Oyster Day!!!

Another Smashing Oyster Fest

Saturday we hosted our third annual Oysters & White Wine Festival and it was absolutely wonderful! As I picked the wines for this event I kept saying, “Now this is the stuff I really want to drink” as did Amy and Randy….we were so happy just to have all these remarkable wines open to share with our customers we almost forgot about the briny mollusks that were in our near future….in retrospect that was a good thing!

Our partners in this event were the guys from 555 East and they were running a tad late on Saturday, (I’m not a control freak per se but when I have to depend on people I don’t know it can be a nerve wracking experience for me) and as it turns out it was no wonder….they were shorted 250 oysters the morning of our event…..they must have been freaking out a touch too! Things were a tad sketchy in the beginning but once they guys got shucking, and Amy suggested putting out plates, (so people could take more than one oyster at a time..Brilliant) things began falling into place.

The lines dissipated and there was this glorious loop of folks coming up to the table with their little plate of oysters looking for a splash of wine to wash it down with. The mood changed, in the beginning there was too much time between the wine and the oysters so people were sipping on these pretty acidic wines not quite getting why we were so excited about them but once they had a slurp of seawater and fatty oyster the little bells went off. Gotta tell ya, I love watching that!

Once again Loire was the star of the day, those wines are just so perfectly balanced and taste rather amazing with seafood but all the wines showed really well and the crowd was loud, happy and in no hurry to leave even though we had to stop selling oyster tickets…..I had a grand total of 5, had to cut myself off once I heard there was a shortage….bummer.
Biggest hits of the day:

2006 Vieux Prunier Sancerre, ($21.99) tasted last of the Loire wines this was the fullest and most complex, deep minerals, stones, citrus with a wicked sexy mouth feel and a long finish.

2006 Pelle Menetou-Salon, (17.99) one of my favorites of the day….plenty of minerals but with a nice weight and a giant tangerine like middle, really lovely wine that will be in my weekly rotation.

2006 Sylvain Bailly Quincy, ($15.99) one of the best sellers of the day! So fruit forward with a nice zesty tang and a mouth refreshing finish….

2006 Sauvion Cleray Muscadet, ($12.99) Classic with oysters and it showed, was hands down the favorite of the day…stony, clean and very refreshing…almost salty in its own right…really pretty pairing.

Once the event was over, bottles corked up, floor cleaned of shells we were all so pleased with how things turned out and how tasty everything was…..but we were all longing for more oysters! Randy and Dale made plans to hit Kings Fish House and Amy and I settled on Martinis at Interlude, (slightly divey bar on Atherton and Clark) which turned into way too many drinks at The Prospector with friend and customer Wade, (bartender there) who spoils us with deep pours and more shots than we should ever attempt…but alas we do!

Oysters, Champagne, Sancerre in the morning and crazy blue tinted shots, dancing with strangers to Reggae music in a vintage “cowboy meat joint” turned nightclub in the evenings….pretty cool day!