Lioco Wine Dinner

Friday, April 29, 2011

Delius in Signal Hill, wwwDeliusrestaurant.com, hosted a Lioco Wine dinner this evening. From what the rep told us Lioco is a wine made by two people who were involved in different aspects of wine. A Matt Licklider, wine import specialist and Kevin O'Connor, a wine director at Spago. Hence taking part of both last names to come up with the winery name Their case production looks to be about 15,000.

Everyone now days is getting into the wine making business. There are now over 3,000 wineries in California and new ones popping up every month. A lot of them will never make it in the long run. Over saturation.

Big problems on the 405 freeway tonight so dinner was a few minutes late getting to the table. The restaurant was waiting for people to arrive. Now again I am having the same problem as I had with The Factory a few weeks back. Why not put the bread on the table NOW. Tonight the bread came out with the third course, but we did get bread.

First course: Roasted Octopus, sweet potato, pickled green papaya & micro celery. Sounds strange but worked very well. The octopus was diced as were the sweet potatoes. Very good flavor. This was served with a 2009 Lioco Sonoma Chardonnay, stainless steel fermented. This was a good pairing. The wine was to my palate.

I always have to warm of my white wines at Delius. For my tastes they are served a bit too cold. The flavor enhances as the wine wine comes closer to room temperature.

We even got Margie to try one piece of the Octopus. She decided it was too fishy for her. You have to understand how picky of an eater she is but she did make the effort to try so we are making progress with her. We have gotten her to eat duck now. Big accomplishment. But somehow I do no think we will ever get her to even try sea slug or jelly fish. Her mind works overtime.

Second Course: Goat Cheese Tart with beet gelee, crispy blood orange & Upland Cress. OK is "Upland" different from "Downland" Somehow I am not sure what or where the cress is, it is still "cress". The crispy blood oranges were really good. Micro thin slices and roasted in the oven. I could have eaten a big bowl of them alone. Wine with this dish was a 2010 Lioco "Indica" Rose from Mendocino County. "Indica" is supposed to be a blend that the Mendocino County wineries are pushing to be unique to that area. The notes on this wine says a "bleed" from 70 year old Carignan grapes. I was not a big fan of this wine. It was dry which I like but I felt it was really lacking in flavor and depth. I have had much better Rose's

Third Course: Duck Confit Roulade, Swiss Chard, crispy shallots and dried cherry red wine reduction. Duck had excellent flavor and was rolled in the swiss chard (roulade) . This dish was a real winner. Served with a 2009 Lioco Anderson Valley Pinot Noir. Non discript Pinot. It did improve dramatically with the food. But lacked something. But the bread showed up.

Fourth Course: Pork Tenderloin Sous Vide, tea smoked with roasted Kabocha squash and shaved fennel. Pork was cold smoked in the morning and then sous vide before serving. The squash was mashed and had good flavor. Similar to a sweet potato. Fennel is one of the few foods I do not care for. I am not a fan of licorice and fennel tastes just like it. I pulled most of it off to the side. I will eat some but too much is a turn off. The pork had excellent flavor, just the right amount of smoke flavor to be real interesting. Wine served with this dish was a 2009 Lioco, Hirsch Vineyard, Pinot Noir. This was a better Pinot than the first one but it also was twice the price.

Dessert was a Vanilla Panna Cotta with crispy crepes, pineapple granite and rum caramel. Very good. None left on my plate.

Daniel Hyatt the Chef de Cuisine, is now responsible for all the special wine dinners and the menus for them. He also does the wine pairing for them. I think he is doing a really great job. Louise handles the day to day menus. Big difference in the two styles. Both are very good at what they do and with recipe development.