Matching Wines with My Menu

[smaura]

I need help finding 3 wines to go with a
dinner menu I am planning. The first wine I
needs to go with the app and carry over to
the salad. The 2nd to match my entree and
the third to match my dessert. $60 is the
maximum I can spend per wine. My menu is as
follows:

App: Baked goat cheese cake served with
creme fraiche and black raspberries

Salad: Mixed greens with toasted walnuts
and roasted onion dressing

Entree: Grilled lamb loin with green
peppercorn sauce, served with sauteed
wild mushrooms and young vegetables

Dessert: Double chocolate tangerine mousse
cake(This is a dense fudgelike cake
with ground toasted hazelnuts, covered
with a white chocolate tangerine
mousse)

I hope this is enough information. Any
suggestions will help me.
Thank You
Smaura

[Innkeeper]

Hi Smaura, and welcome to the Wine Board. For the first course would recommend a Pouilly Fume or a Sancerre. The high acidity (crispness) in the sauvignon blanc in these wines would handle the acid in both the appetizer and the salad. For the entree would go with a Crozes Hermitage or a Gigondas. Both these Rhones marry splendidly with lamb. This long held conviction has been back up by a spate of articles in the recent wine press. For dessert would recommend Banyuls, a dessert wine made in the south of France primarily from grenache, or a Vintage Port. They both complement chocolate wonderfully. Gigondas is also made from grenache although it is dry. You may not want two wines from the same grape. All recommended wines except the Vintage Port would cost well below $60.

[chittychattykathy]

As I read this one Sancerre came right to mind with the cheese, & will work with the salad. The Rhone with the Lamb, perfect! (IK is right on, as is the norm!)
With dessert I'd go with a Brut Rose Champagne, but that's just how I like to satisfy my "wine & chocolate" needs.... [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/smile.gif[/img]

[winoweenie]

Smaura, Welcome to the board. Let me say that if you think you might have enemies that would try to harm you, I'm available as your official taster ( Wow, Drew must be on assignment to have missed this menue ). I too am from the Rose Champagne school. Love the Billicart-Salmon NV. Was our official wecome the true Centennial drink. Sounds like one whale of a party. Who's the lucky stiff? WW

[Innkeeper]

Back in the old days (a year or so ago) I'd get drawn and quartered, pilloried, gutted out, and otherwise trashed for having the audacity to recommend a dry wine with a sweet dessert, especially a chocolate one. Now two of the nicest most knowledgeable people I know come along and do just that. Oh, what to do! Oh, what to do? There are such things as sweet, pink sparklers. Am sure Roberto has a store full of them. They would go fine, but Brut Rose'? Nah!

[Thomas]

I like Riesling with the salad, and I would try Malmsey with the dessert--the rest is fine with me.