Wine Pairings for 2022 Valentine's Winemaker's Dinner

​Happy New Year everyone! 2021 was another whirlwind of a year and one of my resolutions for 2022 here at the vineyard is getting back to the “Out of the Barrel'' blog providing insider content from Bluestone. I’ve missed writing about different things going on at the vineyard and what better way to get back to it than tell you all about our upcoming winemaker’s dinner.

Over the years guests have asked, “how do you come up with these food and wine pairings?” Which is why I’ve decided to focus this blog post around that question and give guests an inside look at how we come up with our dinner pairings.

​Deciding on what wines to pair with our winemaker’s dinners is a team effort. Usually there are a handful of us at Bluestone who come together and get a sneak peak of the menu for each dinner. The table usually looks something like the picture to the right, including wine glasses, notebooks and a wide variety of wines. It’s a hard job, but somebody has to do the research!

So where do you begin? Well, as I have mentioned before in a previous post about pairings, it comes down to two main things: personal preference and balance. Just so it doesn’t get too overwhelming on what to focus on, for me, I look at the main part of the dish and then look at sauces, seasonings, how it was prepared, etc. to see what might work well. With each course we can narrow down the choices, but it's hard to pair something and have a final conclusion until you actually try the food and wine together.

For the first course Chef Brian Gooch chose a farro, apple, beet and spiced walnut salad with a tarragon peppercorn dressing. Salads are an exciting course to pair because they can vary so much between the greens that are used in addition to any fruits, grains and vegetables plus the various styles of dressings. With this course we looked at some of our crisp white wines as well as barrel fermented ones. Salads are a lighter dish in general and you don’t want to have an overly complex wine otherwise it may make the salad bitter.  After going through a few options, we decided on our 2020 Odd Bird. Odd Bird is one of our Vineyard Sites Series wines that is made with mostly red grapes (40% Cabernet Franc, 31% Petit Verdot, 22% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Petit Manseng). Yes, you did read that correctly. It is a white wine made with red grapes and yes, that is possible to do.  I don’t want to spoil all the details, so I’ll leave the rest for Lee to talk about the night of the dinner. 

The second course of the dinner is an Arancini Mozzarella. Arancini is a scrumptious Sicilian snack prepared by rolling cooked rice around a delicious filling (in this case mozzarella) then breading and frying these rice balls until delectably crispy and golden. The mozzarella adds an ooey-gooey and delicious center. With the focus on the mozzarella, this was a great course to test out matching flavor profiles or trying to pair opposite flavors that balance each other out. For this course we decided on matching flavor profiles. The mozzarella matches the lightly oaked and creaminess of our 2017 Chardonnay. This wine uses all estate grown fruit and was a gold medal winner in the 2021 Virginia Governor’s cup. 

Arancini Mozzarella

​Our third course of the Valentine’s Winemaker’s Dinner is Beef Wellington with a demi-glace and sides of duchess potatoes and roasted tri-colored carrots. For that course I started with the main portion of the dish, which is beef. Typically with beef I go straight to red, but what kind of red? With this dish there were a few reds that came to mind and each for different reasons. I looked at the vintage, age, and/or structure of my choices and then tasted through each one to get a better idea of how the food and wine did or didn’t work together. Ultimately, it was decided among the group to go with our 2017 Houndstooth. Houndstooth is a blend of 38% Cabernet Franc, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Petit Verdot, 12% Merlot.  This particular vintage has hearty tannins, but not too overpowering. The wine also has a good balance of acidity that cuts through the fat of the beef. Acidity is often a main component to consider when pairing wine with food. Not to mention this wine did recently win the Shenandoah Cup as judges voted it the top wine in the Shenandoah Valley wine region. 

Beef Wellington with a demi-glace and sides of duchess potatoes and roasted tri-colored carrots

​Now what is a Valentine’s meal without dessert? Not only with one deliciously paired wine option, but two! The best part is that guests get to choose which wine they would prefer to enjoy their dessert with. The flourless chocolate torte is a satisfying ending to this meal that is rich in taste and texture and is accompanied with chocolate ganache and raspberry coulis. While this dessert may be rich, it is not overly sweet, which is why it is a great opportunity to offer two different wines to choose from. 

Let's start with our 2015 Dry Dock, an estate grown Port-style wine made with Norton grapes aged in whiskey barrels. This is a dry Port-style with a higher ABV (alcohol by volume) of 16.1%. Since this wine has some age to it, the tannins and acidity are beginning to soften and age is a good thing for wines made with Norton grapes. This combination, especially with the chocolate ganache, balances the intensity of Dry Dock. The second wine option, which is quite opposite of Dry Dock, is Crooked & Weedy, our semi-sweet red. In the case with Crooked & Weedy, even though it has sweetness, it plays off the fruitiness of the raspberry coulis. Both are delicious options and you can’t go wrong with either, it's just a matter of your personal preference.  

Flourless Chocolate Torte accompanied with Chocolate Ganache & Raspberry Coulis

Having said all of that, you can just take my word for these pairings or you can come taste for yourself. Tickets may be purchased online or over the phone by calling 540-828-0099. Tickets are $79.50 (plus tax) per person. Press Club members' price is $71.55 (plus tax). *Limited 2 at this price per membership.* Don’t delay! Tickets are selling fast and we have a limited amount of seats available for this event, especially for tables of 2. Tickets will be available until February 8th at 6 pm. 

Thanks for reading this edition of Out of the Barrel! Cheers!