The Wine Closet Blog

Our dear friends, Mark and Kathie Johnson, of Commander Printed Products www.commanderproducts.com visited Sonoma and Tahoe recently and provided a detailed food and wine report which I broke out into daily reports – sort of a blow-by-blow/progressive food and wine report so be sure and check back daily for each days news:

FRIDAY, JANUARY 29

We arrived at the Lodge at Sonoma about 5pm Friday night. It was raining heavily (cats, rats and dogs). Thankfully just as it was time to walk to our cottage, the rain stopped. We celebrated by making a cocktail in-room, a Blushing Geisha: Tanqueray gin, pineapple juice, Cointreau, grenadine, and fresh squeezed lime juice. It really hit the spot.

Later I went to the lobby as they we having a wine tasting social hour. The wine was forgettable but they were serving some very tasty shredded braised short ribs on wonton chips. I asked the woman behind the counter how they were made. She described the hours of work marinating overnight in soy, hoisen, crushed peppers, jalapeños, etc, then browning, braising for hours and shredding. Too much work for me but they sure were tasty. It turns out she was Janine Falvo, the head chef at The Carneros Bistro & Wine Bar www.thelodgeatsonoma.com/Carneros-Bistro-WIne-Bar-31.html adjacent to the hotel. Luckily we already had reservations at this restaurant as it has received positive buzz over the years, and if these Asian rib wontons were any indication things were looking good for the night.

We arrived about 8 pm and opened two bottles of wine: the 2007 Benovia “La Pommeraie” Chardonnay www.benoviawinery.com and the 2007 Black Kite “River Turn” Pinot Noir www.blackkitecellars.com from Anderson Valley. Next we ordered our appetizers: Dungeness crab dip with warm flatbread and dayboat scallops with spicy orange aioli. Then we waited… and waited. The kitchen was moving at a glacial pace, but it was OK as we were really enjoying the Chardonnay. It is a perfectly balanced Chard — big, rich and smooth yet it had just the right amount of acid to keep it all in check. Nice integrated oak and a crisp finish too. Finally our appetizers arrived. Wow, they were definitely worth the wait! The crab dip menu description does not begin to convey how sinfully delicious this dish is. They take chunky sweet crab, then add caramelized onions, cream cheese, jack cheese, poblano peppers, bacon and other herbs and turn it into this decadent and very rich dip. (I later got the complete dip recipe from Janine. I may be willing to share it with a select few – in consideration of a little baksheesh sent my way). Even the flatbread was great. They were dusted with black pepper, sautéed onions, red chili flakes, parmesan cheese and a hint of garlic. My scallop appetizer was also very nice featuring 3 large, perfectly seared scallops perched upon tempura fried potato rounds, accompanied by the spicy aioli.

We corked our remaining Chardonnay and moved on to our Black Kite Pinot while we waited (tick tock) for our entrees to arrive. However, once again we were in no big hurry and were simply enjoying the Pinot which featured a fantastic spice box nose. The wine was pretty big and full bodied and worked quite well with our entrees.

Ahh, finally the entrées arrive and we were not disappointed. Kathie had the pan seared sea bass with lobster hash and a truffled hollandaise. It was excellent, crispy and golden on the outside, tender and almost sweet inside. The hash featured tasty lobster bits, home fries, poblano chilies, onion, and red bell pepper. (this dish was featured by the Wine Spectator in 2008). I had the thick cut pork chop with some kind of cider (?) sauce and sides of fluffy ravioli like potato pierogies, and crispy Brussels sprouts. Let me stop right here and say that Brussels sprouts are not my favorite veggie. Only once before have I actually enjoyed them (thank you Steve Grossman), but these sprouts were amazing. They slice up the sprouts, lightly batter them and then fry ‘em up. And to top it off they drizzle them with a bacon vinaigrette. Marvelous! Anyway the pork chop was perfect, and the “ravioli” were very tasty too, especially when trailed through the juicy meat sauce. We were very, very content. And to top it all off, our pleasant waitress comped us on the two corkage fees, I presume due to the slow kitchen that night. We will return soon… which in fact we did.

Day 2 will be posted 2/18/10