Remem­ber that time that I went to Capi­tol for a Serisen wine din­ner that cost $85 and was frick­ing amaz­ing? Well it turns out that there’s some­thing sim­i­lar hap­pen­ing every month at Cel­lar-Vate, but for only $35! Holy crap! So, in order to inves­ti­gate this phe­nom­e­non for you, my dear read­er, my fear­less din­ing com­pan­ion Karen and I sub­ject­ed our­selves to six cours­es of food matched with Clearview wines last night. Oh the human­i­ty.

It’s such a hard­ship to sit down to dine with new peo­ple just wait­ing to become your friends, Rachel from Cel­lar­vate who took the time to explain her menu selec­tions, and two peo­ple from the win­ery to chat to. Food was served on com­mu­nal plates, and while it was­n’t huge amounts of any­thing, even Karen and I, who do like our food a lot, left sat­is­fied. You need to go to Cel­lar Vate on Molesworth and ask them to put you on their mail­ing list so you can come along to the next din­er. The menu after the jump.

Clearview Estate Semi­l­lon 07 — Arti­choke and green bean sal­ad, chive and lime vinai­grette There isn’t a huge amount of Semi­l­lon avail­able by itself (not mixed with Sav), but with wines this nice, there real­ly should be. Peo­ple said that the food real­ly brought out the cit­rus flavours in the wine, but I was too busy being hap­py eat­ing arti­chokes that weren’t all briney like hearts nor­mal­ly are.

Clearview Estate Gewürz­tramin­er 07 — Tast­ing spoon of seared scal­lop, asian vine­gar with fei­joa essence The Clearview reps were a lit­tle hes­i­tant about how the fei­joa would sit with the wine, but it turned out to be bril­liant match, but the con­sen­sus was that there was a lit­tle too much vine­gar, which did­n’t reflect well on the wine. I’m nor­mal­ly a big gewurzt fan, but this was a tiny bit too mild for my lik­ing. Don’t get me wrong though, it was still very drink­able, but I like my gewurzt to have a bit more ooomph.

Clearview Estate Beach­head Chardon­nay 07 — White fish and pota­to cake in oat­meal crumb, pre­served lemon, tartare This was the sec­ond-best match of the night, and oh my god it was divine. The fish­cakes were fluffy and full of life, rather than the chewy things you might have had at Thai restau­rants, and the wine was light­ly oaked, and oh so sub­lime. Mmm­m­mm.

Clearview Estate Reserve Caber­net Franc 06 — Pep­pered lamb fil­let (medi­um rare), black­ber­ry jus Some argued that the lamb was a lit­tle too pep­pery, and that it could have been a lit­tle pinker, but the black­ber­ry sauce was out­stand­ing, so much so that each piece of lamb had to be dou­ble-dipped into it. The Caber­net Franc was scrump­tious too, real­ly real­ly smooth for a 2006, and with­out any puck­ery tan­nins. I went to the bath­room at this stage, and when I came back there was more wine in my glass, which tast­ed com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent with­out the food, so I thought we’d moved on to the mer­lot. But no, it was just a dif­fer­ent nuance to the Caber­net Franc. Splen­did.

Clearview Estate Mer­lot Franc 06 — Veni­son pastie, onion-toma­to chut­ney Nom nom nom. Filo pas­tries filled with minced veni­son? Yes please. I thought the wine match was absolute­ly per­fect too, although some ques­tioned the sweet­ness of the chut­ney. Some peo­ple talk too much, I think. I wish I could have had a thou­sand more pas­tries.

Clearview Estate Sea Red dessert wine 06 — Chilli choco­late Oh. My. God. Oh. My. God. Karen tried say­ing some­thing about this, but I held up my hand in her direc­tion (I had my eyes closed) and told her to leave me alone with my mouth. Oh my god. Seri­ous­ly, wow. Just, wow. The Sea Red was a rich rich sweet­er wine, for­ti­fied with brandy up to 17.5% alco­hol, and it was ever so slight­ly salty. The chilli choco­late from Shoc was also rich and smooth and with just a lit­tle bit of a kick. The two togeth­er in your mouth was like the most awe­some thing I’ve had in there all year, and I’ve had a lot of good things in my mouth this year. Again, wow, just wow. This will be what the McLeods are eat­ing for Xmas this year, even if the Sea Red is $37 for a half bot­tle. See you at the next din­ner!