Dinner OKA's at the Villa on the 23rd September

For the September session, after a summer of whites, I wanted to have a session of reds, not big, bold, full-bodied ones, but neither the light Pinot Noir style, so I chose to go for Nebbiolo in its more medium-bodied but not less significant Barbaresco form. We had Nebbiolo not too long ago in its less up-market but in my humble opinion much better value for money Langhe production, so it was unlikely that it would have surprised our members, and in fact a couple of diners managed to recognise that the wine was Nebbiolo-based.

Personally – being my choice to be expected – I was not disappointed with any of the wines and I was particularly pleased to note how many complemented the white wine also from Piemonte which I considered great value for money and hope to see it in restaurant menus.

The menu was not the best OKA’s ever gave us but it went well with the wines and considering that the venue gave us a 4 course dinner with canapes and petit fours it was certainly more than good value. Two tables gave the food very high votes with six 9 and even a 10 but the other table was less enthusiastic with even one 5/10 and those half dozen very low votes brought the average lower than I think the menu deserved.

The service was quite good and well supervised, and so on the whole the event went well.

Iro