'The Vin Alto Game Dinner'
After the enormous succes of our Game Dinner in June and upon many requests, we will have another Game Dinner on:
Saturday 11 September 2010
Starting 6.30 p.m.
Enzo's family have always been enthusiastic hunters. His father would bring home wonderful game from his hunting expeditions, while his mother would prepare this bounty and create traditional game dishes for the family to enjoy. Enzo has continued this tradition in New Zealand and regularly bags pheasants and hare on the farm or wild boar, chamois and tahr on hunting trips to the South Island.
Together with Margaret, Enzo has created a menu of traditional dishes, that combined with outstanding wines from Vin Alto, Italy and Germany, will guarantee a wonderful evening.
The Food
We will start the evening with a delicate pâté of smoked eel, caught in our stream and smoked in our smoke house. Our neighbour John will be under pressure to bag wild ducks, while Enzo will have to provide the hare, so Margaret can make her terrine of duck liver and hare fillets. The duck breasts will be used to make classic duck 'poppettine', which we will serve with orecchetti pasta and Mandarinello sauce.
Leaving small game behind we will move to South Island tahr, slowly cooked with mushrooms and red wine, before being turned into traditional little pies. In the meantime a whole venison saddle will be roasting in the wood oven as the 'evento principale' of the evening. Following this, as an excuse to try another great wine, Enzo is going to treat you to his mother's wild boar goulash, served with rustic Italian style bread from the wood oven.
To crown this feast Margaret will bake classic apple strudel and serve it with homemade vanilla ice cream.
The Wine
It goes without saying that wonderful food needs exceptional wine. We will offer a different wine with each course introducing new releases and gems from our private cellar and library stock.
The Vin Alto Pinot Grigio Riserva 2008 is a new release and will go very well with smoked eel pâté. The next wine is a Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) 1988 from one of the greatest producers in Germany, Weingut August Kesseler, very rare and still in great shape. In 1999 Enzo made his only 100% Sangiovese, a majestic wine and a perfect match with wild duck. Masi from Italy is synonymous with Amarone and Ripasso wines, the inspiration for our own Retico and Ritorno. These highly sought after and prized wines have great aging potential, as the Masi Campofiorin Ripasso 1997 will show. In Europe, deer is seen as a royal animal, deserving of the best wines from the cellar. The Vin Alto Retico 1998 is such a wine, made in a superb vintage, receiving royal treatment from vineyard to bottle. A real treat!
We never released our Nerreto (Syrah) 2000, as we only made enough to share with friends. It is very big and complex; reminiscent of the great Syrah's of the Rhone Valley, a worthy partner to the flavoursome wild boar goulash. We will finish soft and sweet with a glass of Vin Alto Vin Santo 2005.
The Game Dinner is $ 150.00 per person including wine
To book phone 09 292 8845 or email Christiaan
christiaan@vinalto.com
