Caymus Wines at Arte Cafe

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Arte Café in Cerritos hosted a Caymus wine dinner tonight. Loads of people but not quite sold out. A few empty tables.  I have noticed since the price of the wine dinners went up about $10 some of the "regulars" are not attending anymore. Which is OK by me as they seemed more in talking and socializing throughout any talks given by the wine owners / distributors.  Made it difficult to hear what was going on if you were sitting close to them.

Started out with a Shaved Pear & Goat Cheese Salad with roasted zucchini, mixed greens and a horseradish vinaigrette. Good flavors. Paired with a Emmolo Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc. Not to acidic better than most.

Second course is a Thai Curry Roasted Butternut Squash Soup. Excellent .  The curry gave it just the right amount of punch. Wine is a Conundrum Rose. Very light wine. Not much to it but it did pair well with the curry.

Next is a Five Spiced Seared Duck Breast with braised greens, crispy parmesan polenta and ripe plum. Duck was a bit over cooked for me and part of the skin was not crispy. Flavor was there and amazingly the cooked plum added the right touch. The parmesan polenta was very good.  A Emmolo Napa Valley Merlot was the choice. I am not a big fan of merlot but this was decent.

Main course is a Herb Crusted Roasted Lamb Chop with French lentils and charred Delicata Squash.  Lamb was a tad over cooked for my taste. I like to see pink and there was none. The squash was quite good but I have no opinion on the lentils because I just plain do like them. It is a texture thing with me on lentils, lima beans etc.,   Paired with a Caymus Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Good pairing, wine was good.

Dessert consisted of Cinnamon Baked Granny Smith Apple topped with shipped crème fraiche and  a pumpkin spice. Fall flavors big time.  Wine is a Conundrum Sparkling Rose.   I liked the pairing. The lightness of the wine offset the heaviness of the dessert.

These wines tonight are the lower end Caymus wines. But for the $65 price tag you can't expect the real high end wines.  Dinner was good, wines were decent and we had a great time. Looking forward to the "Prisoner" wine dinner in a few weeks.