Dinner - Palisades (Oregon Themed)

Last week I was fortunate enough to enjoy a visit to The Palisades Restaurant.  I've been less than a handful of times, but each occasion has been excellent with the food always tasting amazing.  This occasion was no different.  On the night we ate the wines around the world theme was wine and food from Oregon.

Rolling up to the Palisades.  I always forget how "in the middle
of nowhere" this place is, and the road condition en route.

Lets start off with the wines first:

From L to R: 2013 Wildewood Pinot Noir, 2014 Winewroks
A to Z Rose, 2013 Wildewood Pinot Gris

1.  2013 Wildewood Pinot Noir
2. 2014 Wineworks A to Z Rose
3. 2013 Wildewood Pinot Gris

My first impressions of these wines were somewhat difficult to pinpoint especially off of the nose.  It may have had something to do with the glasses or the wines themselves.  The 2013 Wildewood Pinot Noir had a nice thick body and mouthfeel.  Unfortunately it was slightly flabby so this distracted from the overall quality of the wine.  This Pinot offered nice aromas of freshly baked bread and nice fruitiness.  It tasted of nice bright fruits as well.   Now the Rose was probably the most aromatic and my favorite of the three.  The 2014 Wineworks A to Z Rose immediately made me think of a peach fuzz covered watermelon (quite an awesome thing to think about).  James and the Giant Peach Fuzz if you will.  It was also packing a very nice acidic backbone accompanied with notes of freshly picked strawberries.  It may have been slightly off balance because there was a little more heat or alcohol that bled through on the finish.  And finally the 2013 Wildewood Pinot Gris.  This wine was challenging to figure out.  It was very refreshing with great acidity and a semi sweet component going on.  And there was probably some notes of pear, honeydew, and lemon zest on the nose and palette, but again this was probably the weakest of the three.

Shameful selfies, but I left so happy

From L to R: Quail legs, Blackberry Salmon, Mushroom Pizza

Onto the food.  We were served quail legs on a bed of mashed potatoes, salmon fillets with a blackberry sauce, and a stone oven mushroom pizza.  Each component by itself was awesome but when paired with the wines created a totally unique experience.  The pairings were in the same order as the wines.  I first tried the quail legs with the Pinot Noir.  Probably the most disappointing pairing for me because I could not discern the taste despite how delicious it was.  I kept getting this really intense strong flavor like rhubarb or something, but I honestly have no idea what it was. It brought the heat though, my mouth was lighting up from the Pinot Noir and quail combo!  The second dish, much like the second wine, was my favorite (I must have some tendency for things in the middle).  It easily brought out the best flavors in the wine.  The A to Z Rose paired fantastically with the blackberry sauce and salmon. As soon as I started sipping on the Rose it was like I was biting into a juicy strawberry the size of an apple.  This brought a smile to my face almost instantly.  The last dish was the pizza paired with the Pinot Noir.  Whoever was doing the parings for this dish should be given a high five, they were all great.  I did not expect the pizza to go as well as it did with this pinot, but I was completely wrong.  The Pinot changed drastically becoming a much, much dryer wine. Some of the acidity that I had originally liked seemed to have faded, but it simply opened up my palette for a much more pleasing pear & pizza thoroughbred.  

The fabled bread pudding

After we had devoured our meal and wine, which really was not enough to fill us up, we made the tough decision to order desert.  This was not a tough decision by the way, I love desert and do not mess around when it comes to bread pudding.  Joel and I ordered the bread pudding with toffee and Joel's girlfriend Erin got the Guinness pudding or something.  Anyway the bread pudding was some of the best I've ever had.  I was literally licking the plate to get every drop left.

So all in all a pretty great time with good friends.  The staff was super friendly as usual and I would really like to go back in a few weeks for the Italian night, maybe we'll get a Borolo. Haha definitely not, but I can dream.  

Extremely goofy, I have no idea why they aren't
just smiling like normal people