Dinner Party

We got together with some of our friends for a small and casual dinner party tonight. Now, most of our friends are wine and food sorts, so we can pretty much count on a tasty experience. But tonight was really exceptional. Our host is recently back from a month in Sardegna, working with a colleague at a university there. She brought back some wine and liquer from the island to serve as a foundation, and then we each brought some food and drink to supplement, for a 5 course (or so) meal of amazing flavors.

We started with sparkling wines (prosecco, a cremant de bourgogne--not so Italian, but a good rose, and a bottle from Lombardy that we brought) to pair with appetizers and snacks. That amounted to oil cured olives, a honeyed sweet tapenade, Felina olive oil with two types of bread, a focaccia "pizza" of sorts with sausages, capers, sage, tomatoes, pecorino and other delicious items. I was asked to do a risotto--essentially, the "pasta course", and our host suggested we cook at her place so it'd be good and fresh. Thatt worked out well. I did an asparagus risotto with some truffle salt. It came out very nicely, I thought, and it got substantially positive reviews, and we continued with the sparklers. Then, a salad course of arugula, mushrooms, and pecorino cheese with a balsamic and olive oil dressing. and more prosecco.

The host cooked the main course--beautiful t-bone/porterhouse prime grade steaks. They were exquisite, and paired very well with the three red wines she'd brought back, as well as with the 1995 Rioja and a Corsican wine both brought by guests. Both of those were nice, but the Sardinian wines were amazingly interesting. One was 100% monica grapes--rather rustic, fruit forward; the 2nd was a 3-way even blend of monica, grenache (called cannoneau locally), and a third grape I don't recall. The final wine was 100% cagnulari, a varietal with which I was not at all familiar. It was the most complex of the wines, a rather unusual variety with incredible herbal and fruit notes, and tons of minerality. The other two were somewhat simpler, but very beautiful, rather fruit driven, in a very good way. I would absolutely buy any of the three, were they available in the U.S. This is honest wine, made simply by traditional methods, and it was among the most interesting stuff I've drunk in a long while. Some of these local wines of Italy (and I'd be willing to bet of some other European nations) should be both more available and more appreciated. After all, variety is the spice of life, and this is some serious variety. I really don't need another over-extracted, over fruit-bomb, over-oaked California or Aussie "red wine" that could be cab, merlot, syrah, or whatever, as it all tastes pretty much the same. For the same price, give me something new, different, fascinating.

Dessert was a melon granita (AMAZING homemade stuff) and these almond-honey cookies. Yum. And, all of that was chased with a Sardinian liqueur. This was mirto. Now, I'd never heard of it before--and it is definitely something of an acquired taste. It's made from fermenting the berries, and sometimes leaves, of the myrtle plant. It has a big menthol, wintergreen, fruity taste, and was a great after dinner drink. I really loved the taste; Julie was not so taken with it.

In all, it was a really fun night. Perhaps even more amazing was that the host's hot water heater broke this afternoon, so there was no hot water. And, then, as I was finishing off my risotto, the electricity went out due to a substantial thunderstorm. So, we ate by candlelight. And, all the food, and all the drink was at least very good, if not great. And the company was amazing.