6 Courses of Pleasure Champagne and Sparkling Wine Dinner – A Celebration with Mayfair & Pine and Thibaut-Janisson

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6 Courses of Pleasure Champagne and Sparkling Wine Dinner – A Celebration with Mayfair & Pine and Thibaut-Janisson

December 9th, 2012 • No Comments

This dinner showcased how sparkling wines make flavors shine..

Top Chef Emily Sprissler I love wine dinners – ESPECIALLY Champagne Dinners! On Friday, Dec. 8th, 2012 I attended a 6-Course celebration of Champagne’s and Sparkling wines by producer Thibaut-Janisson Winery paired with Top Chef Emily Sprissler’s Gastropublicious cuisine at her restaurant Mayfair & Pine in Glover Park, D.C. I took pictures of each course and some of the wines as well, so you can skip to the bottom of this post to see how we dined – Very Well! A quick FYI – I actually had organized in the past many wine dinners and cooking classes in the same location when it was a French Bistro called Saveur. Glover Park is an area about 1 mile north of Georgetown on Wisconsin Ave., NW which is still trying to define itself. It has Whole Foods Market as an anchor, but it never had the right mix of restaurants – that is changing rapidly with some re-development and and also a Sweetgreen which brings a quality demographic to the area.

The meal began with an aperitif which was the sparkling wine served also with the first course – Virginia Fizz. It’s a good starter wine which is light, crisp and not too minerally and with a touch of sweetness to get your taste buds going! The first course was a delicious slightly sweet pumpkin soup that Chef Sprissler said was “like pumpkin pie in a bowl”..it also had a nice aromatic touch of truffle oil, this was a very nice starting dish. Afterward we had the goat cheese which were little balls (I thought they were quail eggs!) like Mozzarella bocconcini with a spicy tomato almost salsa which contrasted nicely – creamy/sweet to spicy/savory..and of course those little toast squares! The third course was Chef Emily Sprissler’s own take on the bar food she ate when she worked as a chef in London and had little money for food – The samosas had handmade puff pastry (once a rarity, but great chefs like Sprissler are really starting to raise their game – one of the things Foodies can credit to both the TV show Top Chef and the fact that chefs travel the world to perfect their craft). The first 3 courses were paired with Virginia Sparkling Wines by Thibaut-Janisson – the speaker for the first 3 VA wines was owner Claude Thibaut who explained about the challenges of growing grapes and making wine in Virginia’s climate vs. in the Champagne region of France.

The last three dishes were paired my Manuel Janisson who is the Champagne side of this wine producer – as you may or may not know, Champagne is actually a region and unlike American wines, the French tend to label according to region/appellation (like Bordeaux and Burgundy). Interestingly, it was difficult to tell the wines were French vs. Virginian – although acidity levels and minerality tend to be higher in the cooler region French Champagnes, these winemakers are so expert that they know how to make great wines from their respective vineyards.

My favorite dish had to be the Lobster Béarnaise – it was exquisite luxury with that buttery sauce and the rich lobster combined! The richness of this dish was perfectly offset by the acidity/minerality of the Champagne which made each bite go from creamy to refreshing and again – something you have to try! We had the richest of the Champagnes with the richest of dishes which are always served last – the fall-apart succulent Braised Short Ribs and the decadent Chocolate Pear Tart (with a scoop of ice cream). The idea of pairing a Champagne with red meat vs. the traditional rich red wine worked for an interesting reason: the grapes used for Rosé wines are Pinot Noir and sometimes Pinot Meunieure (but not in this case) making for a richer wine. Of course after 5 or 6 flutes of sparkling wine, I think my taste buds weren’t very active, and the banter and chatter of an enjoyable evening took over the event – as should be – Cheers!

Charlie “I Drink on the Job” Adler