Mila and Joey came over to visit, and I had marinated a bunch of chicken in rosé (Marques de Caceres Rioja- 6 bucks!) plus vinegar, soy, salt, herbs, and lemon juice. While that sat I made more of the BBQ sauce and transferred some of the pea soup into oiled ramekins and rechilled it. Finely shredded raw kale got the pinenut dressing treatment and sat for a bit while we opened a sparkling 2005 Vieux Pressoir Saumur as an apéritif with chips and olives.
The first course was a “flan” of pea soup unmolded and topped with a mound of the kale salad, with a 2005 Turkey Flat rosé of Grenache/Shiraz/Cab/Dolcetto (yum) and then on to the chicken, well slathered in the sauce and reduced marinade mixed together, along with corn from around the edges of the grill. This washed down very well with two vins gris of pinot noir: the first from Saintsbury (Carneros) and the second a 2004 Soter Firefly from Oregon.
