Of the myriad restaurant's our wine club has held its wine dinners at, the Hyatt has stood head and shoulders above the rest in terms of providing a superlative environment and matchless service for our members to enjoy their wines with high quality food.
Our wine dinner no #14/128 at the Regency room last Wednesday evening, was planned to say goodbye to the Resident Manager Prasanjit Singh, who through his many years at the Hyatt has been a pillar of support to our Wine Club. So all of us who had signed on, knew Prasanjit's team would give our members an evening to remember and we were not disappointed.
We gathered in the pre function area and it was indeed a pleasure to welcome and acquaint ourselves with a number of new members. In fact one of the interesting asides of attending meetings of our wine club is that the composition of members at a dinner is never always the same so one gets the opportunity to talk about wine with people with diverse wine experiences.
The wines for the evening were all from "Down Under" – quality Australian and New Zealand wineries brought to us by the affable Ranjit Gupta.
We started with Lily Farm Frontignac 2007 Grant Burge – it was the first time many of us had tried the Frontenac grape – a sweetish wine packed with a fruity grape flavor well balanced by a crisp acidic finish. This in particular went well with the finger food offering especially with the aged Parma ham on cibatta toast.
As we moved into the Regency room, the Hyatt surprised us once again with their setup –in particular the multiple screen presentation of pictures from the archives of previous wine club dinners at the Hyatt!! Once seated, we got to taste a Staete Landt Sauvignon Blanc 2007 from one of the most reputed areas of New Zealand - Marlborough .This single vineyard wine was full of crisp tropical flavours and went well with the Trout salad with rucola and pears.
Staying in Marlborough country , next up was the Marama Sauvignon Blanc 2006 Seresin Estate- a herbaceous, dry and complex wine with a slightly minerally finish. Matching it was a light as air goat cheese and bell pepper ravioli. The tomato and basil sorbet which followed was a masterpiece–and did its job of cleansing the palate beautifully.
On to the reds and another varietal which we do not see very often on the our Wine Club menu cards – a Pinot Noir ,and another winner from the Seresin Estate portfolio- the Raupo Creek 2005. This deeply coloured and well balanced wine had a fruity nose, a palate of raspberry and oak with the soft tannins giving a smooth mouth feel. Easily the star wine of the evening, I could see quite a few members asking for a refill of the Pinot Noir even after the next red was served! In what can only be described an excellent food pairing, Chef Marcus made sure the crispy duck was succulent and a great partner to the Pinot Noir.
Across the Tasman Sea and to the Barossa Valley for our last wine of the evening –the Filsell 2006 Shiraz from Grant Burge wines-a big rich Barossa Shiraz, with a nose of berries and a juicy palate. The evening was rounded off with another visual delight - the plum and almond tart with a dollop of walnut ice cream.
Many thanks once again to the Hyatt team for putting on another superlative performance and we look for their continued support in future events.
Arun Batra is a Delhi based management consultant, a food and wine enthusiast and a long time member of the Delhi Wine Club
