Oyster Society Wines and Dines

About thirty culinary enthusiasts enjoyed a carefully curated dining experience last Wednesday. Convening at the Oyster Society in the Marco Walk Plaza, they sampled five courses selected by chefs from three restaurants, each course paired with a different wine. 

While the Carvelli and Serravalle families who make up the Carvelli Restaurant Group are firmly rooted in their Italian heritage, on this night, the culinary focus was a little farther north, in France. The foods on offer were all French-inspired, while the red, white, and sparkling wines served with them were French, period. Each of the guests, seated family-style at tables holding eight to 10 places, faced a forest of glassware, with five different wine glasses waiting to be filled, along with a tumbler of water. 

After greeting the guests in the private dining room, Oyster Society general manager and partner Francesco Serravalle turned the proceedings over to wine consultant Robert Fairbrother of beverage purveyor Winebow. Fairbrother elucidated the finer points of each wine, as well as the basics, such as the fact that what looked and tasted like pink champagne served with the first course of tuna tartare and oyster aioli, served in an oyster shell, was not champagne, as the grapes did not come from the Champagne district. Sourced from Provence, the sparkling Chateau de Rouanne Brut Rosé was bone dry, with zero sugar added to the up to 13 different grape varieties blended.

“They used to call it methode champenoise, but the growers in Champagne objected to that too,” said Fairbrother. 

The tuna tartare was followed by a magret de canard fumé, or smoked duck breast, paired with a white Cotes de Provence 2022. A fish course came next, salmon in papillote with a beurre rouge sauce, not to be confused with the more common beurre blanc made with white wine. The accompanying wine to drink was red also, the first of the evening, a 2016 Croix Canon Saint-Émilion Bordeaux.

As the guests were sampling their wines and viands, they each had an order form and filled in their desires for purchase. The Bordeaux, although among the priciest bottles at $57, turned out to be the most popular, said Fairbrother following the event. He continued to discourse on the background and provenance of each bottle, but while at the beginning of the evening, the diners were quickly hushed by the traditional clinking of silverware on a glass, conversation grew increasingly animated as the dinner and the wines progressed. 

All Bordeaux wines are blends, Fairbrother explained, and he flagged the Croix Canon as “an exceptional value.” And while he was typically diplomatic to a fault and accommodating to individual tastes, he declared, "All of you who say you don’t like merlot, you’re wrong – this is 76 percent merlot.” He spoke of soil or terroir, varietals, vintages, and the growing acceptance of organic viticulture as the standard for excellent and sustainable vines. “If we have healthy soil, we have healthy wines,” he said. 

One of my tablemates, Cynthia Nelson, raved about the salmon, which was served moist and flaky in its own little bag, and the pairing. Her dinner partner, Jim Fox, singled out the duck and noted that just like in a charity auction, keeping the alcohol flowing leads to greater sales. “You drink the wine, and then you fill out the order form,” he said. 

For a hearty meat course, a cote courte Bourguignon or slow-roasted beef was paired with a hearty cabernet sauvignon from the same Chateau de Rouanne that supplied the initial Champagne taste alike. As another guest, Sam Magarino, pointed out, “There is no bread on the table” – nothing to fill up or distract the diners from carefully thought-out progression of dishes.

The final course came as a surprise, the first time that many of us had ever encountered foie gras as a dessert. It was paired with a Domaine de L’Alliance Sauternes, and while not a fan of sweet wines in general, I have to admit it made a great accompaniment. 

Throughout the meal, the leisurely pacing, exquisite flavors, and moderate portion sizes lent themselves to a gracious, satisfying experience, with experience being perhaps the key word. The many years of satisfying American palates with European dishes embodied in the Carvelli Restaurant Group all added up to a sensational dinner and an on-the-fly education in French wines. Part of the education was not finishing each of the five glasses of wine, especially if one was faced with driving off the island afterward. 

This wine dinner was the third in a series this summer for the Carvelli group, with previous events at DaVinci featuring Italian cuisine and Marco Prime centered on meats and wines such as cabernets. 

“It’s a lot of fun for us,” said Francesco Serravalle, with many of the diners at the Oyster Society wine dinner, “our most loyal customers. We have a fun night and show appreciation for our guests. And we invite some of the staff members to experience what we do, not working but as a guest.” One of those staff members, DaVinci manager Maria Suarez, said that of all the dishes, her favorite was the dessert, the foie gras au torchon or goose liver paté. 

As the dinner concluded, Serravalle brought the evening’s chefs out to be introduced to a round of applause from the diners. Oyster Society executive chef Chris de Genova, Marco Prime executive chef Roberto Rocha, DaVinci executive chef Giovanni Terraglia, and DaVinci’s sous chef Christian were greeted as the heroes of the feast. Having the three restaurants cheek to jowl at the Marco Walk meant that none of them had to walk more than a few steps to come and be recognized, even if they had been busy at their respective establishments. 

No further wine dinners are on tap this year, although the Oyster Society always offers private events such as Chef’s Table dinners. They have a sunset dining menu (what a less exclusive eatery might call an early bird special) through October 1.