We went to the dining room around 7:30 a.m. and I started a blog and then when breakfast was ready at 8:00 Suzette ate blueberry and nut muffins, a green chile quiche, fresh oatmeal with fruit and yogurt and tea and coffee.
We the returned to the room and Suzette worked on my computer for four hours and finally got me reconnected to the blog, which is so wonderful, I can hardly express it. At around 12:30 she checked to see when the Reidel seminar was starting and found out it started at 1:00 so we drove over to El Monte Sagrado and went upstairs to the seminar. We were the first to arrive. There were three lovely different shaped glasses in front of each seat with three pieces of chocolate. Julianne Crystal was the Reidel representative presenting the seminar and we soon found out by tasting three wines, a cabernet sauvignon, a Syrah and a Pinot Noir, that the different shaped glasses accentuated and maximized the flavor of each of the wines. This was a wonderful new world that we had only heard about and to experience it directly with the guidance of a Reidel representative, who knew everything about the glasses, was extraordinary. We were given the glasses in a carrying box. Here is a picture of them.
After the seminar we went to Mission Gallery and caught up on all the local gossip from Rena Rosenquist. Then at 3:30 we returned to El Monte Sagrado for the Reserve Tasting. They allowed us to walk into the Tasting early, so we bagan eating and drinking at 3:45.
The Reserve Tasting is our favorite wine event of the year, when both the wine and food are great. This year was the best ever.
Everywhere you looked there was duck confit being served in an interesting way. The best was Zippy's with his wonderful thick onion marmalade from Doc Martin's. I asked Zippy how he got the duck to have a slightly smoky flavor and he said he marinated it in chipotle.
There was an new Bakery that made the best puff pastry I have eaten in a long time, as well as lovely beef picadillo and curried squash empanadas (See picture above). There was gravad lax (60/40 salt/sugar, almost like I make it), lamb meat balls and lamb stew; a profusion of good food. My favorite was the Taos High School's Culinary Food Division's sweetbread ragout served in a puff pastry shell; simply out of this world. The flavor of the sweetbread dish was soft and slightly sweet, so I asked the teacher how it was marinated and he said in buttermilk. I loved that tip.
There were many exceptional wines this year also. My favorite new wine was one of the first I drank, a Brick House Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley in Oregon. But after we had drunk
at least forty or fifty glasses of wine and eaten at least forty appetizers, at 5:30 we gave up, after we tasted the exceptional Martini and Rossi 150th anniversary Gran Lusso Rosso Vermouth, my second favorite wine of the night.
We went to the Taos Guest house and sat in the hot tub for about thirty minutes and went to be stuffed and completely relaxed at around 7:00 p.m.
Bon Appetit
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