* * * C O N T I N U E D F R O M L A S T M E S S A G E * * * scents and flavors. I had to swish my mouth with water between sips of the stuff, most of which I left. Columbia Winery Wyckoff Chard 1993. This was pushed on us by the sommelier, (in fact, he gave it to us free) and he knew what he was doing. The oak here was pronounced but mellow, and just a little more acidity gave the wine sufficient life to cut through the rich food. An impossibly long and complex finish. I was tempted to go to the winery to order a bunch of it, but then I found out what the price of it was. Sixteen a bottle at the winery on sale; so for that price I got one of their Cabs (more later). Dessert was creme caramel - we each had one (she wanted it after she tasted mine; she had previously been too full to order any). Silky and perfect on top, a little pastiness developed at the bottom of the flan. I guess that that was how they ensured that it would set up, but I was disappointed that they tipped their hand, as it were. Not that it was bad - I'd rate the top 2/3 of the serving as the equal of the guava custard at East Coast Grill or the flan at the restaurant in Taipei I. wrote about a year ago, and the rest of it was the equal of most people's, perfectly fine with the drizzling of light caramel sauce and the fresh berries (3 each blueberries, strawberries, and blackberries) that garnished the dish. Apex late-harvest Riesling 1990 (substituting for Stewart, same). The wine man had taken a liking to us by this point, I guess, and whisked away our Stewart without our having tasted it (it has a good reputation), substituting what he said was his own favorite, not on the menu, from winemaker David (I think) Carter. This wine was clearly richer than the Stewart would have been, a goldeny noble-rotted thick unctuous leggy substance that I could drink only in tiny sips. Complex fruits - tropical, citrus, what have you, and a lot of botrytis honey. The only defect was that the little bitter edge that I expect in a late-harvest was just the merest whisper compared to the fat sweetness of the wine. Good acid, but just the tiniest bit out of perfect balance, the imbalance being in the direction that most people would like anyhow, so perhaps it was intentional. Well, we were enjoying the wine so much that Mr. Marr the sommelier brought out something special. He gave me a sniff, and I said ... slowly ... "Is this -really- a domestic product?" I'd told him that I was interested in West Coast wines on this trip, and I was truly surprised that anything like it could be produced anywhere here, and as it turned out, what he had pulled out for us from his private hat was a glass of Warre's Porto 1965 (this is what he said, but I think it was 1966). Red fading to an attractive brownish, this was a wine of great smoothness, with none of the edges that an immature port (the only kind most of us afford to drink). Plums, dried fruit of all sorts with a warm woody smokiness permeating the whole. The alcohol nose was much softened, and the finish took us into the next county. It took the Apex, which had been a rich, fine wine and rolled it up and put it away. A sunset wine. - - - Rover's is one of the happening places on the PacNW. In a rundown but now gentrifying neighborhood of Seattle, its setting, in a recessed courtyard off busy Madison St. E, is particularly incongruous - the outdoor dining area overlooks some not-very-interesting shops and a nice big dumpster, and from the rooms in the back of the restaurant (a converted house, as many of the restaurants around here seem to be), you look out onto a pleasant lower-middle-class residential neighborhood. The dining rooms are spare, the china and tableware the usual stuff, although wine glasses are good crystal. Chef Thierry Rautureau has put together a fine but idiosyncratic menu that features local products: everyone says to order the degustation, with its many courses, but when faced with a carte that included scallops with foie gras in lobster sauce, salmon and goat cheese mousse, and guinea fowl with a fruit sauce on the same dinner, my sense of propriety said no, especially considering the difficulty of choosing wines that would go with each course without bumping into one another. We opted for an interesting enough suite of selections. Pea soup (fresh sugar snap puree, garnished with corn cut off the cob, Mediterranean mussels, asparagus tips). This was not your ordinary pea soup. It was an intense concentration of sugar snap flavor, the sweetness of the other vegetables augmenting it nicely, the plump and delicate mussels a note of contrast. I had foie gras in a demi-glace with sauteed nectarine, the obligatory fancy mixed-greens salad with balsamic vinegar and walnut oil dressing accompanying. The foie gras was the best I've had - seared outside, with one side lightly dusted with sea salt. It was rich and weightless at the same time, the was foie gras should be. Thin nectarine slices provided an acid contrast and might have been more suited to the dish had they been raw instead of sauteed in butter. The sauce was a straightforward brown sauce with a dash more of balsamic. With this we drank Ch. Filhot 1988, the right blend of fruit, acid, and rich sweetness. Good Botrytis flavor and color, good length. I believe that this is an underrated wine. People say it's too straightforward, * * * C O N T I N U E D T O N E X T M E S S A G E * * * * KingQWK 1.05 # 187 *
Seattle, WA