremely successful bakery in town, Persephone Bakery(Trip Advisor lists it as the #1 restaurant in Jackson). Have to say, and I'm aware of how hard it is to pull off making and serving large quantities of food to large groups, especially considering the weather impacts they had to deal with, but nonetheless we both found the food disappointing. The servings were huge passed platters so none went hungry, but the best things we ate all night were the afore-mentioned appetizer plus the exceptional bread and ricotta tarts both provided by Persophone. Each dish of the main meal itself just missed the mark in some way. The polenta needed something creamy to make it richer--it had just been made with water, and it tasted like it. The green salad was made from beautiful local greens, but they hadn't been washed well and there was obvious silt throughout. The beef--well, it was served too cool and had been cut without enough rest, so the platters were swimming in red blood. And everything was underseasoned--can't blame THAT on the weather!
So, would I go again? Heck yes, in another location for a different experience albeit, but yes. We had fun and made some new friends we might meet up with for another dinner with next summer. And it was just a blast driving all the way to Wyoming just for dinner.
