Posted by Greg Clow in beverages, events, events upcoming, wine on April 18, 2007 at 8:30 am

Trying to present a preview for a five-day event in just a couple of hours is a difficult task. When that event is Santé, the wine and food festival running May 8th thru 12th that will showcase more than 300 wines at numerous locations in the Bloor-Yorkville area and beyond, the task moves from difficult to basically impossible.

So it made sense that the festival organizers chose to focus their recent media preview at swank Yorkville restaurant Pangaea on primarily one facet of Santé: a series of five food and wine events being presented under the name Deconstructing Dinner. Actually, "series" isn't really the right word, as all five events will be taking place on the same night (Tuesday, May 8th) at five different restaurants (Holt's Café, Jamie Kennedy Restaurant, Pangaea, Truffles and Sette Mezzo). So perhaps "set of events" would be more suitable?

Whatever you choose to call it, Deconstructing Dinner promises to be one of the most unique events in the entire festival line-up. At each restaurant, guests will be welcomed at 6:30 PM by a pre-dinner presentation, where the chef and will, as the name promises, deconstruct the dinner. The hosts will discuss how the menu was constructed and why the particular wine and food pairings were chosen, and they will also lead a sampling of the six wines that will be featured during the meal. Then at 8:00 PM, dinner will be served, and the guests will be able to experience the pairings firsthand and see if they and their palates agree with the experts.

For the preview event, organizers arranged for the chef and sommelier from each participating restaurant to prepare one dish from their planned menu for the evening, and had them describe the dish, the wine, and the pairing while we sampled the goodies. Here's a summary of what they offered:

First Course by Sette Mezzo
Dish: Shrimp in Fresh Tomato & Sambuca Cream Sauce
Wine: Chateau des Charmes 2004 Chardonnay (Ontario)
Chef: Alex Campos
Sommelier: Zoltan Szabo

If you're familiar with Zoltan Szabo, you probably know that he's a big proponent of the Niagara sub-appellations that have been recently defined, so it was no surprise that he chose a sub-app wine - in this case, from St. David's Bench - for this pairing. The wine was big and fruity, with a good amount of oak and an underlying acidity. On their website, the winery suggests a "rich seafood dish" as an excellent food pairing, and that's exactly what we got from Chef Campos. Their intention was to have the rich creaminess compliment the big body of the wine, while the tomatoes matched with its mild acid notes. It worked quite well, although I did find the dish to be almost too rich, especially for a starter.

Second Course by Truffles
Dish: Black Cardamom Smoked Salmon with Pickled Cucumber & Golden Beets and Goat Cheese
Wine: Nichols 2000 Pinot Noir Edna Valley (California)
Chef: Lora Kirk
Sommelier: Sara d'Amato

After the big flavours of the first course, this one served as a palate cleanser of sorts, albeit a very tasty one. The featured wine was quite soft and delicate, with very light tannins and pleasant notes of cherry and cranberry. This was paired perfectly with a light and fresh dish of mildly smoked and spiced salmon, accompanied by pickles and goat cheese to compliment the slight acidity and earthiness of the wine. While neither the dish nor the wine were my favourites individually, the pairing was probably the best one of the day.

Third Course by Holt's Café
Dish: Fennel Seed Crusted Lamb Loin with Potato and Goat Cheese Wing and Ontario Rhubarb
Wine: DogRidge 2005 Cadenzia Grenache (Australia)
Chef: Corbin Tomaszeski
Sommelier: Billy Munnelly

I call this my "mystery course": a wine style I'd never heard of before (yes, I'm a wine newbie, how can you tell?), paired with a dish from a restaurant that I barely knew existed. But it's a pairing that I'm glad I had a chance to try, as it worked quite well. The wine had a big, fruity nose of strong red berries, but the flavour was a bit more subdued, with mild fruit and some peppery notes. Similarly, the sight of the rare lamb suggested strong flavours to come, but it ended up being pleasantly mild, and was balanced nicely by the delectable potato and goat cheese. Some seasonal baby veggies added a nice, crisp touch of spring.

Fourth Course by Pangaea
Dish: Boar Sausage with Porcini Mushroom and Dried Cherry on Fourme d'Ambert Polenta
Wine: Laborie Jean Taillefert 2002 Shiraz (South Africa)
Chef: Martin Kouprie
Sommelier: Steve Thurlow

The Pangaea home team checked in with a punny pairing of a wine from South Africa (think Boer War) with a boar sausage dish, but it's a match that worked beyond the joke. Like the Aussie wine from the previous course, the wine had an aroma that was more aggressive than the flavour, although both held notes of dark fruit (especially cherry) and dark chocolate. These elements complimented the rich and slightly fatty meat, with the dried cherry being an obvious choice to match the fruitiness of the wine.

Fifth Course by Jamie Kennedy Restaurant
Dish: Rhubarb and Marzipan Millefeuille with Apricot Ice and Sour Cherry Glaze
Wine: Mission Hill SLC Riesling Ice Wine (British Columbia)
Chef: Jamie Kennedy
Sommelier: Jamie Drummond

To close the proceedings, the two Jamies provided a dessert that had a perfect balance of sweetness and tartness. The ice wine from B.C.'s Mission Hill Winery held absolutely luscious aromas and flavours of peach and apricot, but also had a nice acidity to balance the sweetness, avoiding the cloying character that is often found in lesser ice wines. Kennedy's pastry had a similar sweet/bitter balance, providing a perfect foil to the wine. It's hard to imagine a better finale to the afternoon's sequence of fantastic food and wine pairings.

Now that you've read about all of that delicious food and decadent wine, you're probably wondering how you can get in on the action. Well, unless you already have tickets to one of the five Deconstructing Dinner events, you may be out of luck, as they were all either sold out or close to being so when the media preview took place.

But that doesn't mean you're completely out in the cold, as there are dozens of other events occuring as part of Santé. Starting with the Sip, Savour & Sample free preview event at the Summerhill LCBO on Saturday, May 5th featuring Food Network personalities Bob Blumer and Lynn Crawford, and ending with Cool Wines & Hot Sounds wine and jazz bash at the ROM on Saturday, May 12th, Santé features dinners, courses, tastings and more that are aimed at every budget and every level of wine knowledge and appreciation. Download the festival guide (9 MB PDF) or browse the Santé website for full details, and look for coverage of several Santé events right here on Taste T.O. once festival time rolls around.