Monday, June 28, 2010

Washington Wine Report: Le Paulee Celebration Dinner

wbc2 035 WALLA WALLA – The best food experience of the North American Wine Bloggers Conference was certainly Saturday night’s “Le Paulee” Celebration Dinner. Apparently “Le Paulee” is the traditional harvest dinner.

The dinner, sponsored by the Washington State Wine Commission, was a beautiful sit-down dinner featuring beef from the Washington Beef  Commission served family style.
After a delicious salad of wild greens, the main course was grilled Angus striploin with morels and glace and braised beef cheeks with horseradish creme fraiche. This was accompanied by roasted local organic vegetables and wild mushroom potatoes rosti and roasted potato fingerlings.

At each table there was a representative of a Washington winery and I made a beeline for the Gilbert Cellars table to visit with Rob Davis who was also at the Yakima tasting on Thursday. Rob opened the good stuff and shared the Gilbert Cellars 2007  Reserve Cabernet. This was a spot-on pairing with the beef cheeks. We also sampled the 2007 Powers Meritage.

wbc2 034 The evening was so great, most of the attendees even stopped Twittering long enough to eat – an unusual sight during this conference.

A true Washington finale was in store for dessert. The treat was Old School Lambert Cherries with Valhona Chocolate Ganache and Chantilly Cream.

This was a nice bookend to Friday’s lunch which was an enjoyable casual taco truck meal.

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