Valentine’s Day: Sweet wine with beef filet? Oh, yes!

By Janet Eastman

IT TAKES guts to pair dessert wine with a peppercorn-crusted beef filet. It takes even more moxie to compare your sweet wine to legendary Chateau d'Yquem. And, let's say it politely, it takes chutzpah to publicly model a Valentine’s dinner after a fabled one in France in the decadent 20s in which “pudding wines” were sipped with each course. Alice Waters of Chez Panisse attempted to match dessert wines throughout a grand dinner in the 1970s.

Now Don Mixon of Madrone Mountain Vineyard in Jacksonville and David Graham of 38 Central Restaurant & Wine Bar in Medford are taking this risk. They want to prove that wines with residual sugar can tease out the flavors of savory dishes better than dry wines.

"A great sweet or semi-sweet wine can be stretch well beyond a dessert and a cigar,” says Graham.

The Europeans know this well. Oregonians, not so much.

So....

On Saturday, Feb. 13 -- Valentine’s Eve --  25 couples will take their seats in the experiment being called The Not Just for Dessert Anymore! wine dinner. They will feast on four courses, each complemented by 3 to 5 ounces of Madrone Mountain Artisanal Dessert wine. The wines will also be used as a vinaigrette, a sauce base, a flavoring agent, "a complement and a counterpoint to each part of the menu," says Graham.

The bold idea started by Graham opening some of his restaurant’s reserve wines to share with customers. One was a 1979 Chateau D'Yquem. Over lunch with Graham, Mixon and Mixon’s partner Bret Gilmore, the wheels starting rolling.

Says Mixon, a lawyer/winemaker who is well known for taking the road less traveled: “I want people to leave our dinner shaking their heads and saying to themselves and each other, 'who knew?' Who knew that sweet wines work before, during and after the meal.”

The Menu: Central Chef/Owner David Graham and Chef de Cuisine Matthew Griffin have created this menu specifically for lovers:

• Sautéed foie gras with grilled pears and crisp toast points paired with the sweet notes and crisp acids of Madrone Mountain's 2004 Late Harvest White

• Day-Boat scallops encrusted in cornmeal, seared and set in a rich and creamy parsnip elouté paired with slightly less sweet Starthistle Cuvée

• Field greens, herbs, shredded carrots, marinated artichoke hearts, roasted red bell peppers and a Rogue Creamery Blue Cheese croquette drizzled with a vinaigrette made with the Starthistle Cuvée

• A choice of three entrées: A 21-day-aged filet from Fulton Farms' grass-fed beef pressed with peppercorns, then grilled and served with duck-fat fried potato rosti, baby carrots and sugar snap peas. It is paired with a 2006 Mundo Novo. Or firm, sweet, cold-water lobster tails layered with large tiger prawns, spinach and lemon-scented mascarpone cheese set between sheets of crisp puff pastry, along with a saffron cream and crisply fried leeks. It is paired with a Starthistle Cuvée. Or Chilean sea bass with Lillie Belle Farms' Madagascar chocolate beans and Mundo Novo butter paired with a 2006 Mundo Novo

• Dessert: Raspberry-and-chocolate tart and Lillie Belle Farms' chocolate truffles paired with a 2004 Vintage wine

For more info: 38 Central Restaurant & Wine Bar, 38 North Central Avenue, Medford, Oregon, (541) 776-0038, www.38oncentral.com. The cost for the dinner is $60.38 per person (not including gratuity). Reservations are required. Complimentary tastings of featured wines and appetizers will be served in the bar starting at 5 p.m.