Le Reve

I love the adventure of pairing wine with food. Sometimes the pairings work and sometimes they don’t. And, then there are the times when the pairing is so fabulous you want to shout out to all your friends. We had the good fortune of a dinner invitation from our friends Barb and Doug and I offered to bring the wine. When I inquired about dessert Doug told me that Barb was making sorbet. Hmmmm – what to pair with sorbet. After some consideration I decided to bring along a bottle of 2002 Le Reve – good choice!

This sparkling wine has delicate tiny bubbles with aromas of lemon, honey and yeast rolls. The creamy flavors of lemon, honey, passion fruit, toasted coconut with a long silky finish paired beautifully with Barb’s Orange Pineapple Fruit Ice (recipe below).

Le Reve is made from 98% chardonnay grapes and 2% pinot noir grapes; all grown organically on the Domaine Carneros estate. The wine is aged for five years on the lees giving it nice yeasty character. At $85 per bottle this is a big splurge, but the good news is one bottle will nicely serve 6 guests for a last course and what a beautiful end to a nice evening!

Orange Pineapple Fruit Ice
6 large oranges
½ medium fresh pineapple cut into 1 inch chunks
1 small fresh papaya cut into 1 inch chunks
1-1/3 cups fresh orange juice
½ cup whipping cream
1/3 cup coconut cream
2 – 3 T. sugar
1 T. orange liqueur
Sugar

Slice tops off oranges 2/3 way up from bottom. Thinly slice 3 slices of orange from the tops and slice again in half for garnish. Scoop out insides and use to make juice. Freeze shells and sliced oranges until ready to use.

Freeze fruit chunks and orange juice at least 24 hours.

Blend cream, coconut cream, sugar to tase and liqueur in small bowl. Transfer unthawed fruit and juice to processor, placing pineapple at bottom and chop finely using on/off turns. With machine running, pour liquid through feed tube in slow steady stream and mix until ice cream consistency. Check for any large pieces of fruit that did not get chopped and discard. Spoon mixture into orange shells. Freeze until firm.

Remove orange shells from freezer a few minutes before serving in order to soften. Dip frozen orange slices into sugar and set cut side down in center of ice.

6 servings