Sepia Curated Wine Pairing Dinner
We dined there last summer for a spectacular wine and dinner experience that was featured in these pages in this blogpost - Sepia Michelin Star Restaurant Chicago.
Despite their Wine Spectator Best Award wine list, we opted for the wine pairing with the price fixe dinner in which the chef and wine director pair a wine with each dinner course. This allows one to not only taste numerous wines with dinner, but also to experience both the Chef’s, and Wine Director Somellier’s interpretation of the applicable wine pairings with each food course of the dinner.
The Sepia Wine List is extraordinarily broad, 36 pages in all, with diverse range of selections from the usual old world and new world regions as well as selections from lesser producers such as Austria, Croatia, Lebanon, Greece, Armenia, Mexico and Morocco.
As a refresher we had Champagne as a starter wine -
Telmont Reserve Brut 2020
This is a blend of 35%, Chardonnay, 36% Muniere and 26% Pinot Noir.
From the first course, we selected from the price fixe menu each of the offerings available:
- Smoked beef carpaccio, sweet mustard, sourdough, and onion consomme’,
- leek & popcorn veloute, délice de bourgogne, black truffle, brioche, and the
- hiramasa crudo, blood orange ponzu, cumquat, cilantro,
- king crab & sea urchin, koshihikari, gochujang consommé, sesame.
The first course dishes were paired two different sweet dessert aperitifs - Roûmieu-Lacoste Sauternes and Travignoli Vin Santo del Chianti Rùfina, and Fabbricca Newton Rosso Toscana
Château Roûmieu-Lacoste Sauternes Haut Barzac 2022
Roûmieu-Lacoste is in the climat of Haut Barsac, an area famous robust, powerfully styled moelleux with pronounced acidity. The vineyards are just across the road from First Growth Château Climens on a similar soil: calcareous clay on fissured rock, peppered with red iron, white limestone, and grey flint gravel.
Hervé produces a portfolio of red and white wines with the whites being blends a high proportion of Sémillon (60%) and a splash of Muscadelle (5%) with Sauvignon Blanc (35%), creating a rich, full, aromatic mid-palate to complement the clean finish.
A meticulous perfectionist, Hervé employs the best harvesters available, paying them double the average wage to discern between the “noble rot,” necessary to concentrate the sugars for Sauternes, and deleterious rot. Hervé is so fastidious that he will get rid of a whole basket of fruit if a single grape with the harmful rot makes it in with healthy ones to be absolutely sure to avoid even the slightest contamination.
He sells his wines through renowned distributor Kermit Lynch, selling them the lion’s share of his production so he can focus on the vineyards, thereby producing highest quality wine at an uncharacteristic low price.
Golden amber colored, full bodied, deeply complex, thick unctuous decadent sweetness of honey, apricot, passion fruit and lemon zest with silky smooth texture and a long and lingering finish with refreshing acidity.
RM 92 points.
https://vignobles-hervedubourdieu.com/
The other first course wines ….
Travignoli Vin Santo del Chianti Rùfina 2015
The estate was acquired by Count Busi and his family in the 1800’s. They cultivate 70 hectares of the 90-hectare estate, primarily focusing on Sangiovese but also including Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Chardonnay. The family sold almost all of its production to private clients in demijohns until Giovanni Busi graduated from the oenology school of Conegliano in 1979. With the expert consultation of Giacomo Tachis, one of the most respected enologists in Italy, Giovanni began bottling the wine under the estate branding of Villa Travignoli.
Golden amber colour, full bodied, thick and unctuous apricot fruit with nones of raisins, honey, caramel and walnuts with smooth acidity on a long finish.
RM 91 points.
https://www.cellartracker.com/w?5319245
- bbq’d sablefish, cabbage, carolina bb’q, smoked apple cider butter, and the
- crispy creamcheese gnudi, celery root, belper knolle, salted black pepper
- grilled lobster chawanmushi, potato fennel, boullibase
bbq’d sablefish, cabbage, carolina bb’q, smoked apple cider butter
This was delicious, especially when the sumptuous sauce was added …
crispy creamcheese gnudi, celery root, belper knolle, salted black pepper
Malat "Hohlgraben" Palt Kremstal Grüner Veltliner 2021
https://www.cellartracker.com/w?4413626
https://www.malat.at/wp/
Linda’s crèamcheese gnudi was accompanied by this crisp Sauvignon Blanc.
Arnaud & Albéric Lechat Les Silex Sauvignon Blanc 2021
This was straw colored, light medium bodied with subdued crisp gooseberry, stone, and grapefruit citrus fruits with notes of mineral on the finish.
This black bass course turned out to be a disappointment with the sea foam coming across way too fishy for enjoyment. The wine accompaniment for this dish was this interesting Friulano Bianca.
This unique white wine if crafted from the Tocai Friulano grape from the Venezia Giulia Appellation in the Friuli Region from the town of Cormons in Collio, Italy, in the extreme northeastern most corner of Italy, just a mile from the Slovenian border.
The major city or town of Friuli Venezia Giulia is the regional capital of Trieste. Until recently, Friuli Venezia Giulia was divided into four provinces, each named after its principal city, however, in 2018 the system changed whereby the provinces were replaced by a series of territories known as UTIs.The largest cities are the three former provincial capitals of Udine, Gorizia and Pordenone, along with the town of Monfalcone.
The result is an easy drinking wine with strong aromatic character and a sharp and clean ending.
Straw colored, light medium bodied, soft crisp notes of honeysuckle, melon, lime peel, and crushed flowers with a stony yet refreshing acidity on the pleasant finish.
Rohan duck breast, malted sunchoke, huckleberry & duck confit pithivier
The Rohan duck breast was paired with this interested Spanish red wine.
Readers of these pages know I often order duck when dining out, and take BYOB or select a Rhône varietal wine for such occasions. With the duck course I predicted such and we were served this Spanish Garnacha, which is essentially Grenache, the popular grape from the southern Rhône River Valley.
This is the entry-level red of Spanish producer Navaherreros from just north of La Mancha, Spain’s (and actually Europe’s) largest classified wine region, Vinos de Madrid DO. The large region is comprised of four subregions that start about 9 miles from the city center. Three of the subregions form a semicircle around the southern suburbs, Arganda, Navalcarnero, San Martín, and El Molar, situated directly north of the city, the newly created 4th subregion. Vinos de Madrid was granted DO status in 1990.
Grenache thrives in the warm, Mediterranean climate where ample sunlight allows its clusters to achieve full ripeness.
For the dessert course we selected:
bay leaf crème brûlée, olive oil, satsuma mandarin, roasted vanilla
hibiscus pavlova, ginger, toasted coconut, chamoy
white sesame mont blanc, miso butterscotch, salted maple, caramelized banana. shown below.
The culinary team at Sepia consists of:
executive chef andrew zimmerman
chef de cuisine kyle cottle sous chefs brian daley & jayme cannava
pastry chef erin kobler, and, pastry sous chef melissa santiago
jake bennie is wine director