Dinner at The Seafood Restaurant St Andrews

          For my second post I will write up a dinner I had last week at the Seafood Restaurant St Andrews, a 3 Rosette restaurant overlooking the stunning West Sands beach, next door to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club and the 18th green of the Old Course. I was with three of my best friends, Graylyn Loomis, Matt Birchall and Jamie Forlan, who all share a passion for fine dining experiences, wine and whisky. The meal was a sort of welcome back to university event for us and for that reason we decided to go all out, within reason. 

          The wine I had chosen for the evening was a combination from their list and my own collection. We started with a glass of the house Delamotte Brut Champagne and followed it up with a 2010 Joseph Drouhin Saint-Véran with our starters. With the intermediate course I brought along a 2007 Joh. Jos. Prüm Wehlener-Sonnenuhr Spätlese, to be followed by a 2008 Domaine Drouhin Pinot Noir from Oregon's Williamette Valley. With dessert we had the house Tokaji, and finished the dinner with cheese accompanied by a 2008 Ridge Lytton Springs Zinfandel from Sonoma County, California. Afterwards one of my friends Graylyn (some of whose pictures are in this post) provided us with the Royal and Ancient's No.1 Blend Scotch Whisky to enjoy with a cigar.

          Now I should mention that I work at the Seafood Restaurant and this helped a great deal. I had been before, but never for a late dinner with wines such as these. I believe dining out has everything to do with the experience and this restaurant certainly provides that - the link to their website is on the left hand side of this page and they have a facebook page also, search for 'The Seafood Restaurants'.

First Course

          After enjoying bread and an amuse bouche of salmon tartare with the champagne, we moved on the the Joseph Drouhin. The Saint-Véran is a great entry level wine for the taster trying to get to grips with Burgundy and the different styles of Chardonnay it produces. It is a very recent appellation and is generally regarded as being between Pouilly-Fuissé and Macon-Villages in terms of quality. The Drouhin is not expensive either - priced at around 13-17 pounds per bottle (restaurant around 30-40). As ours was young it was showing a very floral nose without too much oakiness to it. On tasting it is immediately recognisable as a wine with a great deal of complexity and structure to it, unusually so for its price. There was a hint of nutty oaky depth and sweetness to it by the back of the palate which was beautifully curtailed with subtle acidity on the finish and the citrus notes still evident because of its youth. I was accompanying a shellfish ravioli with crispy leeks and a fennel foam and it matched the strength of the heat in the sauce beautifully. Others were eating a smoked salmon starter and enjoyed the mixture of the complexity wrapping the saltiness of the capers on the dish. 

Picture from http://www.drouhin.com/fr/vins/saint-veran-2010.php#/FicheVin/88/2010

Second Course

           For our second course we shared a cold seafood platter. This is one of the Seafood Restaurant's main showpieces. In it we had a healthy portion of mussels, twelve crevettes, a lobster, a crab and six oysters, all locally sourced and delivered daily. In my opinion the perfect match for sweet meats such as lobster and crab (as detailed below!) is a semi-sweet German Riesling. While Maximin Grünhaus is my favourite vineyard in the region, Joh. Jos. Prüm is a very close second, merely for cost reasons. The Wehlener-Sonnenuhr Spätlese can be bought for around 25-30 pounds and is definitely worth it. As the name suggests it is from the Wehlener-Sonnenuhr vineyards in the Mittelmosel where they enjoy the most sun of the Mosel region. This means that the grapes ripen easier and the wines are often more full-bodied. This wine proved to be a hit with everyone at the table - the chilled seafood matched the sweetness of the wine and allowed the fruity flavours to develop in ways one can only experience. Although it is a little too early to be opening a wine of this calibre only four years after it was made, the flavours had sufficiently developed to provide a truly stunning combination of ripe pear, peach and balancing acidity.  

Third Course

Picture courtesy of Graylyn Loomis

For our third course we returned to the menu proper and ordered a main. I had sea bass with moules marinieres, samphire and sauteed potatoes with pancetta, as did two of the others. Matt had pan-fried scallops with a apple puree and pork belly. For this combination of seafood and meat with thick sauces and purees we needed something with more body than a white can offer without it being a 200 pound oaked Burgundy Chardonnay. I chose an Oregon Pinot Noir which continues to be one of my favourite wines I've ever tried. As soon as the cork is popped the nearby area immediately is hit by the aroma - an deeply fruity sweetness with hints of blossom. This is only intensified once poured into the glass. It has the complexity and finesse of a Burgundian Pinot Noir, but of one that is a far higher price bracket. This can be purchased for around 30 pounds. It is very light in colour yet packs a classically american punch. There are hints of vanilla, dark fruits and strawberries with a lasting taste that tapers into a smooth yet lengthy, gripping finish. The tannins more than adequately paired with the salty fatty pancetta, pork and scallop meat, while the light blossomy fruit matched the fish and apple puree. This turned out to be one of the best matches I have ever experienced.   

Fourth and Fifth Courses

Picture courtesy of Graylyn Loomis

          Course number four was relatively standard fare - the desserts were exquisitely made and the Tokaji was fitting. There was nothing tremendously outstanding about it, however. It matched well but was too sticky and sweet for my taste - that seems to be a recurring theme for me and Tokaji, so I shall move on to the cheese and the sixth wine. This is perhaps becoming somewhat of a highlight real of my favourite vineyards and wines and this one is no different: my favourite producer in California. It is Ridge whose Monte Bello Cabernets have been stunning for the last twenty years and more. We enjoyed a Lytton Springs Zinfandel which is from a little further north than the Santa Cruz mountains, in Sonoma County. A great deal of the time Californian Zinfandel can be way over the top to the point were it is no longer enjoyable and it is hard to find a match for it in terms of food. Ridge seem to have found a formula at Lytton Springs. It is a big wine for sure, but one that is subtle, one that develops once decanted, and one that I have chosen a few times over Cabernet blends. It provides everything a Zinfandel should: peppery spice, deep black fruits, hints of a cherry-like sweetness. On top of that, despite being extremely young (this vintage will last for quite a few years in the cellar) it shows great complexity and a lingering full-bodied and well-balanced finish. With it we ate a strong scottish blue cheese, a pungent Morangie brie and a Kintyre cheddar. Personally I thought it matched best with the cheddar, as a Cabernet would. It brought out the taste of crunchy fresh apples a crisp fruit juiciness on the palate before taking over the finish and leaving the mouth with a tannic grip that wasn't overpowering and lasted a good 30 seconds. 

Picture courtesy of Graylyn Loomis

All in all it turned out to be one of the best dining experiences I have had - due to a combination of excellent company, stunning food, exquisite wine and incredible whisky (which will be detailed in a later post). Do get in touch if you'd like to know more about them, or where to find them! I hope you get the chance to try them at some point.

German Riesling: An Overlooked Gem

I have chosen here to write not about one single bottle to start, but about a vineyard and what I have had the pleasure of trying from them. These are not your typical wines nowadays and I would be willing to bet that more than a few of you at a restaurant would turn your nose up at the suggestion of one, or would completely overlook the section of the wine list without a second glance. This in my opinion is a tragedy!

The country is Germany, the region Mosel and the grape Riesling. The vineyard is Maximin Grünhaus, situated in the picturesque village of Mertesdorf a couple of miles up a feeding stream of the Mosel river. Nowadays the Riesling grape is undergoing somewhat of a revival in the New World, especially in New Zealand and Australia. Alsace is an Old World location where the grape is very popular and it produces a decent, and at times extremely good, complex, dry wine. These are very nice wines and go very well as a replacement for the regular white suspects from the Loire and Marlborough, especially if they originate from Domaine Ostertag.

At Maximin Grünhaus they have been making wine in the old style for hundreds of years and continue a tried and tested method that produces the best Riesling available, in my opinion, in the whole world of wine.

The site has been producing wine for over 1000 years and a significant proportion of the vines are that age. This, coupled with the intense minerality of the soil from the incredibly fertile Mosel river region, lends the makers an unrivaled advantage built into the very fabric of the terroir they are tending. For the last 100 years or so the same family has been in charge of it, the von Schuberts, and they all have been incredibly passionate about what they produce.

On the estate there are three vineyards: the Abtsberg (which originally supplied wine to the nearby monastery's Abbot), the Herrenberg (which supplied to the choirmasters) and the Bruderberg (which supplied the monks). The first two produce the most significant and award-winning wines today, the Abtsberg especially. Each of these produce wines of different levels of sweetness, classified by German wine regulations as Kabinett (least sweet), Spätlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese (most sweet). I shall detail the Abtsberg Kabinett, and briefly the Auslese below.

The Kabinett can be bought for between 20 and 25 pounds and should be the first German Riesling anyone tries – it is the perfect entry level wine with the right food pairing. The general rule is that the more sweet, the more expensive. The Auslese can be bought for around 30, while the Trockenbeerenauslese (which is extremely rare) cannot be found for less than about 400 per bottle.

The first thing anyone can notice when the Kabinett is poured is the straw colour of the wine. There may even be a slightest hint of fizzy air bubbles clinging to the side of the glass if left for a couple of minutes. On the nose there are rich and ripe apples, pears with a hint of pineapple also. Always in the background there is a hint of acidity which would let a taster know that it was the driest of the classified Rieslings. On the palate the initial taste is sugary fruitiness. There is a hint of effervescence on the tongue followed by an extremely flowery, delicate and appley taste. As soon as it is swallowed, the finish begins. It is very long-lasting and the wine continues to develop, showing its dry acidity which cuts the residual sugar and sweetness and gives the taster hints of lime and minerality. It is incredibly well-developed, well-rounded and complex and the combination of flavours mix subtly throughout the process. Recently I have drunk the 2007 with various dishes. Scallops with an apple purée worked very well, as did oysters and lobster. The stand-out dish however was boiled crab with a chilled orange consommé. The sweetness of the crab meat matched perfectly in the mouth with the residual sugar in the Riesling, while the tart consommé at the back of the palate was equaled by the acidity and lengthy finish of the wine.

The Auslese is more of a dessert wine and the restaurant I worked in over the summer served it by the glass in accompaniment to their cheese list. I've had the chance to try the 2005 as well as the 2007 and 2008. The 2005 is much more developed, but won't last much more than the next few years – drink it while you can! It is exquisite with blue cheese of any kind, the saltier the better – the effervescence wraps the blue well enough to then let the residual sugar give that dessert wine feel afterwards. It isn't quite full or sweet enough to be a replacement for dessert wines with sweet dishes, but is unrivaled with cheese.