Stratus @Beckta Winemaker's Dinner [Events]

2009 Mar 1
It's the weekend, and you know what that means, right? Yup, it's time to clear the food pictures out of your camera!

I had heard rumblings that Stratus was going to be having a winemaker's dinner at Beckta as part of the Taste of Winterlude festivities, and was fortunate enough to get a reservation booked the day after the announcement was posted on Beckta's web page. Was it announced anywhere else? To be honest, I don't know.

Both J-L Groux (the winemaker) and Charles Baker (the Director of Marketing and Sales) were on hand to play host, introduce the wines, and field any questions.

I'll admit freely that we're regular visitors of Stratus, but even with all those visits we'd never had the chance to talk to J-L personally. He's a really nice guy: very approachable, very thoughtful, good sense of humour.

The meal was fantastic, and the wines were sublime. All-around a fantastic collaboration between a top-tier Ottawa restaurant and a top-tier Ontario winery. Both chef and winemaker were given rounds of applause at the end of the night. Not a complaint to be heard throughout the meal: just a lot of "Mmmmmmmmm"s and "Oh lordy"s. (That last one was probably me.)

When we arrived we were poured a welcome drink: a glass of their 2006 White. (Apparently it was originally going to be their 2007 Riesling, but they decided against it at the last minute.) As mentioned in the Winterlude Wine Tasting thread (www.ottawafoodies.com), this wine is pretty impressive, especially considering it was only bottled a month or so ago.

I didn't take notes (and only brought a tiny point-and-shoot camera), so I'm just going to crib the critic's notes that were provided on the "wine menu", even though they're pretty over-the-top. John Szabo had this to say about the 2006 White:

[It] could even be the best yet. Although barrel notes are evident, they are superbly integrated and will add simply another layer of complexity in time. There is plenty of lovely, fresh pineapple, peach, orange blossom, violet essence aromas, while the palate is fullish and solidly structured with both fatness and vibrant acidity, creating a creamy yet well-defined flavour profile. It is rare to find delicacy allied to such weight and power. The finish is very long and perfumed. Very fine indeed.

Me, I'm content to say that there's a heck of a lot going on in the glass, and each time you take a sip you catch something different. It's a wine to linger over, and it's only going to get more complex as it ages.

The 2006 White was also served with the amuse bouche, pictured here: tuna tartare, with caponata and microgreens. It worked really well with the White for the same reason that the White works well on its own: there's a lot going on. You get the fullness of the tuna, the sweet-and-sour of the caponata (think eggplant relish with vinegar), and the pepperiness of the microgreens, and then you tie it all together with the White.


2009 Mar 1
Next course was butter-poached lobster, served on top of a vanilla-grilled fig, with some brown butter polenta. There's some purple basil on the plate there too, somewhere.

Delightfully wintry preparation of something that I almost exclusively eat during the summer. The lobster was delicate and cooked perfectly, the brown butter polenta was a fantastic accompaniment, and the vanilla fig provided a bit of sweetness and accented the wine.

This was served with the 2004 Stratus White, which was noticeably darker than the 2006 thanks to the extra age. While the proportions may be different, they're both made with similar varietals. The 2004 White is a blend of Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, and Riesling. The 2006 White has all those, plus Viognier.

Gordon Stimmell mentions "a lushly floral mélange accents of peach, spicy apple, nectarine, and apricot." It's been two years since that review and it's still happy days.

I have a couple of bottles of this 04 still, and I would love to hang onto one of them for at least another two years, to see what it ends up being like.

2009 Mar 1
Now, onto the meat courses. First up we have a pair of veal preparations.

On the left we have a crispy sweetbread on a Banyuls-glazed apple. On the right, loin on a mushroom/shallot ragout.

Again, a great tour of flavours and textures: the crisp outside, buttery inside of the sweetbread, the softness of the ragout, and the firmness of the loin and apple all in one big happy family.

Served with the 2004 Stratus Red which, in the words of David Lawrason, "Hits the palate like a river of silk, a lazy yet manicured flow of currant-raspberry fruit, vanilla mocha custard and gently spicy flavours. Its charm and grace almost underplay its complexity and depth."

This is why I'm not in the industry of wine critiquing.

It's a blend of the five Bordeaux varieties (Cab. Sauv., Cab. Franc, Merlot, Malbec, Petit Verdot), plus Gamay and Syrah. And it's delicious.

2009 Mar 1
Next, we have ostrich. Seared and served with parsnip purée, pomegranate jus, and some wilted red chard.

Served with the 2005 Stratus Red. Same varietals as the 2004, but different proportions, which Chris Waters says "is a thing of beauty when it opens up, with polished structure, elegant focus, and a firm, rich texture."

Rather than being poured by the Beckta wait staff, Charles Baker poured it himself, out of a big-honkin' double magnum. The cork is so huge it requires specialized tools to extract (a larger corkscrew?)

Sure, the ostrich was good, but the parnsip was killer. It was like the creamiest mashed potatoes I've ever tasted, only with parsnip. Man I love parsnips. The chard and pomegranate lift up and provide contrast to what would otherwise be a fairly . . . deep-flavoured dish.

2009 Mar 1
Annnnnd desert: another two-parter. On the left is a white chocolate-dried cranberry terrine, topped with what I believe is a raspberry compote, but I didn't write it down. On the right is a scoop of gelato (flavour unknown, maybe vanilla or lemon) topped with cinnamon meringue. I think that's toasted coconut on the bottom.

My fiancée found the terrine a little heavy and a little sweet, but loved the gelato/meringue combination. I gladly ate her remaining terrine.

Served with the 2007 Red Icewine, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Syrah. Evan Saviolidis said that it "reveals a perfume of guava, strawberry-rhubarb pie, plum and spice. . . .mid-weight with a long sweet finish that is buttressed by beautiful acid."

The tangy red berriness of the icewine was 100% necessary to cut the richness of the white chocolate terrine. I've heard that it's almost impossible to match white chocolate to dessert wines, and I can see why. This played more off the red berries throughout the preparation to bring those flavours forward.

The cinnamon in the meringue made for best friends forever with the icewine.

After that, Stephen Beckta came up, thanked us for attending, and gave us a little petit fours to go with our coffee/tea: a spoon of chocolate pudding with candied walnuts inside. Simple, but yummy. Chef Michael Moffatt and his Chef de Cuisine, Dirk McCabe, came up soon after to much applause, and fielded any questions people had about what they ate and how it was prepared. How nice of them!

(In hindsight, I should have asked him about the carrot syrup I had during a meal there a couple of years ago. I still dream of it!)

The meal was pricier than we usually do, but well worth it. If they do this again next year I am there without any second thoughts.

2009 Mar 1
OMG DO WANT.

I moved downtown a week ago. I live right around the corner from Beckta. THIS COULD BE VERY DANGEROUS.

2009 Mar 1
Dangerous, indeed! The way I see it, we only go maybe once a year, so it's worth it to splurge ;)

2009 Mar 1
Momomoto - As always thanks for sharing wine info (and of course food)... the pics by the way are great.

"The Man" and I were chatting today about how now that the sun seems to have suddenly reappeared this week, and Spring is on it's way, we are now restless for our next vacation... LOL.

So we got to dreaming about Niagara. As you know there are now close to 100 Wineries in the Region, and as much as a winelover might want to get to them all, it just isn't possible... always having to save some for the next trip... that, and there are always some you absolutely have to go back to from the year before. Anyhow... in the past we've concentrated on the far end of the Bench (Beamsville & Vineland) believe this year we'll focus more on NOTL area... hope to finally get to Stratus and Joseph's, as well as dropping in on old favourites Hillebrand, Jackson-Triggs and Marynissen. For me the trip can't come soon enough. LOL

2009 Mar 2
If you're heading to Stratus, try to book one of the sit-down tastings. It costs (I forget how much), but it's really handy to have someone walk you through it.