Burgundy? Thrifty? An eye opener of a wine dinner that bushwhacked expectations
Burgundy, Unexpected but Welcome
On a rather bleak night last month, I attended a wine dinner at Fresno, a popular dining spot on Fresno Place in East Hampton. David Loewenberg and Michael Nolan, the owners, have successfully reinvigorated their restaurant by hiring Gretchen Menser, a very talented chef who has worked at several places on the East End. At this point in her career, Ms. Menser’s food shows strong culinary confidence. It’s a move that could propel Fresno to the top tier of Hamptons restaurants.
Jacques Franey and the staff of Domaine Wines planned a dinner featuring wines from the Burgundy region of France. The point of such dinners is to creatively and correctly pair the wine with the food in each course. The point is not—as some people think—to have only the most lavish or expensive or famous and highly rated wines. The dinner was so moderately priced ($60 per person plus tax and gratuity) that I expected only very reasonably priced wines to be poured, but it turned out there was a rather nice range of retail prices as well as winemaker styles. A quick lesson there: the wines of Burgundy, while using their traditional grapes—pinot noir or chardonnay—are not always predictable in cost or taste.
The renowned names of Burgundy are justly famous and sought after, and as a result, expensive. But the smaller producers, and there are many, can be good values. For this meal, we drank wines from unsung wineries and, interestingly, some wines from noted winemakers that were atypical and outside their mainstream production, and hence less expensive than their benchmark labels.
Sarazaniere, the white we sipped with the passed canapés, was a new name to me, but it could well become a familiar name in my house this summer. From Macon, it clean, crisp, with a refreshing aroma and the right amount of fruit, and retails for just $13. With sashimi of fluke in a lime-cucumber salad, we drank Domaine Picq 2004, classically dry, flinty Chablis with strong mineral notes and enough acid to match the briskly clean taste of the appetizer. If I did not know that it generally sells for about $20 (and I’ve seen it for even less) I’d have guessed it was perhaps on a Premier Cru level. You can find at least four other, more expensive, Picq Chablis labels in the New York area, but for clear value try this basic one.
Etienne Parent was a wine supplier to Thomas Jefferson, so it goes without saying that Domaine Parent is an old and respected Burgundy producer. I associate the name with their Premier Cru Pommard labels. I hadn’t a clue that they exported a basic “Bourgogne Rouge.” This is a simple, soft, nicely balanced wine, an unpretentious $17 pinot noir (the varietal is not listed on the label, but take my word). I’d have preferred a medium-bodied white to drink with a course of seared scallop and truffled polenta, but the Parent was also a fitting choice.
Mr. Franey threw me another curve ball when he served a Domaine Ramonet Chassagne- Montrachet…rouge! Ramonet is another important Burgundy winemaker, considered by experts a master of the chardonnay grape. I had no idea they produced a red wine. This one, served with squab and foie gras with a celeriac puree, was earthy and delicious, not far removed it seemed from its roots. With a fuller body than you generally expect from a Burgundy, this $29 bottle of the 2003 vintage married well with the complex tastes of the food.
One cautionary note: while it is a worthy experiment to try a simple, medium priced red from a winemaker known for whites, or the opposite, I’d be careful about trying more expensive wines in that situation. Particularly with the French, there are sound reasons behind the success of a particular grape in a particular localized region.
As if to remind us of the classic qualities of Burgundy, Mr. Franey served a 2002 Clos du Roi from Domaine Tollot-Beaut with a cheese course. It’s a fragrant, defined and elegant wine. It sells for about $48, and I don’t know how the restaurant could afford to include it in the prix fix—but I’m certainly not complaining. It occurs to me that if you wanted to do the cooking and create a Burgundy wine dinner at home, all five of these wines would cost only $127 (plus tax) and be certainly enough for six people.
All the prices mentioned are retail at Domaine Wines on Pantigo Road in East Hampton. Even if Ms. Menser, Mr. Loewenberg, Mr. Nolan and Mr. Franey did not make an awful lot of money that night, they made a lot of friends.
