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38
MY
ROUSES
EVERYDAY
NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2017
the
Holiday
issue
Cin Cin!
(To Your Health)
by
Helen Freund
I
f you’ve decided to brave throwing your
own Feast of the Seven Fishes this
holiday season, look no further than
the tradition’s birthplace for wine pairings.
talian wines, as varied and multifaceted as
they are plentiful, are perfectly suited for the
seafood extravaganza.
Rouses goes directly to the source for its
Italian wine selection. Christian Havener,
a sommelier and wine buyer for the
Rouses Market on Tchoupitoulas Street in
Uptown New Orleans, and Rouses Wine
& Spirits Director Sally Culver recently
attended Vinitaly, the international wine
competition and exposition that is held
annually in April in the Italian wine region
of Verona in Northeast Italy. While at the
competition, which is considered one of the
premier international wine events in the
world, Havener and Culver met with key
producers and sampled Italian wines from
20 wine regions.
The boot-shaped country, which varies widely
by climate and terrain, is home to hundreds of
grape varieties and is considered one of the top
wine production regions in the world. From
the northern highlands and the high-altitude
Alps to the wine-growing regions hugging
the Mediterranean in the South, the country
boasts an incredibly diverse production of
reds, whites, rosés and sparkling wines. The
wines of Veneto, Tuscany and Piedmont are
considered the highest-quality drinking wines
in the country.
While there are no hard-and-fast rules about
what to serve for theFeast of the SevenFishes,
there is no time of year more perfectly suited
to oysters, which are a natural bedfellow to
bubbly whites like prosecco, which is made
in the Veneto region of Italy around the city
of Treviso.
Char-grilled oysters bobbing in their own
individual swamps of garlic, butter and
Parmesan beg for a crisp, sparkling white
like the Ferrari Brut NV Trentodoc. The
grapes for this aromatic sparkling wine are
grown on hills along the Adige Valley in the
Dolomites, aged in steel tanks and produced
linguine and clams, Parmesan-crusted
flounder, lightly fried calamari, shrimp
and artichokes sprinkled with lemon and
parsley, and grilled sardines tucked under a
bright and zesty gremolata.
Gulf standbys like pompano and cobia are
tossed on the grill, and drum, sheepshead
and red snapper often make appearances.
“You’ve got to do something with shrimp,
because they’re just so abundant, and that
time of year there’s usually a lot of flounder,
too,” says Executive Chef Michael Nelson,
who last year featured a dish of Gulf shrimp
alongside Sicily’s quintessential dish,
eggplant caponata.
The dinners have proven so popular, GW
Fins now hosts the celebration two nights
instead of one, and a steady flow of Italian
wines are served throughout both evenings.
“After the first couple of courses and glasses
of wine, everyone’s kind of buttered up a bit
and gotten to know everybody at the table,”
Nelson says. “At that point we put all the
wine out and everyone just goes at it: It’s
noisy, people are yelling and talking, and it’s
this really fun, family-style affair.”
For Chef Lama, sharing his family’s long-
standing tradition with his customers at his
restaurant was a no-brainer.
“I wanted to share the tradition with the
people in town and at my restaurant, and
with the neighbors — a lot of those people
have become like family,” Lama says.
At Avo, a Feast of the Seven Fishes dinner is
served throughout the month of December,
with courses and menus changing to reflect
what is fresh and in season at the time.
Despite the restaurant’s success with the
dinners, Lama says there is still nothing like
celebrating the event at home, with friends
and family.
“What I really like about it is the aspect
of everyone being together and cooking
together,” Lama says. “And for anybody
who is going to attempt it — try to enjoy it.
The people you invite are going to be people
who are near and dear to you — people that
you love. You’re there to have a good time,
to celebrate and to be together.”
In a holiday season dominated by poultry, pork and beef, this
meatless Christmas Eve tradition offers a respite from heavier fare.
Find recipes for your Feast of the Seven Fishes at
www.rouses.com.