S.W AND RICH HERMANSEN
Staff Writers
wine@lbknews.com
Our tireless field research in food and wine venues paid off this week. In search of red wines, we visited
the Alpine Steakhouse on South Tamiami Trail in Sarasota. A fortunate choice, it turned out.
The restaurant has a butcher shop and a retail wine shop under one roof. Or perhaps it’s a butcher that sells wine and a restaurant has grown around it. Sarasota features a number of these hybrid food and beverage venues. Call it what it is.
The Alpine Steakhouse has become famous for Its TurDucKen: a Cajun composition of a boneless chicken stuffed inside a boneless duck stuffed inside a boneless turkey. A Carnivore’s choice cubed!
Toward the back of the restaurant, a poster of Guy Fieri of Triple D fame stands watch over a small bar. Fieri brought national exposure to the proprietor of Alpine Steakhouse, Mark Redham, and his Turducken specialty.
From prior visit, we remembered not so much the Turducken but the diverse selection of lighter red wines, apropos for winter feasts, on the wine list. The bar does not serve spirits: wine and beer only. It compensates with a truly interesting selection of wines by the glass and by the bottle. Andrea, behind the bar, had a couple of nearly empty bottles of wine that we noticed. She mentioned that a wine distributor had visited earlier and had opened bottles to taste and left them. We recognized the Flowers Pinot Noir label on one of the bottles.
In a serendipitous moment, Andrea poured us a taste of the Flowers Pinot Noir ($55 retail) from the Sonoma Coast of California, to see what we thought about it. This wine has a delicate fragrance on the nose that carries over to a fresh fruit taste and lingers like red plum through the finish. Serve it with medium rare pork chops, smoked turkey, ham, or roasted vegetables. It will enhance the tastes of yams, corn, yellow squash, and dressing.
Andrea also poured a small taste of the other wine: the Napa Ink Grade Andosol Red Field Blend ($84 retail). Named after California pioneer Theron Ink and the Ink Grade road that he built ascending Howell Mountain in Napa, this wine has the deep, dense color of black plum and blackberry juice and a smooth transition to a chicory coffee finish. Better with a prime beefsteak or grilled rack of lamb than a winer feast, but a delight to taste. Howell Mountain vineyards lie above the fogline of the Pacific Coast in volcanic ash soils.
We have found two other wines that fit a dedicated carnivore’s diet, but go easier on the budget, The 2023 Légende de Bonpas Luberon ($14) from the Southern Rhone Valley has a clean but rich mouth feel that will bring out the flavors of light meat and vegetable dishes during a winter dinner. The 2023 Petiole Pinot Noir ($12) from the Willamette Valley of Oregan has a light, fruity taste of a young Pinot Noir. It pairs well with the flavors of pork loin, turkey, ham, and root vegetable.
We give thanks for the bountiful harvests in the USA. May we share the produce of our land with all.
S. W. Hermansen has used his expertise in econometrics, data science and epidemiology to help develop research databases for the Pentagon, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Agriculture, and Health Resources and Services. He has visited premier vineyards and taste wines from major appellations in California, Oregon, New York State, and internationally from Tuscany and the Piedmont in Italy, the Ribera del Duero in Spain, the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale in Australia, and the Otego Valley in New Zealand. Currently he splits time between residences in Chevy Chase, Maryland and St. Armand’s Circle in Florida.
Rich Hermansen selected has first wine list for a restaurant shortly after graduating from college with a degree in Mathematics. He has extensive service and management experience in the food and wine industry. Family and friends rate him as their favorite chef, bartender, and wine steward. He lives in Severna Park, Maryland.
