wine
Great Grape Debate at Shore
Jun 11, 2012
The restaurant at L Place hosts a series of fun, interactive and educational wine dinners this summer »
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Recently, Asia Tatler Dining received a rather elaborate invitation. It was a bottle of wine, which came in its own wooden box, and equipped with various bottle stoppers and other accessories. Intrigued, we looked further and found that it was an invitation to Shore’s Great Grape Debate. Our interests piqued, we gamely went along to see what the debate was all about.
It turns out that along with sommelier Alexandre Loisel, chef Jason Black has prepared a three-course dinner menu (but each course comes with three mini tasting portions, so really it was a nine-dish menu), which are designed to be paired with two wine varietals. The catch is that there are three examples of each varietal (so a total of six wines each), and participants are asked to rate the wines on aroma, flavour, appearance on their handy placemat chart. They are then asked to guess the provenance of the wines.
On the evening we visited, the two varietals were sauvignon blanc and pinot noir, which will be available until June 16. We sampled everything from the typically aggressive and grassy New Zealand sauvignon blanc to a mild one from Italy; before going onto a lovely Oregon pinot noir and a rather disappointing French one with our main courses. The food pairings were also excellent: who knew that a ocean trout with a parsley-gruyere crust would be the perfect foil to a red wine such as pinot noir?
All in all, it was a fun experience and a bargain, priced at HK$698 per person (nine dishes, six wines). For those who also want to try fortified wine pairings with their dessert course, an additional HK$98 is charged. The schedule for upcoming Great Grape Debates are as follows:
- sauvignon blanc and pinot noir: June 4 -June 16
- riesling and cabernet sauvignon: June 18 - June 30
- chardonnay and syray/shiraz: July 2 - July 14
For reservations, please call +852 2915-1638.
