TNs: TWEC (TM) Triple Birthday Celebration at Tanto

Berserkers,

The Toronto Wine Elitist Cabal ™ got together this past Friday evening for a triple birthday celebration. Our American members Tim and Alyssa are both celebrating birthdays and Tim wanted his birthday dinner at Tanto which is itself celebrating its one year anniversary. Chef Justin Iliopoulos welcomed them and board members Jay Shampur and I back to the chef’s table in front of the open kitchen for another eclectic Argentinian inspired feast.

Jay and I arrived first and Chef Justin gave us an update on the business as we congratulated him on Tanto’s just passed one year anniversary. Tim and Alyssa arrived shortly thereafter and we introduced them to Justin who explained that Tanto’s eclectic menu is designed to be shared amongst all the guests at the party. With that, we were off and running:

The Toronto Wine Elitist Cabal ™ got together this past Friday evening for a triple birthday celebration. Our American members Tim and Alyssa are both celebrating birthdays and Tim wanted his birthday dinner at Tanto which is itself celebrating its one year anniversary. Chef Justin welcomed them and board members Jay Shampur and I back to the chef’s table in front of the open kitchen for another eclectic Argentinian inspired feast. We brought along some great wines for the birthday celebrations to go with our feast:
PIERRE PAILLARD NV BRUT ROSE GRAND CRU CHAMPAGNE – Our opening wine was my second and last bottle of this. Lovely salmon pink color, strawberries on the nose, and a very fruity palate of strawberry and cranberry with light brioche flavors and a light mousse to the body. Enjoyable and easy to quaff. Dry and quite refreshing.

MULLER-CATTOIR 2003 GIMMELDINGER MANDELGARTEN RIESLANER SPATLESE – A very generous bring by Jay, this Spatlese was spectacular in its crispness, minerality and complexity. A slight touch of rancio only adds to the intrigue and complexity on top of the crisp lemon-lime and green apple flavors, all of which are still very fresh. We polished this one off but quick.


BREWER CLIFTON 2010 CHARDONNAY – So Tim rose up to the challenge of bringing Jay a Chardonnay that he would actually like. What am I, chopped liver? How about bringing a Chardonnay that I would like?!? Fortunately, this complex Chardonnay fit the bill for both of us. A rather stinky cheese nose arising from sulfur belies a light body with sharp green apple flavors, far less oak influence than you would expect from a Cali Chard, super high crispness, acidity and phenolic bitterness that Jay commented on immediately. Honestly, if you’d hid the bottle and told me this was a Chablis 1er Cru, I would totally buy that. A great food match wine.

KOSTA BROWNE 2013 RUSSIAN RIVER VALLEY CHARDONNAY – Tim brought this for Alyssa as she enjoys larger Chardonnays. Distinctively creamier in flavor and body with riper almost baked green apple flavors. Not too big, though, as a lot of minerality and crispness still comes through. Very well done and I enjoyed it more than the Brewer Clifton, but both were very good in not overusing oak and letting the wine shine through.

ARCADIAN 2003 SYRAH – Our final wine was our only red of the evening, a big flavored wine redolent with red fruit, only just barely settled tannins, huge oak spice, and a large but very smooth texture. I can’t imagine how big this must’ve been in its youth, but 15 years of age on this bottle has mellowed it out enough to make it a great red meat wine at this time even with its current largesse.


We were too wined and fooded out to get to the Sauternes I brought so I chose to save that for another day. Tanto’s cuisine is inspired by chef Justin’s foray into South America and is particularly influenced by Argentina. The standout site of the open kitchen is the unique vertical wood flame grill which conducts heat both underneath and across from the food. This allows Justin to grill large cuts of meat and whole birds without having to take them apart. Our main was in fact cooked off of this grill and I’ll come back to this. We started off with the Spicy Grilled Peanuts:

Next was the Oil Cured Manchego. Thin slices of Manchego cheese which are marinated in a spice and herb infused olive oil are dressed with Pequillo peppers:

Next was one of Tanto’s signature dishes, the Smoked Ricotta Empanadas. Pastry dough is folded and stuffed with smoked ricotta and then deep fried to perfection. This was served with the house made hot sauce:

Then we switched gears to some healthy salads with both the Gem Lettuce Salad dressed in creme fraiche and herbs (not pictured) and the Tuna Ceviche with cucumber, coconut, and avocado:

Next we did a seafood dish before the main course serving, the Grilled Squid dressed with burnt almond salsa, pancetta, & preserved mushrooms:


And lastly came the main course finale. Remember that vertical grill? We had two dishes made with it, a Grilled Cornish Hen a Grilled Duck Breast. The hen is grilled whole and only split afterwards for serving and served with chimichurri sauce on the side:

Chef Justin grills an entire duck and separates out the breast for serving as a main course while using the remainder for the crafting of other dishes. Given the size of this breast, that must be one very large duck:

Our mains came with a couple of vegetable sides to complement our poultry. First was the Grilled Radicchio dressed with roasted beets, spelt, & gorgonzola cream:

The other were smashed roasted potato crisps which was a unique cross between a french fry and a potato chip:

And our final course was a nice little mignardise, a shortbread cookie sandwich filled with dulce de leche:

TWEC ™ would like to thank Chef Justin and the rest of the kitchen and floor staff at Tanto for a fantastic birthday celebration for our American members with great food and great service. Congratulations to Tanto on its first anniversary and hopefully many more to come. We will of course be back.

(barely) adequate report

Glad you guys had fun. I’ve had that Rose before, would have liked to try it in more controlled circumstances such as these (the other try was at one of the fun but hectic gatherings at Dylan’s), as I wasn’t taken with it my first time. Hmph! Who knew Jay had Muller-Catoir in his cellar? Love their stuff, especially the Scheurebe, sounds like another winning 2003 here. Tim and Alissa told me about the Chards yesterday when I visited, and how surprisingly structured and angular the BC was—which none of the three of us associate with BC, and that the KB showed well (I’ve had, at most, one taste of their Chards).

It sounds like this bottle of Purisma, from 03, showed a bit better than the 05 Tim opened at the BBQ at his place last year, my notes on that wine FWIW:

“The Arcadian Purisima Syrah was a 2005 and I was rather surprised that I didn’t find that much interest in this wine. There remained a tomatoey aspect for me that persisted and I was missing some authority both on the nose and on the palate. I don’t think anything was wrong with the bottle and I have very little experience with Joe’s Syrahs, but this is the first Arcadian in a long time that didn’t make me swoon.”