To celebrate my birthday last night, we traveled down to Indianapolis to dine at Oakley's Bistro, a restaurant that we had only visited once before, shortly after its opening. With a very nice dinner (I had seared scallops as a starter followed by an assortment of vegetable dishes: veggie "lasagne" consisting of grilled eggplant between layeys of grilled polenta with a tomato confit on top, a morel souffle that was the highpoint of the meal, an artichoke chili relleno and cold sesame noodles; Jean had a shrimp bisque followed by a grilled halibut with olives, capers and sundried tomato) we had the following wines:
NV Zardetto Prosecco nose: light, slightly floral palate: crisp, clean, floral and melon notes, light
2001 Dom. Ramonet Bourgogne Blanc c: deep yellow n: initially, very oaky, blowing off to show lemons p: rounded, midweight, nice acidity, lemons, slight minerality, clean finish
2006 Torres "de Casta" Rosado DO Catalyuna c: almost hot pink n: bright strawberry p: light, bright, strawberries, dry finish
One lovely thing about the wine service was that we were able to get the Prosecco by the glass and the other two wines by the "quartino," a container holding 187 ml, enough for about three decent pours. That enabled us to have a leisurely two hour meal and have no qualms about the 60 mile drive back home. Of the three wines, the Ramonet was the most interesting, but the Torres Rosado was a fun little quaffer for a summertime dinner out of doors.
Mark Lipton