Next Year
So I have just about finished my first of two years in the UC Davis Viticulture and Enology MS program. It has been a fantastic year - I have met great people, learned from amazing professors, and drank amazing wine.
I was made aware this morning at a meeting that I have signed up for a laundry list of jobs for next year. I will:
be GSA representative with Scott
run Vitis with Jesse
be on the Executive Committee with Wynne
be DEVO secretary
I have a long year ahead of me.
Speaking of DEVO, the Dinner under the Winkler Vine got a glowing review from Bob Dunning, our local paper's most influential writer. Unfortunately, in their infinite (lack of) wisdom, The Davis Enterprise puts all articles older than ONE day old in a fee-based archive, so I can't link to the article, but here is a quote:
Because I have friends in high places on the UC Davis campus (the guy washing the windows at the Top of the Mrak) I found myself one recent evening sitting out under the stars with the Red-Headed Girl of My Dreams and dozens of others, being wined and dined in a most extraordinary fashion.
Yes, this would be the esteemed "Dinner Under the Winkler Vine," seventh edition, a major fund-raiser put on by the student-run group DEVO, the Davis Enology and Viticulture Organization. In other words, if you don't like wine, put your checkbook back in your pocket and go home.
...
The kids from DEVO are the grape growers and wine makers of tomorrow. I'd say we're in good hands.
-Bob Dunning, Davis Enterprise, June 6, 2007
Good work, DEVO. Hopefully things will go as well next year as they did this year.
2 comments:
Greg-
Hope this posts.
Looking forward to next year.
Bob Dunning
Because I have friends in high places on the UC Davis campus – the guy washing the windows at the Top of the Mrak – I found myself one recent evening sitting out under the stars with the Red-Headed Girl of My Dreams and dozens of others, being wined and dined in a most extraordinary fashion.
Yes, this would be the esteemed “Dinner Under the Winkler Vine,” seventh edition, a major fund-raiser put on by the student-run group D.E.V.O., the Davis Enology and Viticulture Organization. In other words, if you don’t like wine, put your checkbook back in your pocket and go home.
The Winkler vine, an aging overhead giant, covers an area about the size of a residential lot in Wildhorse. But there’s no structure there, save for the overhead trellis that carries the vine off in every direction.
It is in this setting, under the moon and the stars and sometimes Mars, that the students who comprise D.E.V.O. invite winemakers of the west and chefs from as far as Albuquerque to “pair” their offerings in a series of scrumptious courses that can only be described as inspired.
Yes, in my next life I plan to come back as the food and wine critic for Davis’ Only Daily Newspaper and I’ll no doubt propose that D.E.V.O. put on its annual fund-raiser at least once a week. It’s that good.
Each course is explained by the chef and each wine is explained by the winemaker. As an added bonus, the winemakers sit with diners, while the chefs are in the tents out back, slaving away to keep the food coming in an orderly – and delicious – progression.
At our table of nine, we were honored not only to have esteemed faculty member Andy Waterhouse to explain what we were drinking, but also winemaker Mike Grgich of Grgich Hills in the Napa Valley, who charmed the crowd with stories from his native Croatia and how he came years ago to the United States to grow grapes and make wine. Grgich, as it turns out, managed to earn his college degree at age 77.
And now to the good stuff, the food. I will admit to running to a foodie-type dictionary when I received the menu by email several weeks before the event. Every other word was a mystery to me, but then again, such familiar gourmet phrases as “pepperoni pizza,” “Big Mac” and “chuck steak” were nowhere to be found.
The appetizer offering of “shrimp and scallop mousse crab cake with passion fruit vinaigrette” was easy enough to understand as was the “smoked salmon hash with mozzarella and herb-oil crostini,” but when the first course promised “aprium three ways” I thought maybe dinner was over and we were heading straight into the entertainment.
The first course also included such strangers as “quenelle,” “chutney” and “brulee,” but there were many kind and knowledgeable folks present to hold my hand and walk me through it.
The second course, “sweetwoods goat cheese orzo with roasted morels,” was beyond what the nuns promised me heaven would be, even if I did mistake “morels” for “morsels.”
The third course, “local squab three ways,” caused me considerable anxiety in the days leading up to the event. First off, I’ve never met a local squab, even while jogging in the country, and my consumption of feathered animals is pretty much limited to chicken and turkey. Truth be told, every time I tried to imagine “squab,” my mind conjured up pigeon.
But, like everything else, it turned out just fine – actually much, much better than fine - partly because the squab shared space on my fork with the “confit sweet potato agnolotti” and the “huckleberry and pinot-liver emulsion,” and nevermind that I recognized only two of the four words in “confit sweet potato agnolotti.”
The next course, billed as the “entrée,” was the very straightforward “rack of lamb with blue cheese crust.” It did not require a dictionary. I could have eaten three.
And then, of course, it was back to the dictionary for the dessert of “pear soup with semolina cake and almond panna cotta”.
Along the way I learned all about Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs, Chehalem Dry Riesling, Cakebread Cellars Chardonnay, Saintsbury Brown Ranch Pinot Noir, Seavey Carbernet Sauvignon, Grgich Hils Napa Valley Zinfandel, Robert Sinskey Late Harvest Pinot Gris and calling a cab.
The kids from D.E.V.O. are the grape growers and wine makers of tomorrow.
I’d say we’re in good hands.
Reach Bob Dunning at dunning@davisenterprise.net
Thanks Bob, and thanks for coming!
Greg
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