We had a Rhone Evening over the other last weekend. It was a compromise solution when the number of dinner participant vacillated between the number to proceed and the number to cancel. The original theme was supposed to be Make Wine not War (featuring wines from places well fought over in the past centuries). This theme will be revisited later, but when the decision was made to proceed, it was not possible to get all the wines for the earlier theme.
In the end, we settled for sampling Rhone through a couple of Croze Hermitage and Chateauneuf du Papes. A new style oaky Gigondas completed the lineup of the reds. The white was a St Peray. The only sparkling I know from the Rhone area is the sweetish Clairette de Die, so Champagne substituted for the welcome sparkler. Unable to get a Muscat de Beaumes de Venise at short notice, we had a bottle of the house sticky to go with dessert.
