Our original and historic Los Angeles location of the San Antonio Winery had its last event of 2015 this past weekend, and it did not disappoint! We celebrated the closing of the year and our incredible Riboli Family with our annual Riboli Family Winemakers Dinner. Six courses later, we were equal parts stuffed from all of the delicious food and from all of the fun and love had that night.
We started our night with the 2013 Windstream Chardonnay. This wine has flavors of ripe pear and green apple, which were complemented perfectly when paired with our starter salad. With red endives, crumbled goat cheese, glazed walnuts and balsamic maple vinaigrette, this salad was just the beginning of the amazing food we were about to enjoy.
For our second course, we had Sake Lees marinated wild salmon, which was perfectly seared and served with a shitake salad and yuzu oil. This delicious course was served with a light red wine, our 2012 Windstream Pinot Noir, whose flavors of black cherry and raspberry were brought out by the marinated salmon and shitake mushrooms.
Our 2013 Opaque Zinfandel, with flavors of blackberry, boysenberry and black cherry was paired with pappardelle pasta, shredded duck leg, porcini mushroom sauce, and winter savory. The delicious flavor from the winter savory herb and shredded duck was the perfect pairing for this red wine, bringing out the accents of the spice and dark cocoa.
Our fourth course paired crispy pork belly with forbidden rice cake and a balsamic gastrique. The crispiness of the pork belly and the semi-sweet and sour glaze were the perfect combination alongside our 2012 Opaque Petit Verdot, which has ripe flavors of black plum and currant, with accents of vanilla and dark chocolate.
Paired with roasted tenderloin of beef, sunchoke puree, roasted sunchokes, and rosemary demi-glace, the wild berry, black cherry, and ripe plum flavors of our Riboli Family Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon were brought out, and made this a wine pairing to remember.
To end our night, we opened our Stella Rosa Imperiale Brachetto D’Acqui DOCG. We paired this semi-sweet sparkling red wine with a chocolate terrine and cinnamon gelato almond brittle. This chocolate terrine was complemented perfectly by the delicate flavors of red raspberries and rose petals from the wine, the perfect ending to a perfect night.
Thank you again to all who came, enjoyed, and got to know our family a little bit better and our wines much better. We hope you enjoyed this six course dinner as much as we did!