Old Menus

We have been doing wine dinners for a long time but I hadn't realized that my wife Suzanne ('the Sue-chef') had kept menus from long past dinners. I started browsing them and it made me hungry and I also wished I still had some of the wines we served. Here is an example from 2001:


As an aperitif - 1976 Schloss Eltz Eltviller Sonnenberg Riesling feine Spätlese

With amuses bouches (unspecified on the menu), 1989 Veuve Clicquot Trilennium Reserved Brut

With shrimp risotto, 1986 Rougeot-Latour Meursault

With sweetbreads with mustard and chanterelles:

1975 Branaire Ducru - 1975 Beychevelle - 1975 Lynch Bages

With duck breast in a Port and prune sauce:

1970 St. Pierre Servaistre - 1970 Grand Puy Lacoste - 1970 Ch. Margaux

A bergamotte (odd Mediterranean fruit) and cranberry tart

1977 Grahams with cheese

I still have some of the Lynch Bages, Beychevelle and the Grahams, but I wish I had some of the others!

Does anyone else keep menus from wine dinners past?

Does anyone else keep menus from wine dinners past?

Isn't that what WLDG is?

You are probably right, Dale!

I keep my wine notes in hard copy but hadn't thought I'd kept menus. I'll have to look through them and see what other wines I'll never see again.

[Jenise]

I think I've only ever kept two menus from past dinners. And neither was about the wines so much as about food and themes. In one case, a "European trip" for a severely disabled man who was diagnosed with ALS and whose planned European trip (to the countries of Spain and France specifically) with his brother, and my friend, got cancelled due to the early advances of his illness. We had a live pianist, a slide show on the wall opposite his chair, and the whole nine yards. Another was a Texas-themed menu in honor of my husband's birth place. The creativity for both dinners was spectacular--I'm not sure I could do either again today.

Jenise, you would have attended some of the meals that these menus record. I should let you have a look at some of thm, at least as far back as we were doing the terrine event.

Here is one from 20 years ago - see if you recall it.

http://www.rhodo.citymax.com/f/T1_2004.pdf

[Jenise]

Of course I remember that! That was my scallop terrine up first, which you photographed upside down, which kind of f---ed up the aquarium scene I'd tried to set into the gelee [she said, laughing]. I look at that now and see something very amateurish compared to what I'd do today, including pairing it with that WA state white rhone blend from a winery I've grown to hate. That was followed by Ken Cross's vegetable terrine, then David Nicholsons galantine, your terrine, George's oxtail terrine, Les (well actually Barb's) chocolate dessert terrine and I don't remember who did the cheese finale, maybe you did?