My husband and I are fortunate to live in the heart of Washington’s wine country. Within an hour of our home there are well over 200 tasting rooms and growing. Of course, we all have our favorites and luckily the two of us agree that Terra Blanca is top notch (and the people there are very friendly, too!). We belong to their wine club and enjoy visiting their gorgeous facility. We recently attended a winemaker’s dinner there that featured their signature wine, Onyx. This is what we got to enjoy:

This is what a wine dinner table looks like when you’re having a seven course meal with seven different wines…

first course – Cocoa dusted sea scallop with roasted wild mushrooms and fig syrup. Paired with 2002 Onyx

second course – Roasted beet tartare with goat cheese, sumac powder, beet chip, and arugula pesto. Paired with 2003 Onyx

third course – pork with greens, red wine jus, and barley truffle risotto. Paired with 1999 and 2006 Onyx

At this point we had a palate cleansing lavender scented sorbet with vanilla-honey and apple, but I didn’t get a decent photo of that. It was lovely!

fifth course – Duck breast with roasted parsnips, dark cherry gastrique and braised Swiss chard. Paired with 2000 Onyx

sixth course – Lamb crusted with pepitas, with black currant veal jus and potato croquette. Paired with 2009 Onyx

seventh course – Chocolate gateau with wildberry jam, Hawaiian sea salt, vanilla bean creme, and caramel glass. Paired with 2007 Onyx

The pork had two pairings because the winemaker (Keith Pilgrim) and his wife (ReNae) had differing opinions of which was better. The vote of the room was for the 1999 Onyx, which means Keith gets to keep being the winemaker as that was his choice. Both were excellent, but I picked the 1999 as well.

The beet salad made me nervous as I had a traumatic beet experience as a youngster that involved a salad bar and an assumption that something was a spiced apple when it was, in fact, a beet. But I tried everything and I did enjoy the beets – I suspect the roasting had a lot to do with that. I’ll not be running out for beets, and I probably enjoyed the goat cheese more, but I cleaned my plate.

The lamb was my absolute favorite of the food dishes (though the chocolate cake was divine!). Although the 2009 Onyx is really young it is amazing already. We walked out with several bottles to enjoy at home.

All in all, if you have the chance to attend something like this – DO IT! We hired a car service so we could enjoy and be safe. It’s certainly an extravagance, but we had a wonderful evening and met some really interesting people.

Bon appetit!