The Kesslers and Hardens decided to play a little catchup, explore a new place for dinner in Sonoma, and enjoy a little wine in the process this week.
Estate, which resides in the now defunct "General's Daughter" location, and is operated by the same team that brought us the girl and the fig, is now up, running, and well through their initial shakedown, so we decided it was time to try it out.
The building and grounds make for a beautiful and stylish restaurant, with a lovely gingerbread Victorian building tastefully furnished inside. The new operators did little massive change, choosing instead to keep the essential nature of the place intact, but gussying it up here and there. It remains a lovely room in which to dine. The bar is a nice, cosy, and blessedly quiet room at the front of the house, with the main dining rooms separated by a stairway to the next floor (presumably either offices or private rooms). It's a good, workable layout for a restaurant.
The only problem here is that this will be a challenge to fill all the seats on a regular ongoing basis----it is a big place. It was bustling while we were there...but it was a Saturday night too. Interesting if the draw is substantial enough during the weekdays to maintain this large venue.
Food was pretty darned good, and interesting. BL had some fork-tender tripe (Italian style) with a coddled egg in bread crumbs providing a tasteful and entertaining ooze of golden yellow yolk on the tomato-drenched tripe. I had a slightly cool and somewhat rubbery, but pretty damned tasty, app of melted caccciocavallo cheese sprinkled with black truffles and served with crostini. Roxi had a colorful salad, which she loved, and Lou hunkered down over some sauteed chicken livers. We also shared a communal dish of chickpea mash over bruschetta---but it was bland and featurless to me, and rated only a "feh".
For dinner two of us selected big bowls of bucatini with a rich and hearty sauce of olive oil-tossed pancetta/lardons and tomatoes; BL tried another similarly hearty peasant-style pappardelle with a mixed meat ragu (looked great and she seemed to like it), and Roxi enjoyed her dish of ravioli stuffed with goat cheese and pumpkin enough to polish the plate to a high sheen before giving it back to the waiter.
Lou, as always, brought his magic bag, and pulled from it....a 1988 Sassicaia!
Let's face it: the man's cellar is nothing short of amazing in its depth and breadth. He has an astonishing track record of treasures he has collected. And it is matched only by his generosity in sharing them with us lesser folk.
Remarkably lush nose, vibrant pure fruit, loaded with berries, tobacco, violets, a touch of smoky char, and rich vanilla toastiness in the background. Hard to believe this is a twenty-year old Tuscan, for it is lively and intense and fruit-driven, for all the world like a three to four year old wine.
The nose is so intense, so concentrated, so rich, it is difficult to give up the pleasure of revelling in the smell alone, but the taste delivers on the promise of the nose. Beautifully structured, nicely balanced, with intense dark fruit sturdily structured with tannins, it perfumes the nose and fills the mouth. If I were to quibble, I could hesitate a bit in praise at the finish, for it seems to lag a bit there, slighlty falling off at the end. But who wants to pick nits with a wine this glorious? It's beautiful, and sufficient thereunto the pasta dish, as a good Tuscan should be, so we'll overlook that tiny flaw. It's a gorgeous, voluptuous Italian beauty at it's vibrant peak.
For dessert we chose a dish I'd heard good things about, the Chocolate budino in a pastry crust. Delicious, more milk chocolately than dark, with an intriguing salty tang from flake salt in the crust. Bit too salty for me, actually, but a great combination nonetheless.
So overall Estate got decent marks for decor and food. Frankly, I wasn't all to impressed by their wine list. But who cares about that, when you're drinking 1988 Sassicaia!