By LINDA HULL“Wine is only as good as the company you share it with, so drink great wine,” quips Mark Johnson, the Santa Fe sommelier who will be leading the wine-tasting and tapas event Saturday, Nov. 2 at Dixie Girl restaurant, 1789 Central Ave.
The Spanish Table is Rotary’s autumn fundraiser and the fun starts at 5:30 p.m. as the first of five courses of tapas, including dessert, will be paired with five different Spanish wines carefully selected by Johnson, who will engage diners with his vast knowledge of wine and food pairings.
The menu features:
1st Course – Homemade Basque lamb sausage with white beans;
2nd Course – Jamon (ham) and arugula salad with cabrales (blue cheese) and hazelnut vinaigrette;
3rd Course – Bombas de camarones and papas (shrimp and potato croquettes);
4th Course – Moorish lamb espadas (kabobs) with recado rojo (spicy red paste) and lemon aioli; and
5th Course – Missionfig flan with spiced almond brittle.
The evening also will showcase a live auction of wines, conducted by Johnson. Among these are several that rank higher than 90 points on the wine connoisseur rating scale of 50 to 100. A Chef’s Holiday Wine Dinner and a New Year’s Eve Champagne Dinner, both for six guests, will be on the block, too, with the highest bidder designing the menu and Johnson selecting complementary wines. The silent auction will feature more than 35 selections: Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Malbec, Syrah, and Spanish varietals along with Reidel glasses for red and white wines, wine-cork bulletin boards and hot plates, and a Vinara wine aerator.
Tickets are $60 per person, available at Dixie Girl and at the door. There will be open seating at tables of six or eight. Some tables for 10 have already been reserved.
Proceeds from the evening will benefit the Rotary Club’s many local and international projects. Rotary, founded in 1905, is the world’s first service organization and has more than 1.2 million members in 200 countries. Its objectives focus on issues of maternal and child health, literacy, clean water and sanitation, literacy, international peace, and the eradication of polio.
Direct questions about The Spanish Table event or Rotary to Skip King, 662.8832 or Linda Hull, 662.7950.
