Each Monday night, Lou offers a wine tasting supper consisting of three to four courses with matching wines for $55. We serve supper from 6PM to 11PM, and you do not need to make a reservation (although if you are bringing a group of six or more please call us after 5PM at 323 962 6369 to let us know).
This Monday, our first course is a salad that plays the flavor of tart, seasonal citrus against the unctuous texture of the avocado. To pair with the salad, a cloudy, lees-aged Prosecco with its own tension between citrus flavors and a texture that is, OK, not unctuous, but is nevertheless chewy, derived from yeast autolysis.
Our second course is Niman pork tenderloin, with which I am pouring a wine made from the Prieto Picudo, a grape that is native to the hinterlands of Spain’s North West. It is an exciting time to taste wines from this region of Spain, where just over ten years ago, Alvaro Palacios first showed us what he could do with the once lowly Mencia grape. Now, following the first wave of native grapes from Spain’s northeast, e.g., Mencia and Godello, we are seeing a second wave of autochthons make their way to our shores; grapes such as Doña Blanca and the Prieto Picudo we will be enjoying tonight. To my eyes, the wine looks quite darkly pigmented and from that, you might think it will be a real mouthful of wine: but looks can be deceiving, as it is a light-medium bodied wine that is high in acidity and tastes of wild berries and garrigue rather than Luden’s cough drops.
With our cheese course, a piece of Meadow Creek’s Appalachian, a raw milk cow’s cheese made in the style of a Tomme de Savoie, I am pairing a sous voile, oxidative Jurassien wine made from the Savignin grape. This briny, nutty tasting wine pairs delightfully with the cheese, picking up its nutty and grassy flavors.
Salad of Page mandarin, Fuerte avocado, fennel, parsley
Costadilà Prosecco “Colfòndo” NV
Niman pork tenderloin, wilted radicchio, fried Rose Finn potatoes,
dried fruit compote, sherry bacon vinaigrette
Preto Prieto Picudo 2007
Meadow Creek Appalachian, cashews
Bornard Les Marnes Savignin 2005
Banana cream tart, chocolate, almonds