Emeril’s Coastal Restaurant Miramar Beach

Emeril’s Coastal Restaurant Miramar Beach 

Vacationing with Linda’s friends Pat R and Marylou at The Cove, our vacation rental in Destin (FL), we dined at iconic chef Emeril Lagasse’s Emeril’s Coastal Restaurant at the chic stylish Grand Boulevard in adjacent Miramar Beach. 

Our table was in the dining room next to the trendy high-top tables that align the bar area.

For the appetizer course we ordered the Roasted Oysters with garlic, butter, parmesan and a baguette, New Orleans BBQ Shrimp and biscuit, and the Coastal Crabcake. 

We tasted two wines from Emeril’s Wine Cellar (shown below) wine list. 

For a wine accompaniment with the starter course we tasted Emeril’s Private Label Chardonnay. 

Emeril’s Santa Barbara County Chardonnay 2018

As the labels states this special private label bottling is produced by Jim Clendenon and the Au Bon Climat vineyards and winery in Santa Barbara County.

This was delightful and offered great QPR - Quality Price Ratio, as one would expect if the chef puts his name on the label. 

Light straw colored, medium bodied, this was full and round with tones of peach and passion fruit with nice balance and acidity on the refreshing finish. 

For dinner entrees, we order the two daily Fresh Catch specials (shown below), grilled Grouper with creole meuniere, and Crispy Skin on Salmon with Creole cream and Parmesan Risotto.

For a wine accompaniment with the main course, we ordered from the cellar wine list the popular well known Frank Family Napa Chardonnay. 

Frank Family Vineyards Napa Valley Carneros Chardonnay 2022

The Frank Family Vineyards estate up in Calistoga is housed in an 1884 stone cellar—the third-oldest building in Napa Valley.  They did a massive renovation of the original historic Hans Kornell Champagne Cellars and the 19th-century Larkmead before that. The site is one of the most beautiful and interesting in Napa Valley. Ironically, it is one of the first wineries we visited during our very first Napa Valley wine visit back in the seventies! 

The winery and tasting room were totally reimagined a few years ago for their 25th anniversary. The Hollywood Room is a tribute to founder Rich Frank, past president of Disney Corporation and wife Leslie’s career as an Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist and Hollywood reporter. On display are the couple’s two Emmys. Frank is known as one of the guys who green-lit Aladdin and The Lion King, but it’s Frank’s penchant for hospitality, not his Hollywood credential that is behind Frank Family Vineyards being named “Best Napa Winery” eight years running by Bay Area A-List

The fruit for this Carneros Chardonnay release is from the Carneros sub-appellation in south western Napa Valley. sourced from is the winery's estate Lewis Vineyard, with additions from neighboring Beckstoffer Vineyards in the Napa-Carneros area and Sangiacomo Vineyards from the Sonoma-Carneros area.

Winemakers notes - This wine is a testament to the Carneros region, brimming with Meyer lemon, yellow apple, and salted butterscotch notes. Concentrated layers of spices and creamy vanilla meld with well-integrated oak and elegant waves of fresh acidity on the palate.

Producer’s Notes - A bright and balanced wine with vibrant aromatics of baked apple, white nectarine, and toasted oak. A lively entry of tropical fruit, and citrus expands with notes of rich lemon curd and brioche bread pudding. Ample yet refined, this unmistakably Carneros wine finished with a refreshing wave of acidity.

This wine is perfumed in brioche and baked apple, with seasonings of nutmeg and vanilla. It opens in a rich, full-bodied concentration of citrus and white peach and evolves on the palate to show structure and depth. Bright acidity lifts hints of toasted oak, maintaining a fresh and plush finish.

https://shop.frankfamilyvineyards.com/product/2022-Carneros-Chardonnay

https://www.frankfamilyvineyards.com/

We closed out the evening with two delectable desserts - the Crème Brûlée and the unique Emeril signature dish, the oddly named Olive Oil Cake for the distinctive recipe and method of preparation. We suggested this should be named Emeril’s Special or Secret Cake.  

We ordered the Crème Brûlée and at the urging and advise of our server, we tried the Emeril’s Olive Oil cake, who described its heritage distinct recipe and preparation, implying that our other Crème Brûlée was standard and widely available. In the end, the Crème Brûlée was equally distinctive and delicious. 

Because I did not order a dessert, expecting to sample shares of the other selections, I was served a special surprise, held for special occasions and diner’s celebrations - an extraordinarily unique sparkling Roman candle with cotton candy! 

Everything was delightful, delectable, delicious, all served with attentive, knowledgeable and engaging staff. Emeril’s is a treat to be enjoyed when visiting the Florida panhandle Emerald Coast. 

Kistler Les Noisetiers Sonoma Coast Chardonnay at Emerils Coastal

Kistler Les Noisetiers Sonoma Coast Chardonnay at Emeril's Coastal Restaurant, Sandestin, Miramar Beach

Visiting the Florida Gulf shores for a getaway week, we had a delightful, delicious dinner at Emeril's Coastal Seafood restaurant in Sandestin Grand Boulevard in Miramar Beach.

For diiner, we shared the daily fresh seafood catch, whole pan seared Grouper, and for starters we had roasted oysters and the special cheese plate. 

The Emeril's Coastal Cheese Board consisted of  Four Artisanal Cheeses with accompaniments - home-made multi-berry jam, fresh honey comb, fresh berries, nuts and baguettes: 

• Thomasville Tomme French
  
• Humboldt Fog
• Talcggio
• Roque Smoked Blue
  
  
  

Fresh Oysters from Murder Point and Admiral, Alabama

The Fresh Catch of the day was pan seared whole Grouper with asparagus spears in a muniere sauce.

 

We selected from the winelist this ultra-premium Sonoma Coast Chardonnay.

 Kistler “Les Noisetiers” Chardonnay Sonoma Coast, California 2020

Kistler is a family-owned and operated winery founded in 1978 by Steve Kistler and the Kistler family. From the beginning it has been dedicated to the production of ultra-premium Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, using old-world Burgundian techniques applied to new world vineyards. 

Kistler wines are crafted from one heritage Californian selection of Chardonnay clone vines planted across fifteen vineyards, from Carneros to Sonoma Valley, to the Russian River Valley and Sonoma Coast. Kistler's plantings on Sonoma Mountain are some of the oldest Chardonnay plantings in Sonoma County.

They have been working with and on this singular clone of Chardonnay since the mid 1980’s. It was originally sourced from vines imported from Burgundy in the early part of the 20th century. It have been developed by California farmers and winemakers over decades to be best suited to the Californian terroir and growing conditions.  

From the fifteen vineyard sites Kistler produce eleven different vineyard designated select Chardonnays.  

This cuvee is an appellation-focused wine designed to the regional character of western Sonoma County, highlighting mineral tones from vineyards with sandy soils. The wine was originally crafted exclusively for restaurants but is now available in retail stores on a limited basis. It has rich, complex smoky aromas, intense fruit flavors underpinned with toasty oak, and crisp acidity with a long, lingering finish.

This label, Les Noisetiers (pronounced Lay Nwaz-tee-yay) is a study of Kistler's Sonoma Coast sites. The name refers to the toasted hazelnut characters that is manifest year in and year out from these sites. This cuvee is an appellation-focused Chardonnay. explicitly produced to illustrate the site and area specific regional character of western Sonoma County highlighting inherent mineral tones from thirty year old vineyards with sandy Gold Ridge soils. The main sources are the Vine Hill Vineyard, Dutton Ranch and Trenton Roadhouse vineyards.

Golden straw colored, medium-full bodied, complex yet elegant, polished and balanced layers of juicy peach and pear fruits with hints of apricot and white flowers, turning to a mineral backbone with stone fruits on a long sumptuous finish. 

RM 93-94 points. 

 

Winemaker notes: The grapes are whole-cluster pressed into 30% new French oak for fermentation via indigenous yeast. It was bottled unfined and unfiltered after 10 months in barrel. From the winery: "Deep green-yellow. A pronounced and refined sense of minerality pierces through the initial first blush of stone fruit on the nose. Wet stone, powdered sea sand, and a slight sense of roasted grain. Perfectly balanced, the core is packed with grilled citrus, a touch of lemongrass and threaded with a vibrant acidity that reverberates across the palate. Possesses a lively, yet elegant finish that just doesn’t want to end.
 

After thoughtful selection at the sorting table, whole clusters are fed by hand directly into the press. An extremely gentle 2-hour Champagne program is used to produce the best juice with the finest solids. The juice is consolidated in tank and then, without cold settling, is transferred directly to barrel with its fine lees. Driven solely by naturally occurring yeasts, the wine is barrel-fermented. Kistler Chardonnay fermentation temperatures are warm by California standards, but very much like Burgundy was made 20 years ago. The wine is fermented bone-dry. After a complete malolactic fermentation, the wine sees 11 months of barrel age with no battonage. The wine spends an additional 3 months in tank before being bottled without fining or filtration. There is a smaller percentage of new oak used on the Les Noisetiers in order to highlight the soil-driven character of this wine. This minerality is rare in new world Chardonnay.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=4265917

https://www.kistlervineyards.com/