Whenever you can pick the palate of a master sommelier, you can only benefit from the expertise. Such is the case with the 24 lucky diners who will attend a six-course wine dinner with Forbes Travel Guide Tastemaker Larry Stone tonight at Aria in Atlanta. This sold-out event will showcase chef Gerry Klaskala’s culinary creativity paired with five wines from Huneeus Vintners, a wine company that includes 10 different wineries in North and South America. Stone serves as estates director for the company’s Quintessa and Neyen wineries. The menu for the $100 dinner will be highlighted by dishes such as crumb-crusted red snapper with sweet ‘n sour kumquats and Carolina quail with fennel sausage. Although Stone will present the wines at the meal, all of the food selections were made by chef Klaskala.
“During the tasting,” Klaskala recalls of the pairing process, “they presented us with some excellent wines that they thought would work best. Afterwards, I was able to come up with dishes that I knew would complement and enhance the wines.”
Stone adds, “Aria was chosen [as the location for this dinner] because Gerry has demonstrated a great sensitivity to food, and he’s been a supporter of the wines that we make over the years. We’ve left all of the decisions about food and pairings to him because we wouldn’t do this if we didn’t trust him… Unless I go and eat with the chef, it’s really hard to dictate something from abroad.”
We caught up with the nomadic sommelier (at the time of our interview, Stone had been on the road for three weeks straight) to discuss the wines that chef Klaskala chose for this evening’s affair. Next time you find yourself in need of a perfect complement for your own culinary masterpiece, consider Stone’s eloquent words:
Ritual Sauvignon Blanc
Casablanca Valley, Chile, 2011
“This is a cold-climate, lighter-style sauvignon blanc. It would go really well with some lighter seafood or appetizers. It has beautiful citrusy and straw-like notes to it. I expect this will be paired with a lighter dish, and I hope — no, I’m sure — that I’ll be pleasantly surprised.”
Illumination Sauvignon Blanc
Napa Valley, 2011
“This is a full-bodied Napa Valley sauvignon blanc. It’s very fresh and crisp, and it has more passion fruit and guava-like notes to it, with slight citrus peel nuances. But mainly, it has this really weighty texture; it’s beautiful and would go with a richer fish or poultry.”
Ritual Pinot Noir
Casablanca Valley, Chile, 2011
“This is an elegant, lighter style of pinot noir with red cherry and black-tea-like notes to it, and a long finish that’s very smooth. Again, this would go well with lighter meat dishes or game birds.”
Faust Cabernet Sauvignon
Napa Valley, 2010
“This is a full-bodied Napa Valley cabernet. It has bright red fruits. It’s mainly made from Coombsville cabernet sauvignon. Coombsville is an area in the southern end of Napa Valley where you have slightly cooler temperatures, so you get little notes of tarragon, red cherry, cranberry and raspberry. There’s a little bit of fruit from Rutherford and Oakville to it, which gives a little nuance of black cherry to the aroma profile.”
Quintessa
Napa Valley, 2009
“This is a very powerful Rutherford cabernet with very fine and polished tannins. It’s a wine that people call ‘elegant’ because the tannins are so smooth and round, it seems like it doesn’t have as much intensity as some other wines in Napa. But, actually, it is quite powerful, a very intense and long-lived wine. It’s like Fred Astaire — you don’t think of him as being particularly athletic or strong, but you know that any dancer with that kind of technique has to be very athletic and well trained. It’s that way with Quintessa. You notice how elegant it is, you just don’t notice how strong it is because you’re just marveling at how beautiful it is on the palate.”
