Lunch at Pegasus Bay Winery

Stephen tells David that Bob the dog needs a brisk two-hour run up a nearby hill — the unspoken observation is that some of us are fast and others are not — and that Hugh would love to play some more tennis, this time at his school, St. Andrews’, courts nearby, and would that be a good program?

Course it’s ok. David loves to think he’s old and slow.

We all reassemble, shower, get sort of gussied up and load into the Camry station wagon and make for our reserved lunch table at Pegasus Bay winery, north of the city. Much of the road there is Rockville Pike-ish — Florida strip mall-esque — but the route becomes very farmland with a few rolling hills and after about an hour we’re at the winery.

Very posh. The heavy iron entrance gates set in stone pillars give way to a statue and a manicured walk to a large and beautiful old wood house. The tasting room is dark and baronial to the left, the dining room is straight ahead and the wall to the right is shelves of bottles. To name a few representative labels: La Tache, The Grange Hermitage, Haut Brion, Gaya Barolo (1937), Musigny. Are you sensing the level of food and wine we’re about to have?

We get a charcuterie platter for the table; Stephen orders the venison main; Cynthia and I split a lamb with crunchy veg and pesto; Hugh has to wait for all of us to work through tasting wine, selecting wines for the meal, scarfing down the amuse bouche, talking about the subtle flavors of the monk fish pate on the charcuterie platter, and debating the nature of chardonnay with a bit of semillon in it before he can devour his pizza. Lunch takes just shy of three hours. We are not exaggerating. We decide that the wines we’ve had here are a decided cut above ANY we’ve had to date in New Zealand. Truly world class. We buy a Chardonnay, which Robyn loved, and a merlot/cab Sauvignon/Malbec/cab franc mix subtly named “Maestro,” which David is going to purchase by the case … after he gets that Breville coffee maker … if it’s available in D.C.

We motor back to the manse and basically fall asleep.

Another gustatorially satifying day in Paradise.