Dinner at the Park with Italian Wines( #12/110)

The sixth autumn season of the Delhi Wine Club kicked off with a distinctly Italian flavour at dinner at Aqua in the Park Hotel with the culinary skills of Chef Gaurav Bajaj rising to the occasion. With the weather having improved to being extremely pleasant in the evenings, we decided to take advantage of this and planned a totally outdoor event. The location offered to us –the poolside Aqua- was indeed ideal for such a gathering and the imaginative table setup and lighting by the hotel made it even more memorable.

A word about the wines imported by Amfora Wines - as usual our members were once again fortunate to sample 5 new wines. None of the big banner names present but all the wines were produce of small high quality Italian vineyards –evident from the fact the both the reds and the whites served were rated high by Wine Spectator. And representative of the age of equal opportunity we live in, two of the wines of the evening were made by lady winemakers

Despite it being a Monday, we had a full house and most members were at the dinner well in time to try the Pignoletto Frizzante from Bonfiglio – a fruity sparkling wine, low on acidity and a soft mouth feel. During our aperitifs, some of our members had the opportunity to give sound bytes to the team from Inx News for a soon to be aired feature on Wines in India.

A welcome appearance on this evening's wine list was the Gewurztraminer 2005, St Michael Appiano –an elegant intensely fruity wine which in my opinion should always be on a white wine drinker's radar. The clean taste of the melon salad with cucumber jelly balanced the fruitiness of the wine excellently.

The second white of the evening-a Pinot Bianco 2005- was produced by Elena Walch, a lady winemaker from Alto Adige. Fruity with an apple nose, this wine had good acidity and a compact finish – it was a better companion to the smooth rich notes of the smoked salmon and cream cheese than the Santa Anastasia 2004 from Sicily which was also served with this course for red wine lovers to experiment with the food paring.

Though the braised chicken looked very well presented and appetizing, the Milanese lamb was succulent, tender and just literally fell of the bone. It really did justice to a great Sangiovese offering from the Fattoria Le Pupille estate of Elisabetta Geppetti –the Poggio Valente 2003 – an aromatically complex wine with a persistent taste –well worth its 89 points by the Wine Spectator.

If I were asked what the single factor that made for a superb evening was, I would unhesitatingly mention the attention to detail that was displayed by Rifaquat, the ever dependable EAM at the Park hotel and his team in both the planning and execution of the dinner.

The Park Hotel has long been a very strong supporter of the DWC and their contribution to a superb evening underscored the point.

Arun Batra is a management consultant, foodie and a commentator on food and wine. He has been a regular member of the Delhi Wine Club for the last three years-editor


 

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