While Dinner Tonight has, historically, focused upon relatively simple dinners with wines to pair for a single evening, we decided to take a slightly different approach this time around and offer an alternative dinner strategy made for a weekend or just a few days off.  In some way, it fits into the popular term “staycation,” a stay at home vacation.  We decided that our weekend dinner dishes and wines would focus upon Europe.  Those of you who read the Wine and Food Pairing segment know that I love the concept of regionality when it comes to pairing wine with cuisine.

Saturday evening was a trip to France featuring AJ’s mussels in a white wine sauce followed by Coq au Vin and finished off with Poached Pears with Cream Fraiche Iced Cream.  Both are recipes easy to find in any number of cook books but we elected to go with the recipes from the Williams Sonoma Essentials of French Cooking.  They were easy to follow.  Then came the “art” of pairing wines with each of the dishes. 

For the mussels dish, I chose a 2007 French Chablis from Jos. Drouhin.  It expressed a lemony, apple and mouthwatering minerality that paired just beautifully with the dish.  The Coq au Vin seemed to beg for a French Burgundy so we accommodated the pairing with a bottle of Domaine Fourrier Vougeot Le Petits Bougeot VV 2003.  We don’t have much of a selection of French Burgundy (pricing has become so stretched for these) so we went with what we had to authenticate our voyage.  The dessert recipe called for a Pinot Noir as part of the dish and as we had no additional Red Burgundy on hand, had to settled for an American varietal.  I chose a Failla Pinot both for the recipe and our glasses.  Sometimes, you just need to improvise.  Ideally, a Banyuls would have been the wine of choice but we had none available.  These wines are made of Grenache varieties and then fortified to increase the alcohol content while retaining sugar.  At times, they can resemble a port with dried cherry and plum flavors with distinct ribbons of chocolate.  Oh well….

Sunday evening featured a dinner in Italy with homemade beef and sausage Lasagna and topped with “home” augmented tomato sauce.  Flanked by a fresh baguette, we were set.  I pulled out one of my Siro Pacenti 2000 Brunellos and let it air for an hour or two.  It worked like a charm with lovely dark cherry, blackberry and floral scents accented with tobacco notes and smooth velvety tannins.  This vintner produces consistently outstanding Brunellos. 

For more Williams Sonoma recipes and products, please visit www.williams-sonoma.com.

Tags: AJ's Fine Foods, Williams Sonoma