Spent Father’s Day at a Bat Mitzvah being held at the restaurant at Baron Herzog winery in Oxnard.
For glatt kosher, let me say that the food was VERY good (hanger steak, a trio of fish, good gazpacho)–only the dessert suffered a bit from being dairy free.
The interesting thing were the wines we tried.
At the tasting bar I tried their most recent Zinfandel (Lodi) and one of their Cabs and found them both varietally correct and very nice to drink. The Zin, in particular, had excellent balance and a really good spiciness.
With the meal, they poured a chenin blanc and a syrah. And although the Chenin was too fat to be mistaken for a Vouvray (in any way), it was nicely crisp, had good fruit flavors and paired well with the fish.
The syrah had a similar spice profile to the Zin, but with a bit of plum and smoke that made it also a pleasure with the meal.
The biggest surprise came from a taste of a New Zealand pinot noir that they sold at the gift shop (which features kosher wines from around the world). This wine, made by Goose Bay, had a very California-like profile of bright cherry and baking spice and I was surprised to see that it was a mevushal wine, which means that it had been flash pasteurized (to comply with a more restrictive law of Kashrut that I’m sure Eric LeVine could explain better than I). I’d expect that this treatment would affect the wine’s ageability, but it certainly didn’t keep it from being very tasty right now.
All in all, a day of pleasant surprises.