The first ramps of the season have arrived at the coop, so I bought a ton of them and yet went easy with them tonight; we started with Nobu-style sashimi of yellowfin tuna in a sesame-olive oil and ponzu sauce, then followed it with monkfish dusted with chardonnay smoked salt, pepper, and sesame seeds crusted up in a pan then finished in some leftover red wine with the lid on to steam through (monkfish is really meaty in its slow cooking time.) Then I threw chopped ramps in the pan, then a pat of butter, then more wine to finish and deglaze. Poured over the fish, and then onion and grape tomatoes, then the brown rice from the other day, and onto the plate, and last a bunch of watercress with lemon and garlic cleaned the pan back to gleaming and rounded it all out.
All this went swimmingly with another Pleiades XIV from Sean Thackrey- especially the sashimi. The rich olive oil and deep sesame oil and tangy, earthy ponzu hit every damn bass note in this wine and let the fruit sing above it all. Even though the XIV has darker, rounder fruit than its two predecessors, it’s the grace and funk of the pinot which still defines it for me.
