Wine Tributaries
by Tim Hayes & John Koetzner

      One local Healdsburg favorite, Western Boot, is making a connection to the wine industry by directly catering lunches and dinners for Kendall-Jackson’s crush workers. Ken Rochioli serves about forty-five people at a meal, and he admits that it is a strenuous schedule to do a couple meals a day and deliver them. He said, "We’ll do something like pork chops, garlic mashed potatoes, and corn-on-the-cob. We deliver the meal, come back and start working on the next one, and then pick up everything from the previous meal. When crush is over, I’m as happy as the workers are for getting through it."

     The food and wine connection gets a slightly different twist over at Chateau Souverain where chef Martin Courtman has been developing menus to highlight wines produced at the winery since 1990. Yet, he also has developed some fantastic catering, such as this year’s Sonoma County Barrel Auction dinner which showed an imaginative flair from the appetizers to dessert, and which was served simultaneously at Chateau Souverain and Chateau St. Jean.

     Since he must cater to the public as well as wine distributor guests, Courtman recalls, "We closed the restaurant in 1992 for a little while and tried to streamline things a bit.  I’ve been using our Sonoma bounty, going for more value for the money.   

     "I try to make food that matches the ambiance here at the winery. I have less control over what wine gets paired with a meal, because customers make their own decisions about which wine to buy, but I make dishes that capture the depth of the wine. For example, I do a New York steak, sear it off until it gets a nice crust, do a gorgonzola mousseline, and a compound butter with a reduction of Cabernet along with rosemary and thyme. It goes extremely well with the Reserve Cabernet. I do lamb dishes that go well with either Merlot or Cabernet too. When a distributor comes, I get a chance to show how to complement our wines with food."

     Many of the wineries have chefs to prepare meals that demonstrate the divine dining possible when matching foods and wines. Geyser Peak and Canyon Road have George Cornfoot doing what they call simple, but elegant meals.

     Other wineries, such as Alderbrook, have chefs like Jim May who travel the world, continuing to master more cuisines. Currently, May is in Spain, but he still adheres to the "Bounty of Sonoma County Program," incorporating local produce and ingredients. Some chefs, such as Simi Winery’s Mary Evely not only travel the world regularly, but she has gone on to develop a cookbook pairing dishes with specific wine varietals.

     In the arena of premium wineries, which focus primarily on their distributors, Chalk Hill Winery has one of the most impressive programs. Executive Chef Craig Strattman not only has an organic garden for raising many of his ingredients, but he has become well versed in soil composition, different grape clones, and the whole winemaking process. On a recent tour of the winery estate, Strattman was just as much at home driving a convertible Suburban, pointing out the seventeen different Chardonnay clones, as he was while passing his organic garden with thirty-six tomato varieties and talking about their different contributions to his meals.

     He says, "I like good food basics that parallel what the estate winemaking process does, insuring high quality. Plus, an in-house culinary program makes the wine like a food."

     Strattman’s knowledge not only demonstrates a true understanding about wine, but it gives him a holistic view of wine and food. For several years he has done tasting components with salty, sour, fatty, and bitter tastes, teaching people to distinguish how different tastes impact a wine and the way people perceive a wine’s components as a result of those taste components. These are keys to better food and wine pairing in his view, where he sometimes surprises people with his food and wine pairings.

     Over the years, he has prepared meals where the world has come to him for a world class culinary experience. He previously had a Bay Area catering business and had the opportunity to make meals for the Dalai Lama, Francois Mitterand, and Helmut Kohl. After a decade with his own business, Strattman moved to Sonoma County in 1995, first taking a job with Simi Winery.

     He moved to Chalk Hill this year, and he mentioned that it has been an incredible place to learn even more about the complexities of  food and wine. "You want to maintain the balance of the wine. Being a winery chef, the wine comes first. I try to complement or contrast the flavors. Because Chalk Hill’s wines are so balanced, I can do so much more food with wine. This lets me show a lot of faces to the wine."

     Looking over one of Strattman’s menus, it was easy to see how creative he is. He paired shrimp gazpacho (served with a grilled olive bread and goat cheese) with Chalk Hill’s 1996 Sauvignon Blanc, followed by a roasted corn tamale (served with a pinenut cream) paired with  their 1996 Chardonnay, and followed that with Sonoma County’s Liberty Duck breast (accompanied by walnut greens with soy) paired with their 1995 Cabernet Sauvignon. "I like to break the rules," he said.

     This year’s harvest has had people nervous, but we can be certain that the chefs in our area will continue to wed food and wine in ways that will help us reach that sublime dining experience. Sonoma County is definitely in the right place for it.           

© 1999 by Tim Hayes & John Koetzner. All Rights Reserved. Wine Tributaries is hosted by Wines on the Internet.