quote:
Originally posted by Ardeis:
Our wine group, The Grapenuts of Tampa, meet at our home next month. Theme is US meritage/claret/French Bordeaux blends. Some of wines being opened are "Les Pavots" and "Pluribus".
Looking for some appetizer ideas. Probably will have leg of lamb and grilled antelope for mains. Portobello mushroom caps come to mind.
I'm planning to have some cheeses out to---St Andre, Fontina, etc.
Hi Ardeis.
The first thing I thought of was cheese, but cannot really say I'm behind the cheeses you've mentioned with CA Bordeaux-style blends. A high-quality sharp cheddar would be my first choice. Other moderately-plus strong hard and semi-hard cheeses would follow suit. Aged gouda, for example. Piave, Manchego, Montasio, a good Gruyere.
These wines don't marry well with many appetizers you would traditionally serve if serving red meat mains. But, if you were willing to do red meat apps, grilled "lollipop" lamb rib chops would certainly be good. A little lighter but still nice would be little breassola sandwiches on ciabatta or foccacia with arugula or watercress and fontina.
For non red meat apps, many many different mushroom preparations would work. Grilled radicchio wrapped in prosciutto. I once was fiddling around and wound up making a corn and pancetta soup that would work. But it was just me goofing off and I have no recipie to share on that. I recognize those last two things both have red meat in them.
Hope some of this helps!
