We continue to eat and drink well—and at reasonable prices. Off-season wine dinners at local restaurants offer good value and gastronomic good times. Our epicurean instincts led us to Main Street last night for an evening hosted by winemaker Gilles Martin of Sparkling Pointe, and sommelier Kelly Matis of The Living Room restaurant at the Maidstone hotel, priced at $85 exclusive of tax and tip.
Executive Chef James Carpenter created a menu spirited and sprightly enough to match precisely with four sparkling wines. We began with a smörgåsbord appetizer of gravlax, country paté and lobster pana cotta accompanied by the clean lively taste of Sparkling Pointe 2006 Brut. For a course of seared scallop, salmon, and carrot and ginger flan, we drank 2007 Topaz Imperial, a sparkling rosé. Crispy pork belly with braised cabbage was matched with 2004 Blanc de Blanc—made from the chardonnay grape. And a lovely duck breast with sweet potato puree came with 2000 Brut Seduction—a spectacularly good sparkling wine produced in the style of an authentic champagne. (Martin worked at Roederer and his Seduction has something of Roederer’s biscuity distinction.)
We returned to the Brut for an apple galette dessert, ending another typically Hamptons bon vivantish encounter. Well, not quite. We descended to the wine cellar to check it out before a final good night.