The Capital Grille Master Wine Tasting Event

You may find this hard to believe, but yesterday I took a day off. This is a huge compliment to my staff that I felt comfortable leaving the store in their care at the tender age of nine days old. But my brain was fried, and I needed to see my kids, my wife, my house, and do a few errands…like go to the bank and do a week’s worth of deposits!

The Urban Grape is partnering with The Capital Grille on their Master Wine Tasting Event, and Hads and I had been invited in a few weeks ago to taste all the wines and have dinner. It had been years since we’d been to The Capital Grille, so we decided to head there for dinner last night. We knew we were in for a treat, and were excited to actually speak to each other for the first time in weeks!

The first thing we noticed was the exceptional service. The staff has been exceptionally trained to make every diner feel like a VIP. We were greeted by name by the hostesses, and then warmly greeted by our friend Dina Trueheart, the Sales and Marketing Manager at the Newbury Street location (The Urban Grape is located just across the street from the Chestnut Hill location, but we live near the Back Bay location, so that’s where we headed last night). From there we met the GM Chris and our waiter Christopher, both of whom were eager to give us an incredible dining experience. Christopher basically had Hadley eating out of the palm of his hand at “hello,” and sealed the deal when he said looks familiar because he has “one of those Massachusetts faces.”

For the next two hours, we ate. And drank. And ate. And drank. And then to end we polished off two desserts after insisting that we would just have a bite. Our tasting consisted of Figs with Goat Cheese and Proscuitto with a Balsamic Reduction, Calamari with Hot Peppers and Lemon, Oysters, Beef Carpaccio with an Arugula Salad, Heirloom Tomato and Mozzarella Salad, Bone-in Kona Rubbed Sirloin with Shallot Butter, Herb Seasoned Kansas City Sirloin, Asparagus with Hollandaise, Haricot Vert, Lobster Mac and Cheese, Au Gratin Potatoes, Coconut Creme Pie and Flourless Chocolate Cake.

I’m not even kidding.

My steak was incredible, and a seasonal special that they are just running for the summer. I’ve never squeezed lemon on a steak before, but I was glad I did last night. I don’t know how they managed to make a huge steak taste like a “light” dinner, but they did.

With all of this incredible food we tasted through the ten wines chosen by Master Sommelier George Miliotes. The Urban Grape carries all of these wines, and while I had tried many of them, there were a few I was curious to learn more about. As a group, the wines were interesting and memorable and paired very nicely with all of the food we sampled. My favorites were the Freemark Abbey Cabernet Sauvignon Blend from Napa Valley and the Craggy Range Te Kahu Merlot from New Zealand. Hads loved the Craggy Range Te Muna Road Sauvignon Blanc (New Zealand), The Teruzzi & Puthod Terre di Tufi from Tuscany and the Craggy Range Te Kahu Merlot. While not a favorite for our palette, the Cambria Bench Break Chardonnay from California is the epitome of a big California Chard. If this is your type of Chardonnay, run don’t walk to pick this up!

While all of the wines were outstanding, it really was the wines from New Zealand that had us raving (the two from Craggy Range and the Wild Rock Cupid’s Arrow Pinot Noir). We could drink these wines all night, and, in fact, we did! The Master Wine Tasting event is open to all diners at The Capital Grille from now to September 5th. The current wines will switch out on July 26 and will be replaced with wines from California, Spain and Australia. The cost is $25 per person, and you can sample all the wines or just chose a few that you’d like to pair with your meal. Hads and I didn’t have our camera, but if you’d like to see some pictures of the food and read another great review of the event, please check the Wellesley Wine Press blog, which reviewed the same event yesterday.

I can’t end the blog without talking about the coconut creme pie. We really were full when it came to the table and really did swear that we were just going to have a bite. But Hads and I demolished that pie like we hadn’t seen food in a month. Literally could not get enough of it. I’m going to be dreaming about that pie until we can get back there again!

After you’ve tasted the wines at The Capital Grille you can purchase them from The Urban Grape. And if you sample them at the Back Bay location and live in the city, don’t worry! Because we travel back into the city every night we are happy to deliver the wines to you.

Thanks again to The Capital Grille for a wonderful dining experience. It’s one we hope to repeat again soon!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 at 2:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.