Luxurious Mid-Week Meal
Organic Veal and Gaja

The Meal

Veal chop in an Enoki mushroom sauce with roasted Fennel and Balsamically glazed Red peppers and baby Bok-choy

The Weingolber was asking about favourite organic produce and these veal chops are mine; creamy white flesh, delicate flavour and when properly cooked, tender and juicy. The operative word here is delicate, for both the sauce and wine which is why I went with Enoki mushrooms for the sauce. Mushrooms? Veal? Ah, Piedmont!

Langhe Docg, 1996, Sito Morecsco, Gaja (saq.2004....$48)

Few winemakers have attained rock-star status as much as the flamboyant Angelo Gaja. His wines are rich, concentrated, made to cellar and are so expensive that very few wine drinkers have ever even tasted one of his wines. Enter Sito Moresco, stage left. At under $50, it offers us non-millionaires the opportunity to partake, at least in part, of the world according to Gaja.

The Sito is a blend of Nebbiolo, Cabernet and Merlot in roughly equal parts that has been aged for 18 months in French oak. Like all Nebbiolo based wines, it tends to show itself after 5 years and reaches its apogee around 10. For an eleven year old wine, the 1996 was in fine form, with a seductive bouquet of black-red cherries laced with hints of clove and leather. This is old-style wine, with a soft and graceful texture that owes its delicate nature to its perfect acidity combined with patience, the right amount of cellaring to soften up the tannins. The result is pure luxury, a wine that supported without dominating; a character trait that I always appreciate. It reminds me why I seek out these these beautiful gastronomic moments. Ephemeral yes, but if we can string enough of them together….