A weekend to Savor
Despite the ice, wine- lovers showed up to Savor Dallas at various events during the weekend. A snapshot of events from this, the second annual festival:
Cal-Tex taste-off
When a panel of winemakers and winery owners, three from Texas and three from California, matched their wines head-to-head in a blind tasting Saturday, it was the homeboys who butted heads.
The Savor Dallas seminar, called "California vs. Texas," compared a dozen bottles of chardonnay, viognier, syrah and Bordeaux varietals and blends from the two states.
Lubbock's McPhe! rson Winery winemaker-owner Kim McPherson and physicia! n Ric hard Becker, co-owner of Becker Vineyards in the Hill Country, expressed sharp differences about style when their viogniers (pronounced vee-OWN-yay) were paired, not unlike the wines themselves.
"Viognier to me is a grape we should be growing in this state," said Mr. McPherson, who is also the winemaker at CapRock Winery. Taking a whiff of his own wine, he added: "This is a viognier nose."
"Ours is dry," Dr. Becker observed. "Ours has secondary fermentation. Butter. Butterscotch."
"I ... don't ... want ... butter in my viognier," said an exasperated Mr. McPherson.
Enter the peacemaker, Gallo Family Vineyards winemaker Alexandra Dutzi : "They are both lovely wines," she said. "They are made completely differently from each other."
Kim Pierce
A Grand time had by all
The 2,000 or so food and wine lovers who made it to Saturday's International Grand Tasting got up close and personal with more than 50 of Dallas-Fort Worth's favorite chefs while tasting a selection of 500 wines, spirits and premium beers.
Dean Fearing of The Mansion on Turtle Creek played the role of your friendly neighborhood soup peddler, serving hot jicama soup with jumbo lump crabmeat drizzled with a cilantro cream.
Foie gras featured in many dishes but the most original of these was the foie gras shooter from chef Tim Love of Lonesome Dove in Fort Worth. It was an intense, liquified golden em! ulsion of foie gras in a cocktail of Grand Marnier, orange ju! ice and sweet cream. The concoction came with a mini tuille cookie to stir in the sweet cream before knocking the shooter back.
"I wanted to do something completely off the wall," laughed the chef, in his signature black cowboy hat.
Another playful dish was Dragonfly's Ball Park Nacho, a combination of blue crab, pineapple, candied onions and melted Havarti cheese on top of ancho-flavored tortilla chips. "They're not your mama's nachos!" says executive chef Marc Cassel.
Most delightful presentation goes to DoughMonkey's irresistible display of chef Rhonda Ruckman's colorful cakes surrounded by hundreds of mini Valrhona chocolate ganache cakes.
The chefs weren't the only ones enjoying the fanfare. Winemakers from around the world were asked to autograph bottles, aprons and other wine paraphernalia. Draft beers from Stella Artois were pulled for the more laid-back, and the tragically hip flocked to the Grey Goose martini bar for cosmop! olitans and appletinis.
The cold proved too much even for Texas Outlaws; the planned after-party was moved indoors.
Cheryl Ng Collett
Savor Dallas generously supports these charities: North Texas Food Bank, Greater Dallas Restaurant Association Education Fund, and Arts Magnet Building Campaign for Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
