Dozen Best NOW&FE Wine Dinners:
GW Fins, Lange Twins Wines
GW Fins--the city's best seafood restaurant, and that's saying a mouthful in this town--has always drawn a big crowd for its Wine & Food Experience dinners. I hope for your sake that they're not completely sold out yet. The menu sounds terrific, but beyond that the wines are offbeat and interesting. They come from a family-run outfit called the Lange Twins in the Lodi area, up in the mountains in central California. Although Lodi doesn't have the reputation that Napa and Sonoma do, it's one of the oldest wine-growing areas of California, and the wines from there have become terrific in recent years. More about the winery is here.
Assorted Gulf Crudo
Wine: Lange Twins 2011 Viognier
Seafood Cassoulet
Shrimp, Blue crab, crawfish, cannelloni beans, Parmesan crust
Wine: Lange Twins 2011 Sangiovese Rose
Seared Sea Scallops
Morel mushrooms, sweetbreads, country ham, corn fritter
Wine: Lange Twins 2009 Reserve Merlot
Colorado Lamb Trio
Shank, tenderloin, chop
Wine: Lange Twins 2010 Caricature Red Blend
Lemon Tartlet
Strawberry rhubarb compote
Wine: Lange Twins 2011 Moscato
The dinner begins at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 22, like all the other NOW&FE dinners. The price is $125 inclusive. Reservations are essential at the number below. I've selected twelve of the menus as the ones most likely to be the best, from the field of thirty-eight. They will appear in this space, in no particular order, every day until the big night. Left out: dinners that are already booked up (!), and those that didn't publish their menus on the NOW&FE website (dumb).
GW Fins. French Quarter: 808 Bienville. 504-581-3467. www.gwfins.com.
