Diners hit the jackpot at wine and morel dinner
MILWAUKEE -- The old perception of a casino as a place to fill up on cheap buffet dinners and free booze is clearly a thing of the past.
That was evident on a recent visit to the Potawatomi Bingo Casino, where we recently attended the annual morel mushroom dinner at its Dream Dance restaurant.
Dream Dance chef Jason Gorman crafted four courses to match four Paolo Scavino wines and one from Grimaldi Winery, both from Italy's Piedmont region.
Winery owners Enrica Scavino and Ferruccio Grimaldi both attended the event. Scavino admitted she doesn't often get to match her wines with "fantastic fungi" and was looking forward to putting both sides of the menu to the test.
The two vintners produce rich, red Barolos, considered to be Italy's best wine and sometimes dubbed "the wine of kings and the king of wines." Produced from the Nebbiolo varietal, Barolo (named after the nearest Piedmont municipality) is a wine that can challenge the palate if not crafted properly and aged sufficiently, its rich, dark-berry flavors sometimes colliding with high levels of tannins from the pitch-dark skins. Barolo also is a wine that only comes to full flower when paired with food, making random sampling sometimes less that satisfying.
But neither the winemakers nor the chef needed to worry. Even though the wines were only moderately aged, the craftsmanship coupled with the exquisite cuisine resulted in a memorable experience.
Gorman's first course -- a creamy polenta topped with fresh whole morels dusted with edible marigold petals -- was accompanied by the evening's only white wine. The 2005 Savino Langhe Bianco, created primarily of Sauvignon Blanc grapes with touches of Chardonnay and Viognier, had fuller fruit with less citrus and acidic overtones than expected, a nice match to the polenta. The woodsy morels' flavor nicely complemented the wine, which accented the fungi's lightness and airiness.
The second course paired a butternut squash puree blended with a smoky duck confit on a bed of Swiss chard and topped with the requisite whole morels to a 2004 Scavino Barbera Carati, a wine made from the other grape of Piedmont. Considered secondary to Nebbiolo, a grape thought to have derived is name from the Italian "nebbia," for the fog that fills the valleys of the Piedmont, the Barbera varietal delivers with brighter, cherry-like fruit on the palate, a simpler, younger approach accessible to more wine drinkers. The Carati didn't disappoint and, in fact, gained from its limited oak aging, complementing the smoked duck with the proper fruit and textural balance and adding a flash of flavor that brightened the palate.
Things got a little more serious on the next course. Chef Gorman prepared a flan from Carr Valley sheep's milk cheese and matched it with strips of eel roasted in an unidentified Barolo and, of course, morels. This time the wine was the 2000 Grimaldi Barolo Sotto Castello di Bovello. The unusual food combination was overshadowed by the wine, a single-vineyard varietal aged both in steel and wood. The wine's excellent structure and strength of character did a good job muting the eel, which was both fatty and chewy as expected. The morels helped curb the seafood's slightly unappealing characteristics.
The evening's highlight proved to be its entr e, a small bone-in Strauss veal shank topped with morels and purple kale and served with not one, but two Scavino wines -- the 2001 Barolo Carobric and the 2003 Barolo Bricco Ambrogio.
"Our philosophy is to work with a great wine, but gracefully so," Scavino told diners. "A great wine should invite you to drink it."
In both cases, we didn't have to be asked twice. The slow-roasted veal reflected the accompanying morels not only in taste, but texture as well. Both wines exhibited excellent structure and significant complexity, their dark fruit palate offering hints of cassis, licorice and oak. We've always been impressed with Gorman's cuisine, but we've never seen it so consistently outshined by the accompanying wines as it seemed to be this night.
Desserts followed, but without any accompanying Scavino wines. We enjoyed the finishing courses, but the flavors of the wines lingered on our palates, leaving us with gustatory memories that will continue to satisfy.
The memories will have to do, at least temporarily. The restaurant is in the process of moving to a new street-level location with an entrance separate from the casino. The newly expanded restaurant is expected to open in late June.
