Chairman's Selection Wine Dinner 3/21/05!

[KatieLoeb]

Hi everyone:

My apologies for the short notice. I just found out about a wonderful wine dinner that will be taking place on Monday evening, March 21, 2005 at Ristorante Panorame, located in the Penn's View Inn on North Front Street just above Market.

Chairman Newman will be attending the reception and dinner which begins at 6:00 PM. A Chairman's selection wine will be featured during the reception. A four course dinner will be served at 6:45PM and will feature the following:

Marinated Shrimp over Tuscan Bean Salad

-or-

Carpaccio of Beets with Gorgonzola Cheese

-or-

Parmesan Souffle

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Lobster Ravioli

-or-

Gnocchi with Fontina Cheese and Basil

-or-

Pappardelle with Duck Ragout

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Salmon with Mushrooms and Herbs

-or-

Veal with Prosciutto, Peppers and Provolone

-or-

Filet Mignon with a Cabernet, Raspberry and Port reduction

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Cheese Plate

-or-

Tiramisu

Dinner is $55 per person, not including wines (excepting the reception wine). There will be about 20 or so different Chairman's Selection wines available, suggested parings, a suggested flight of wines if you prefer or whatever size portion of wines of your choosing you'd like. Since Panorama has the benefit of that lovely 120 bottle cruvinet, wine selections and pour sizes can be as free form as you like. Sommelier Bill Eccleston will be on hand to do what he does best. Chairman Newman will be in the house too, so if you'd all like to come out and meet our new cyber friend, this is your opportunity.

If you are interested in attending this dinner, please call Ristorante Panorama directly at 215.922.7800 and make arrangements directly with the restaurant. I believe a credit card is requested to hold your space. Space is limited, but I'm told they could squeeze in a few eGulleteers if we promised to behave.

I'm definitely going, so if anyone else wants to join me, call the restaurant and send me a PM!

Hope to see you there!!

In Vino Veritas,

Katie

[Capaneus]

So? Tales, details, dish? Wine notes, food facts? I was miffed i couldn't go, least you can do is make me madder by telling me what I missed...

I actually picked out my meal (souffle, pappardelle and filet); how sad is that?

[mrbigjas]

yeah, what he said

[KatieLoeb]

So? Tales, details, dish? Wine notes, food facts? I was miffed i couldn't go, least you can do is make me madder by telling me what I missed...

I actually picked out my meal (souffle, pappardelle and filet); how sad is that?

←

In fact I had that very same meal, and the cheese plate for dessert. Here's the low down with retail prices of the Chairman's Selections in parenthesis:

Parmeseano Souffle with micro greens and truffle oil

Rutherford Hill Chardonnay 2001 ($18)

Wine was well matched with this. A bit oakier of a chard than I'd normally pick for myself, but it worked well here.

Pappardelle with slow cooked Ragout of Duck

Antinori Chianti Classico Riserva 1999 ($42)

This was probably my favorite pairing of the evening. Fabulous pasta, great sauce and the wine is just delicious. Silky smooth with a glorious finish and lots of subtlety. It's 90% Sangiovese and 10% Cabernet. Just enough to give it some cojones. Damned tasty. This wine got a 94 rating in the Wine Spectator. Easy to see why.

Filet Mignon with Cabernet, Rapberry and Port wine sauce on a bed of root vegetables

Meritage Pine Ridge Andrus Reserve 2000 ($125)

This wine was fabulous. All about the dark berries and an almost sweet background of vanilla, mocha and caramel. Incredibly well made wine that will undoubted age into something more spectacular, if that were indeed possible. This wine could compete with the finest Bordeaux and knock it off the playing field. Any Bordeaux this young would likely be far less drinkable.

Assorted Cheeses

Zinfandel Ravenswood Teldeschi Vineyard 2001 ($42)

I've waxed poetic in the past over the Ravenswood Zinfandels, the Teldeschi Vineyard in particular, so I needn't heap more on now. But this wine is really good with cheese.

All told there are 23 Chairman's Selection wines being currently featured at Ristorante Panorama. Since everything there is available by the 3 oz. "taste" or 5 oz. "glass", you could easily check out many of these wines before dropping the coin to purchase them. The "tastes" range in price from $4 to $15 (for the Andrus Reserve - well below retail!) and are a great way to test drive some wines before committing to the unknown juice in the bottle. I'd highly recommend this approach to anyone.

The Chairman was jovial and taking questions from the crowd. It was nice to see him in warm up mode for our Chat with him here in the PA forum in April. I did discuss that with him briefly and should be getting solid dates for that from his Communications office in the next few days. He spoke very highly to some of the other guests at the dinner of our thread here regarding the Chairman's Selections, which was very kind of him. It was a very interesting evening and a great opportunity to have a wonderful meal paired with some wonderful wines.

[Diann]

Whoa. I am super jealous. Do you know if Panorama or the PLCB plan on doing this regularly? It would be really cool if they held Chairman's Selection dinners every couple of months, though I can only think of a few other restaurants in the city that are as wine-obsessed as Panorama seems to be (have not yet been, though I'm looking forward to some pappardelle and wine flights when I do go). I guess to be fair they'd have to move the dinners around the state, to Pittsburgh and such, but I sure hope they do this in Philly again.

[KatieLoeb]

Whoa. I am super jealous. Do you know if Panorama or the PLCB plan on doing this regularly? It would be really cool if they held Chairman's Selection dinners every couple of months, though I can only think of a few other restaurants in the city that are as wine-obsessed as Panorama seems to be (have not yet been, though I'm looking forward to some pappardelle and wine flights when I do go). I guess to be fair they'd have to move the dinners around the state, to Pittsburgh and such, but I sure hope they do this in Philly again.

←

Diann:

Chairman Newman will be joining us for a Chat April 24-28th. You can ask him yourself!