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Short Cellar: Wine lovers' bailout |
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Written by Matthew Sullivan
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Thursday, 19 March 2009 |
 There is one bright side to living through this unprecedented economic meltdown; it will lend me a much needed gravitas when I become old and decrepit. I am already enjoying some great imaginary conversations with my hypothetical grandchildren.
“Eh? Elroy… ” I will mutter as the door to my cryogenic tank hisses open for my bi-annual visit to the commode, “Elroy, my boy, things got so bad in the Great Depression of Ought-Nine, it became almost impossible to mooch drinks from the partners at my firm. I was one of thousands that turned to blogging about wine just to scrape together a few measly samples. You can’t imagine the hardship!”
Yes, things are tough all over. This is why it brightened my day when I received an e-mail with the subject header “Wine Lover’s Bail-Out” from the downtown Toronto restaurant and wine-bar Reds (77 Adelaide Street West, 416.862.7337). Reds is offering a prix fixe menu for the month of March: five courses and four matching wines from the excellent Tawse Winery, all for $50.
Normally, I balk at Reds. Their wine list is impressively long, but it is also expensive and has many bottles that are not ready to drink. This menu, however, is a no-brainer. If your annual bonus has just been confiscated by the US Government, you can hardly ask for a better way to stretch your dollars.
Both Reds food and wine were superb. Particularly delicious was the first course, a charcuterie plate that stands up to any cured meat west of Montreal. Although I would normally pair charcuterie with a light red wine, Reds creatively deployed the 2007 Tawse Echos Riesling ($18 from winery). This is a concentrated, tightly wound dynamo of a wine, and its citrus spritz cut right through the fat in the cold cuts.
The other highlight in the meal was a saddle of rabbit with wild mushroom risotto. Saddle is one of my favourite cuts. It’s a flavourful tube of meat capped with a layer of fat that tastes as light and foamy as sea spray. In the hands of Michael Steh, Reds’ chef, the rabbit was rich but not heavy and utterly delicious. It was well-matched with the 2007 Tawse Pinot Noir ($32.00 from winery). This is a spicy, scrappy Pinot, with plenty of complexity and texture that evokes cinnamon sticks, dried herbs and balsa wood.
Frankly, the wine alone is worth $50. Throwing the five courses on top is an act of charitable largesse to a penny pinching wine lover like myself. I guess I’ll have to find a way to make my life sound a little more hardscrabble if I want to impress my grandkids.
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