“It’s Greek to me” never made sense to me when it comes to food. Greek food dazzles and so easily pleases many crowds. Will it agree with an Italian orange wine from Friuli?
Even though Covid restrictions have lifted in CA, DoorDash dinners have become a habit. It’s just too easy to order the same food you would get in a restaurant and have it delivered to your doorstep.
I don’t love eating out of takeout boxes, but dining at home does allow you to taste the food with your own wines at home.
For this evening, the menu at Orexi in San Francisco beckoned with its dishes made with local ingredients and listed on the menu in Greek.
Fancy Greek Takeout Menu
Homemade Pita – grilled, chewy, and spongey good
Kalamarakia Tis Skaras – Fresh Monterey Bay squid, grilled, topped with Kalamata olive tapenade, served over shaved fennel salad. This was truly to die for. The squid was so fresh, tender, and killer with the black olives. I will be making a recipe for this!
Moussaka – Traditional baked dish with layers of eggplant and ground lamb and beef, topped with bechamel. One of my all time fave Greek dishes and the dish I order at every Greek restaurant. This version had the creamiest layers of potatoes and a well seasoned meat sauce.
Arnisia Plevrakia – Lamb riblets grilled, finished with orexi dressing, fresh oregano, and lemon wedges. These had a bit of overchar, but I loved the tangy olive oil dressing generously drizzled all over.
For the “low” (cough) price of $89, including a dasher tip, I was very pleased with the small, well executed portions, and quality ingredients.
Ramato Wine
I picked an Italian orange wine to try to pair with it all because orange wines are generally agreeable with everything from rich stews to light seafoods.
In Italy, orange wines made from pinot grigio are called Ramato, and I found an unusual one from the Friuli region.
Ferlat Silvano “PG Rosa” – Venezia Giulia, Italy
100% PInot Grigio, 12.5% ABV, $25
From the winery: “Moreno Ferlat grew up among the hills of Collio, in Friuli Venezia Giulia in the north-east of Italy, the land of wine. When he was a child, he loved to play in the vineyards, smelling the scent of freshly cut grass, admiring the colors of the landscape in autumn, running on the snow in winter. In this way Moreno learnt the secrets of nature, thanks to his father Silvano, winemaker in the family winery since 1950. Intense floral aromatics, yellow fruit, cherry and strawberry, candy. In the mouth it is fresh, young and with an acid and mineral vein that makes it incredibly drinkable.”
Visual: Simply stunning, the darkest orange wine I’ve ever seen. Deep copper, tequila sunrise, rust. Swirls with a beautiful pale orange rim that descends down the glass in an ombre waterfall.
Aroma: Candied peach rings, gummy bears, whiff of deodorant, talcum, fresh daisy, cleaning supplies…janitor’s closet. After much aeration, this sweet wild strawberry field emerged and smelt like I was next to a candy factory.
Taste: Very light, as in where did this wine disappear to? Slowly watered down Treetop apple juice emerges. Tiny bit of tannic edge, tiny edge of acid but all very underwhelming. For such a bright redhead, the flavors were much more diminutive.
Pairing: So good with the squid. It made the wine tart and briney and brought out more of the latent strawberries. Matched the squeeze of fresh lemon on the lamb but was too light for the char and gamey lemon ribs. Also too delicate for the moussaka. I thought it might lift the tomato in the sauce but not today!
Takeaway
Overall I loved the food and loved the wine, even though the best pairing was only with the squid dish. I’ll be revisiting the restaurant and looking for more Ramato Italian wines in the future.
Orexi means “appetite” in Greek, and “Kali” means good. Those two things were fulfilled, and that’s all one can ever ask for.
Kali orexi!
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