Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Drink Progressively Cookbook Dinner with Urban Grape at Harvest (Cambridge, MA)

I only recently discovered that Harvest in Harvard Square does a cookbook series, where they invite a cookbook author to prepare a multi-course dinner with Harvest's chef Tyler Kinnett. I attended one for a wine and recipe pairing book called Drink Progressively from Urban Grape, a wine store in Boston's South End. The book is co-authored by husband-and-wife TJ and Hadley Douglas (who own and run Urban Grape) along with chef Gabriel Frasca (Straight Wharf, Nantucket).
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Urban Grape's concept is centered around something called the "progressive scale". The scale from 1 to 10 signifies how light or full bodied the wines are, so you can find similar wines based on what you like, or which wine to pair with a certain food.

Before dinner we started with a glass of Vermentino, which was a "4W" on the scale (a level 4 white wine).

The first course was Orecchiette pasta, chicken sausage, broccoli rabe, and pecorino. This was paired with a glass of 2014 Failla, Sonoma Coast, California. This was rated 10W on the scale, which meant a heavy, full-bodied white wine.
Harvest UrbanGrape
For the cookbook recipes, they wanted to keep everything approachable and easy to make for the home cooks, and this recipe was one of those that are easy to make yet still delicious.

Slow roasted salmon, bacon braised cabbage
Harvest UrbanGrape
The beautifully cooked salmon was paired with 2014 Lompoc Wine Company Pinot Noir fom Santa Rita Hills in California. One of the founders of Lompoc Wine Company is Rajat Parr who used to run Michael Mina restaurants' wine program.
Even though it's a fish dish, it is paired with a red wine since the wine is acid-driven and is a lighter bodied wine (2R on the scale). The acid also helped cut the fattiness of the salmon and the bacon-braised cabbage.
Harvest UrbanGrape

Red wine duck, green olives, dates and polenta - paired with 2013 Luca Double Select Syrah from Uco Valley in Mendoza, Argentina (10R).
Harvest UrbanGrape
Luca is a 7 year old wine company and this wine is a 100% Syrah made in Northern Rhone style. The duck dish was quite rich with a sweetness from the dates, which pairs well with the high levels of tannin in the wine.
Harvest UrbanGrape

For dessert, Harvest's pastry chef Joshua Livsey made a Dark chocolate cremeux, walnut medjool date ice cream, chocolate meringue, cherry. Instead of wine, this was paired with a beer - a Chimay Premiere Rouge Belgian Dubbel.
Harvest UrbanGrape

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L to R: TJ and Hadley Douglas, Gabriel Frasca
This was the second special event dinner I attended at Harvest, and both have been wonderful. With the Cookbook Series, the price includes your wine-paired dinner and the cookbook signed by the author, and tax and gratuity. It's a pretty good deal!

Keep a look out on the "News & Events" section of Harvest's website for upcoming cookbook dinners or other special events.
Harvest UrbanGrape

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