Weekly Wine Notes From Brian Kemmerle
Bentley’s Wine Steward, Brian Kemmerle regularly offers his insight and experience to help select the perfect wine to accompany Chef Derek Ridgway’s dishes. Here is Brian’s recommended food and wine pairing for this week!
This week’s featured food and wine pairing is a testament to the long standing idea that red wines go with red meat. The dish, a Black Angus strip loin steak cooked over an open fire grill finished with a ragout of forest mushrooms and served with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus. The wine is the Seven Hills Winery 2007 Columbia Valley Merlot. The wine is sold out at the winery, but our local distributor still has a bit left of the previous vintage. The wine has nice plum and black cherry fruits with some darkly roasted coffee and grilled bread aromas. What makes this wine such a good food wine is the lack of excessive alcohol and the freshness of the acidity. The first should allow the wine to marry with the dish and not compete against it. The latter should cut through the richness of the dish and refresh your palate for the next bite. Cheers!
Photo Credit: Seven Hills Winery
Tags: Columbia Valley, Merlot, Seven Hills Winery, Steak
