Interlude: Dueling Sommeliers

OK, so I promised to continue on the cocktail created by Kelley at ten01 in Portland . . . except that I don't want to scoop myself!

You see, the cocktail and recipe will be featured in the November/December issue of Northwest Palate magazine (of which I am co-publisher), and the magazine itself will not be in the mailboxes of subscribers until November 1. So, I will wait until the print publication to further describe the cocktail. But when I do, I'll also include a neat photo of it, along with the others that we had created. Oh, and you can find Northwest Palate on the newsstands early in November.

In the meantime, there was a recent event here in Portland that I thought was tremendous fun . . . and which is worthy of a short interlude to describe.

Throughout the summer four intrepid Portland sommeliers matched wits and knowledge in a series of “Dueling Sommelier” dinners held at the Heathman Restaurant. With the best wine and food pairings being voted on by the diners themselves, an ultimate victor was acclaimed after the fifth and final dinner, heldlast month.

Raise a glass for Jeff Groh, sommelier at the Heathman whose pairings reigned supreme!

But raise a glass as well for the pluck of Erica Landon of ten01, Ken Collura of Andia, and Jamie Garrett, then of Bluehour. Each of these sommeliers gamely applied their skills in what amounted to a local challenge of the wine-pairing champions.

And the challenge was not easy. Playing off a different menu for each of the dinners, the somms were first served the multi-course meal without wine. They then went away, thought about what they had tasted, and prepared their individual wine pairings for each course purely from memory. A few weeks later the meal was prepared again, but this time for the public, with each of the selected wines served blind to the attentive audience (George Riedel, head of the famous glass company, was in attendance at one of the dinners). The diners then voted on their favorite pairings per course, without knowing which sommelier they were voting for.

After the first three dinners the scores were narrow among the four. The dishes, prepared by Heathman Chef Philippe Boulot (and a few special guest chefs) had offered everything from fusion (vichyssoise with uni) to Northwest (bacon wrapped venison) to the exotic (rabbit confit with escabeche and huacatay ceviche) to French (braised short rib a la Provencal). But after the fourth dinner there were two remaining contenders: Erica Landon and Jeff Groh.

Though the final scores after the fifth, grand finale dinner, were only a hair apart, Groh’s selections had barely edged out Landon’s. (That's Jeff on the left.)

Rematch anyone?

Probably next year. Though there is no set schedule yet, the talk is that the Dueling Sommelier Dinners will return. Which somms dare compete? Whose pairings will win out? We'll all have to wait and see!