Uncorked

Last night I had the opportunity to attend yet another great event at the  Morton’s Back Bay location. The Uncorked series gives attendees a nice glimpse into the wines of the evening, and last night featured my favorites, Champagne and sparkling wine. On the menu, a Lunetta Prosecco, an Iron Horse Vintage Brut, a NV Graham Beck Brut Rose, and a 2008 Moscato d’Asti.

Lisa from Ruby Wines gave us a nice background on Champagne, the bubbly made only in the Champagne region, which is about an hour outside of Paris vs. the Method Champenoise which creates sparkling wine in the same method of the Champagne region but can not be called Champagne because it is made outside that region.

Some of her explanation I had heard before, but I never knew about the dead yeast that results from the fermentation in the Champagne bottle and the process by which the dead yeast is removed. It was so interesting to learn even more about the process of making Champagne, and Lisa described it in a way that was interesting and understandable while we sipped some quality wines.

She also showed us how to open a bottle of bubbly. She pulled this off without even a pop, and not a drop was wasted!

Morton’s provided fabulous food pairings for the wine, as usual. With the Lunetta Prosecco, we enjoyed Morton’s fresh crab cakes which are pretty much 100% crab, no fillers here! Delicious, sweet, and meaty, these paired well with the pear flavor of the Prosecco. Lunetta Prosecco is a great value wine that is easy to drink and like many sparklers, goes GREAT with food!

Our second wine was Iron Horse Vintage Brut. My first thought? This tastes like Sonoma. I love Iron Horse. Their sparkling wine is toasty, with a lovely sweetness to it. It has been served in 5 White House administrations, and it is actually listed as an icon of Americana. This was probably my favorite wine of the evening and brought me back to my birthday dinner at Scopa in Healdsburg :).

We were served a tuna tartare which I photographed the last time I tasted wine at Morton’s. The tuna was as delicious as I remembered! We also had a bit of bruschetta with perfectly reduced balsamic, syrupy and sweet, and delicious with the salty cheese, crust bread, and juicy tomato.

Our 3rd wine was a South African Rose from Graham Beck, a lovely shade of pink and made of 50% Pinot Noir and 50% Chardonnay, this wine was very tasty, and I love that Graham Beck is still a family owned winery headed up by a passionate winemaker. Visiting South Africa is definitely in our future.

The final savory course was mini burger sliders which I didn’t try since they were made from beef. My friend thoroughly enjoyed them, and I loved how adorable they were!

The final wine and food pairing of the evening was a Moscato d’asti with an intense apricot flavor, and a New York style cheesecake topped with fresh and fragrant strawberries. This dessert bubbly was sweet and paired very well with the richness of the cheesecake.

Morton’s offers nothing but quality events, and this was no exception. I was SO happy I was able to attend and look forward to their next Uncorked event which features Tuscan reds. If anyone is interested in attending, I will be there and would love to taste wine with you! To register, just visit their website:

http://www.mortons.com/events.php?id=680#reservation_form 

For $40 you get a few great portions of delicious food, several glasses of wine, and some great insight into the wine of the evening.

I can’t wait until the next event!

Have you attended any fun events recently? I would love to hear about them!

And don’t forget to enter my Cabot giveaway! AND I have another giveaway starting on Thursday so stay tuned!