Tag: charles smith

Posted on by

The Gift of Terroir: Wine and Beer Dinners To Look Forward To For 2017

111 Wine Dinner Table Set Up

Wine culture offers an air of exclusivity that can sometimes deter novice curiosity. We all know that the best way to learn about wine is to drink it, but to educate one’s palate in the wine world requires a great deal of time and resources. I can’t justify cracking a $125 bottle of 2007 Beringer Reserve if I don’t understand what I’m tasting. Pairing dinners present perfect opportunities to sample boutique wines while cultivating an appreciation for the craft.

Aside from familiarizing amateur sommeliers with the good stuff, pairing dinners often provide a taste of the winery itself. Attendees gain access to precious anecdotes and old chestnuts as told by special guests, namely: winemakers, distributors, and chefs.

Preparing one of the courses at a 2016 dinner at VIA Italian Table.
Preparing one of the courses at a 2016 dinner at VIA Italian Table.

Plenty of restaurants in and around Massachusetts have recently added paired dinners to their repertoire, but The 111 Chophouse and VIA Italian Table have been hosting events of this sort for a long time. This year, VIA will delve deep into the art of beer pairing in addition to its traditional wine dinners.

VIA’s General Manager, Keith Carolan explains that he maintains three steadfast expectations for each of VIA’s events; in his humble opinion, dinners must prove: exclusive, educational and memorable.

A course at one of 111 Chop House's 2016 Wine Dinners.
A course at one of 111 Chop House’s 2016 Wine Dinners.
Exclusive

Seats are so limited and we feature wines and beers that people don’t simply have access to. For example the CasaSmith dinner in March, VIA is the only place in Massachusetts that you can enjoy all of Charles Smith’s Italian varietals under 1 roof.

Educational

This December the “Kings of Italy” refers to the most highly touted wines from some of the most highly touted producers Italy has to offer, Barolo, Brunello and Amarone. Instead of limiting the dinner to one region or one producer, hopefully it can shed some light on various regions of Italy that some people may not be accustomed to. The same can be said for all of the beer dinners. In a genre like Craft Beer that is so popular right now, we find that all of our guests learn something new every course, because we have local owners and Cicerones explaining the brewing process and culture of each brewery.

Memorable

Not only are we offering great wines and beers, but we give our chefs the creative license to explore things they haven’t previously attempted and work on dishes that haven’t been featured on our menu. The results have been fantastic.

Here’s a peek at the 2017 lineup:

The 111 Chophouse

Beringer Private Reserve Dinner – February 28th– $150.00
Robert Craig Dinner – March 28th– $125.00
Etude Winery Dinner – April 25th – $125.00
Far Ninete-Nickel & Nickel Dinner – September 19th – $150.00
Joseph Phelps Insignia – October 17th– $150.00
Pahlmeyer – November 14th – $160.00

 

VIA Italian Table

The Wines of CasaSmith Dinner – March 7th – $70
Wormtown Brewery Dinner – April 4th – $70
New Belgium Brewing Dinner – June 6th – $70
Jack’s Abby Brewing Dinner – October 3rd – $70
The Wines of Antinori Dinner – December 5th – $90

Ditch the wrapping paper this holiday season; instead of splurging on a highbrow bottle from the ritziest package store in town, consider offering your loved ones a distinguished experience.

Posted on by

Merlot: A Call for Redemption

Citizen Merlots

Citizen Merlots

Merlot, meaning “little blackbird” in French, has been used to produce some of the most important wines in the world.  It offers notes of plum, blackberry, cassis, mocha and dark chocolate, and can be described as similar to Cabernet Sauvignon but with softer tannins and a more feminine structure.  It sounds like an enjoyable wine, so why has Merlot fallen out of favor with much of the wine consuming public?

To find the answer I think we have to look into the past. Merlot had long been a favorite in wine circles and because of its popularity, became the chosen varietal for mass-produced jug wines.  It is much easier to make an inexpensive Merlot palatable than an inexpensive Cabernet Sauvignon, since the Cab tends to be higher in harsh tannins. As production of cheap Merlot increased, so did the disdain for it.  However, writing off Merlot can cause as much self-deprivation as writing off Chablis and Burgundy – two varietals similarly associated with notoriously cheap jug wines.

The last nail in the coffin of Merlot’s reputation was the critically acclaimed movie from 2004, Sideways. The movie follows two middle-aged men as they take a week long trip through the California Wine Country with one of the men continually denigrating Merlot and speaking highly of Pinot Noir. As audiences were bad-mouthing Merlot, and swearing it off forever, they actually missed the final punch line of the movie, which was the main character, Miles, drinking his prized 1961 Château Cheval Blanc, a blend of Merlot and Cabernet Franc.

After the release of the movie, Pinot Noir’s popularity sky-rocketed and Merlot’s popularity plummeted, leaving Merlot producers with a lot of work ahead of them to fix the tarnished image. Ironically enough, the abundance of poorly made Merlot has now been replaced with an oversaturation of poorly made Pinot Noir.

Katie Kelly with one of her favorite Merlots, Seven Hills

The intention of this piece is not to bash the admittedly hilarious movie, Sideways, or to claim that Merlot is the greatest varietal ever to exist. Being somewhat a Merlot ambassador myself though, I am constantly trying to convert the staff at The Citizen and our guests into Merlot enthusiasts by asking them to give the wine a chance. To do this, we serve an array of some of the best and most affordable expressions of Merlot we can find, starting with Charles Smith’s Velvet Devil. This wine offers great depth and richness with notes of dark plum, mocha and coffee, proving to be a true crowd-pleaser, even for guests that “don’t usually like Merlot.”  Paired with the earthy cheeses, beef brisket or  dry-aged sirloins also found at The Citizen, Velvet Devil Merlot is the perfect complement.

After you try the Velvet Devil Merlot, we have other great options available by the glass or bottle from some of the great Merlot-producing regions of the world, such as Washington State, Sonoma Valley, and Bordeaux. It’s time to put down the Pinot Noir this one time, and participate in Merlot’s great redemption.