Good Morning!

Last week when I was in San Francisco, I had the excellent fortune to have dinner with two of my most fun friends, Cynthia and Michelle. They ask were did I want to go? I read the book Secrets of the Sommeliers recently and I remembered Raj Parr mentioned if you eat somethingg you love and you drink a wine you really love the pairing will work out perfectly. He mentioned one of his favorite meals in the world is the roast chicken at the Zuni Cafe in SF. Then he goes on to say he loves Syrah and when he goes to Zuni Cafe he loves the pairing.

I thought about that when I was reading his thoughts, I said to myself, isn’t Syrah too bold of a wine to go with a mild flavor like roast chicken? But, I like to learn and I like to eat and drink so, I said let’s do Zuni Cafe and eat Chicken! Just so you are aware, Zuni has a wood burning oven and they tell you up front the chicken will take at least an hour to prepare and it is a whole chicken so you will want to split it or take home massive leftovers!

The restaurant is located on busy Market Street in San Francisco and it is all glass and it faces the street and the other walls are exposed brick interior. It is a lively place and the bar is on the ground floor and many dining tables on the ground floor and a very intimate area upstairs where we could watch everything going on in the place and out on the street. We arrived and instantly ordered Champagne, oysters and Ceasar salads…we had an hour to have fellowship and catch up on our lives and reconnect. (Might have been the best hour of my week in SF).

The service and overall experience at the Zuni Cafe was stellar and we never felt rushed or like we were waiting on anything, timing is an art and I applaud our server for being a total rockstar. When the champagne and oysters were over I was ask about the second bottle of wine and I mentioned we wanted to do Syrah with the chicken and I told the server about the mention in the book and he pointed to 4 Syrah’s on the wine list and I selected a 2009 french syrah by Domaine La Bouissiere Gigondas…when he brought the bottle to the table it was really exciting for me, because the label had a picture of the mountains where we filmed part of The Winemakers season II it is called Dentelles de Montmirail. I have attached a photo of the label and the actual mountain.

The wine was much smoother than I had expected and the first sip really spoke to me as being french wine. It was much more subtle than the Syrah I am used to from the Central Coast of California. It was not packing the big alcohol punch I am normally used to either…it was not as fruity as I expected and it had a lighter mouthfeel than a big gripping Syrah I have had many times. It felt refined in the mouth and in texture, then the chicken arrived and it was slow roasted in the wood oven and it was crispy, sweet, fatty (but not in a bad way, in a rich and lush way). The texture of the white meat was so light and moist it was really mouthwatering and the dark meat of the bird was juicy and had a rustic and deep dark aspect, I am not sure I knew existed in a chicken. It almost had a wild game thing going on, not sure how to correct describe it but with the wine the two were totally magic.

One of my pals that dined with me was a chef for years and so saying she is a foodie, well, that is an under statement. We all raved about how awesome the pairing was and how when you find a great match like this you never want to stop eating or drinking. We still are raving over this night out and the food. Of course we had port and dessert and ended the night at a martini bar before rolling home.

Extraordinary dining is so special to me, really I eat 3-4 times everyday and I eat well, but when you consider how often we all eat, rarely do we truly dine and love the entire experience. Most of you know I have never really fallen in love with french wines, but I want to love them and after this evening at Zuni Cafe, I am back on my quest for finding the Rhone wines that will make me smile.

Thanks for letting me share this wine/dine experience with you, it really was very memorable!

Much LOVE and wine,

Tammi