Drinking the 2006 Isenhower Horse Heaven Hills “Snapdragon” at The Fish Club
My wife and I had a lovely dinner last night at a place in downtown Seattle called The Fish Club. The Fish Club is an interesting restaurant: They are located inside, or next to, a Marriott hotel near the waterfront, they seemingly have enough seating to house several NFL football teams, and they have nice interior design and decor that befits an upscale furniture showroom more than a restaurant. I like TFC, as I’m going to call it for the sake of brevity. They know how to cook seafood at TFC; their open kitchen sparked my interest throughout the night, actually, as I watched flames shoot several feet high on more than one occasion. I love that in a restaurant.
We were at TFC with a couple of old friends and we decided to do it up right, so to speak. Here’s what I had for dinner:
- Appetizer: Fish Club Caesar Salad (whole Romaine lettuce spears, garlicky croutons, Caesar dressing, and a single white anchovy curled at the top left of the plate)
- Entree: Grilled 1.5-pound Maine lobster with drawn butter, mashed potatoes, and a frisee salad thing
- Dessert: Warm chocolate pudding (more like a chocolate mousse) with molten flourless chocolate cake and chocolate malt ice cream
I started out the night with a Dark and Stormy, one of my favorite drinks: Gosling’s Black Seal dark rum, lime juice, and ginger beer. It’s a fairly sweet drink that can be deceptively potent; apparently this drink heralds from Bermuda, along with the Rum Swizzle (another personal favorite). Interestingly, the Gosling rum company has trademarked the phrase “Dark’N'Stormy.” How American for a company based in Bermuda.
By the time my lobster showed up, I wanted to try a nice white wine. I noticed that TFC was offering Isenhower “Snapdragon” by the glass, so I took the plunge. Isenhower is a Walla Walla winery located, if you know your wine geography, in eastern Washington State. Isenhower is only 8 years old at this point, but their wines are fairly prevalent in the Seattle area. The particular wine that I tried was, in all probability, the 2006 release of the “Snapdragon” white, which is a blend of Roussanne and Viognier. Previous vintages of this wine were called the Columbia Valley Snapdragon, but for the 2006 vintage this wine is known as the Horse Heaven Hills Snapdragon. This name change is probably due to the fact that Isenhower source their grapes from a wide variety of local growers, so perhaps their sources changed for the 2006 vintage.
A note about TFC: Two of us asked for glasses of white wine with our dinners. It took altogether too long to receive the wine; the other person had nearly finished her dinner by the time her wine showed up. I took things slow with my food instead to see when I’d get my wine. I was non-plussed when I saw that, rather than bringing out a full glass of wine or simply bringing the bottles over to the table to fill our wine glasses, the waiter brought little decanters of white wine for each of us. Now, that’s cute, I’ll admit. But it’s wholly unnecessary to do that, especially when your food is getting cold and you just want to pair it with some white wine. Just bring the damn bottles over and give me some wine!
This practice raises a different question: What’s actually in those decanters? TFC set the per glass price at $12 for the Isenhower, which is steep considering this wine costs $19/bottle direct from the winery. That’s a hell of a profit per glass, although not unusual I’ll admit. I guess this price justifies the tiny decanters from the perspective of the restaurant, but I’m suspicious by nature and I hate receiving wine from unknown sources. I want to see the bottle from which the wine was poured. And I do realize that a bottle can be refilled with something else. Perhaps I’m paranoid. I just think the ritual of pouring from the specific bottle is great and while I do like little decanters you can do all that at the table, or tableside if you like.
Anyway, I don’t mean to suggest that TFC did anything mischevious with my wine; I’m sure everything was exactly as promised. I certainly had some Viognier, as my tasting notes indicate:
- Aroma: Lots of lush floral and tropical fruit notes in the bouquet, mostly honeysuckle and mango with some secondary notes of lesser flowers that I can’t identify. There is definitely a strong Viognier perfume present in the bouquet, but its floral nature doesn’t quite integrate with the tropical fruits.
- Flavor: Some nice minerality with a bundle of confused Viognier flavors competing with the sharply acidic overtones of this white blend. The flavors just don’t combine into a cohesive whole, which seems to be a theme with this wine. Tasty at first, then overwhelmed by
- General impression: Needs to smooth out a bit, perhaps too young yet? A confusing wine.
Overall, the Isenhower was not all that exciting to me. It tasted okay but not amazing, and I don’t think that was the result of the food pairing. Still, it was nice enough that I might buy a bottle for $19 at the store, but I don’t know anyone else who would enjoy this particular style of white wine. I need more French friends, I guess.
A final thought: If you run a great restaurant, such as TFC, forget the thimble-sized decanters for your tableside service of white wine. Just bring the filled glass over to the table or, better yet, bring the bottle(s) over as soon as people order wine and fill their glasses. By wasting 5-10 minutes getting backed up at the bar waiting for the lone bartender to fill some tiny decanters, you lose revenue. And I know that’s not the goal of the miniature decanters!