Chateau Lassegue and Wellington

Just looking at this picture makes me SO happy. I adore Beef Wellington and I've become something of an expert at making it as a result. It's like my obsession with the Club Sandwich: I'm disappointed more often than excited so I simply have to make them at home to ensure satisfaction. A Club seems so simple that anyone could do it, right? But good bread is quintessential, as is the quality of the turkey and the crispness of the bacon. Every piece of the puzzle is integral to the quality of the final product. Such is the case with the Beef Wellington!

So, let me get off my soap box to talk about this spectacular dining experience and the wine that accompanied it:

I use a good Bleu Cheese and wild mushrooms instead of Foie Gras on my Wellington. I think it creates the same earth tones, but adds more complexity. And it's sort of more fun to pair a wine to! The side dish was actually from a local restaurant that we discovered recently: Osteria Firenze. This is their "Naked Spinach Dumpling" which seems to be just a ball of spinach and cheese. It was sort of disappointing when it arrived as an entree in the restaurant, but the leftovers made a badass side dish for this dinner.

To pair, we opened a Chateau Lassegue St. Emilion Grand Cru 2004. This is a project run by Jess Jackson (yes - of Kendall Jackson...) and made by Pierre Seillan, who also makes the highly touted Verite wines domestically. I must say, for what I paid for this wine, it was really quite wonderful. It's definitely a more "New World" style of Bordeaux. But as California can not create the terroir of France in its wines, Bordeaux can not seem to hide the terroir that is inherent even when dolloped with 80% new oak. The wine was showing a lot of youthful character still and seems to have a significant life ahead of it. Rich, youthful and dark fruit mixed with lots of oak character and mineral/earth. Solid stuff. And much better than his Tuscan wine of the same cepages (Arcanum) which we tried recently as well. There is no question that Tuscany's Bordeaux blends have nothing on the "real" Bordeaux.

I think this retails for about $60-ish. I don't know if it's worth that much. But they've been discounting it to move out the old vintages so you might find a good deal. At $30 it's be a good steal!