December 28, 2012 Taos Breakfast - Mabel Dodge Lujan House, Lunch – Graham Grille, Dinner- La Meze

December 28, 2012  Taos   Breakfast -  Mabel Dodge Lujan House, Lunch – Graham Grille, Dinner-  La Meze

We started the day with a breakfast buffet at Mabel Dodge Lujan House, where we had slept in Tony Lujan’s room next to Mabel’s large room.  Breakfast included sausage links, bacon, scrambled eggs, green chili potatoes, strawberry muffins, granola and freshly made yogurt.

After breakfast we said goodbye to Billy, Elaine and Rebecca and talked to Brian Taylor for a few minutes.

Then we went to town.  We first visited the Taos Art Museum to see its impressionism show by Dan Wade.  Then we went to Harwood Museum to buy tickets for the wine tasting on Feb. 1, 2013 and the drove to and parked at Taos Inn and inquired about wine meals with Bob, the manager of Doc Martins.  We do not like heavy reds so we decided to forgo the Calera wine dinner at the Winter Wine Festival on February 1, 2013.  We then walked to Kilborn Pottery and Bauman Fine Art, which is located in what was once Bert Phillips studio and compound, then to Moby Dickens Bookstore, Robert Parsons Gallery,  a new mineral and fossil store and finally to Graham’s Grille at around 12:15 to have a mimosa and a shared a Caesar Salad.  During lunch we had what was the most interesting event of the trip.  We had noticed that the owner was named Cynthia Fay and one of the pages of the wine list described how her father or grandfather was the first person to plant Cabernet Sauvignon grapes in the Napa Valley in 1953.  His high quality grapes and wine influenced others to grow and produce Cabernet Sauvignon wines, which led to the starting of Stags Leap Vineyard next door to his property in 1970.  Then in 1976 what is known as “The Judgment of Paris” occurred when California Cabernet Sauvignons and Chardonnays were blind tasted against the best French red Bordeaux and white Burgundies in Paris by the greatest French wine experts and a California red and white came out on top.  The white was a chardonnay from Montelena and the red was a Cabernet Sauvignon from Stags Leap.   That event, more than any other event in modern wine making history, put California wines on the world stage and was made into a movie.  So there is history here.  Stags Leap later bought some of Fay’s property and one of its best wines is still produced from Fay’s land and vines and is served at Graham’s Grille at $111.00 per bottle.   The Fays owned 400 acres originally, so they must have made a fortune, just on the sale of the land, which is some of the most expensive wine acreage in America.  For more on the Judgment of Paris, see http://www.cask23.com/history/parisTasting/

After lunch we stopped at Parks Gallery to say hello to Stephen Parks and then went back to the room by way of the Ranchero Boot Shop for red polish for Suzette’s boots.

After a making a fire and reading by the fireplace in the Mary Hunter Austin Room at Mabel Dodge Lujan House and taking a nap and a shower, we went to La Meze for dinner at 6:15 p.m.  After waiting a few minutes for an early diner to finish and splitting a glass of Taval rosé, we were seated.  The appetizers looked better than the entrees, so we split a plate of 6 small pieces of battered and fried veal sweetbreads served with a fresh shaved celeriac salad dressed with capers, parsley, vinegar and aioli with which we drank the last of our rosé.  The sweetbreads melted in your mouth and I had never eaten a fresh celeriac salad and was impressed.  It clearly had been made ahead of time and allowed to sit so the vinegar would cook the celeriac.

 We ordered a bottle of 2008 El Coto Crianza Tempranillo from the Rioja and filled new glasses for the next dish which was a Mushroom smothered piece of toasted bread.  The sautéed shitake and cimini mushrooms were sautéed in a rich veal reduction with parsley and garnished with a large dollop of soft Spanish goat cheese.   We cut up the piece of bread and soaked the bread pieces with the sauce and ate them with mushrooms and goat cheese and washed them down with sips of the red tempranillo.  The best dish of the dinner. 

Finally, the waiter brought our entrée, duck confit with preserved lemon in a pasta bowl stacked on a pile of collard greens cooked in bacon and garlic with a side of fried potatoes we had also ordered.  The duck was delicious and we love the vegetables at La Meze, so we loved the collard greens with bacon and lemon peel.  The potatoes were also delicious, but I did not like the horseradish sauce they were served with, so dipped mine in the collard greens’ broth.

The red wine was perfect with the heavy duck and fries and we felt very full and happy as we sipped the last of our wine at the end of the meal around 8:15.

We then went to KTAO performance space for a special Holiday concert given by Michael Hearne and Max Gomez from Taos and Chuck and Laurie Sweet from Florida.  Finally at 11:00 we drove back to the Mabel Dodge Lujan House and made another fire for a bit of writing for me and bed for Suzette.

We decided to eat our wine dinner on February 1 at La Meze because they are serving Drouhin’s Burgundy and Torres Spanish wines and have great food.

Bon Appètit