Wine Gavel Wine Auction

Today we went to a wine auction in San Francisco at Ame restaurant in the St. Regis hotel. I like attending wine auctions, it's a really good way to keep up with the market and see what people are actually willing to pay for wine. Wine Gavel is a relatively new company based in SF, so it was a smaller auction, about 300 lots. There was a lot of older Bordeaux (1909 Lafite, 47 Cheval, 61 Petrus, etc), as well as some California wines and some Burgundies. There were some deals to be had, although not on the wines I was interested in, but that's ok. There were many retailers in the room trying to grab up a few bargains, but the Internet was were most of the action was.

There was a special 3 course meal available during the auction and I'm glad we decided to stay and have lunch. I've only been to Ame once before, years ago, and had an appetizer at the bar with friends. This is a great restaurant and I'll definitely be back. The first course was interesting, but worked. It was smoked trout with tuna tartar over a barely poached egg. Really nice, the trout was mostly raw with just a bit of smokiness and the runny yolk made a sauce for the fish. Very good. This was served with a glass of Champagne that we unfortunately didn't get the name of, but I like it. It was a lighter style Champagne with a lot of crispness and nice apple and floral flavors.

The main course was a choice of their house speciality of broiled sake marinated cod or grilled quail over mushroom risotto. We got one of each so we could share and try more things. The quail was good, but not great. It was on the rare side, which is fine, but the skin wasn't crisp or golden so the plate was a bit drab looking. The risotto was fine, but it needed a bit more seasoning. The cod was awesome. It was perfectly cooked and served in a shiso broth with mushrooms, carrots and spinach leaves. There were also two fish filled raviolis in the broth that were amazing. Clearly homemade, the texture of the ravioli was perfect. A great dish. With this course they opened a real treat, a 1952 Echezeaux, Remoissenet. There was no label on the bottle, it was old and funky, always a good sign. The wine was dark and a bit rusty in color out of the bottle and we got one of the first pours so there was very little sediment in the glass. It was still young, lots of fruit on the nose. Not a really long finish, but still very impressive given the age of the wine.

We finished with a cheese course and some 1979 Chateau Palmer. The cheeses were a smoked blue cheese from Oregon and a truffle goat cheese. I liked them both and it was a nice way to finish the meal while the auction was winding now. On the nose the Palmer was a bit green when it was first poured, but that blew off and there was a good amount of fruit. It had a short finish, but went well with the cheese.

Not a bad Saturday afternoon.