Foodies and Winos,
The Toronto Wine Elitist Cabal ™ made its return to Velouté restaurant in Toronto, located on the Lakeshore in the Western part of the city inside the Palace Pier Condominium building. It’s been long overdue that we revisit our friends Alise and Fawzi and indulged in their cuisine while imbibing fine wine.
FAMILLE MOUSSE L’ESQUISSE NV EXTRA BRUT CHAMPAGNE – Our opener was a 70% Pinot Meunier and 30% Pinot Noir blend making it equivalent to a Blanc de Noirs, with 70% from 2021 and the rest from 2020. This tastes very fresh and young, with fresh green apple flavor, a slight phenolic note, light toastiness and a very clean fine mousse that dissipates into a whisper on the palate. My exact note on my phone to myself was this finishes like a cloud. Not too complex, but also very refreshing and tasty. A daily drinker Champagne if there is such a thing.
With our first Champagne, we partook of the bread service and ordered a selection of oysters and a Salmon Tartare as our appetizers.
DOMINIO DO BIBEI 2018 LAPOLA RIBIERA SACRA – This is a Portuguese white wine from the Ribiera Sacra region made from 88% Godello, 10% Albarino and 2% Dona Blanca grapes, all native to Portugal. This has a flinty nose, a creamy texture and tastes mostly like fresh cream with some touches of dragonfruit. Doesn’t sound like much but was actually a great match with the food because it went with everything.
Four our mains we ordered the Australian Lamb Rack which was dressed with a Dijon glaze, Panko bread crumb and walnut crust, Gremolata Sauce and side vegetables.
And the Shrimp Pesto Linguini made with large Black Tiger shrimps, garlic, EVOO, fresh pesto and capers.
NICOLAS FEUILLATTE 2015 GRAND CRU BLANC DE NOIRS – 100% Pinot Noir. This has an interesting smoked cherry wood nose and has a strong sweet red apple taste on the palate that gets stronger and stronger as the wine warms up in the glass. Very classic BdN in that respect. High acidity and a slight phenolic note in there as well.
Lastly, for our dessert we had classic Creme Brulée. I paired this with some Armagnac.
TWEC ™ would like to thank chef Fawzi and Alize for the great dinner. Very nice to see them again. You can check out Velouté at https://www.veloute.ca/ and drop in if you’re in the Toronto area.