by Tom Johnson
Ville Voice Eats Correspondent

The promised opening of the Oak Room’s deep wine cellar is beginning to pay dividends. On July 24, Chef de Cuisine Bobby Benjamin and Sommelier Ashley McLane collaborate on a Tour de Rhone featuring wines with a little age on them. The dinner is five courses, and there are seven wines set for pouring.

First, the Oak Room will serve Saint Marcellin Cheese with Pascal Jolivet Sancerre 2007. OK, the wine is neither Rhone nor aged, but I’m not the kind of guy to give up a good first paragraph just because it’s not technically correct. Besides, this is just the kick-off. The Rhone doesn’t have a lot of great whites (the main exception being tiny Condrieu) and apparently by law all multi-course feasts have to start with a tart Sauvignon Blanc. Sancerre, from the Loire Valley, fits the bill perfectly. No one remembers the first course once the meal is done anyway.

Next is Copper River Sockeye Salmon with beets, fava beans, alba mushrooms and summer truffles. McLane will pour two vintages of Paul Jaboulet Domaine de Thalbert Crozes-Hermitage, 1996 and 1997. Crozes-Hermitage wines are Syrah based with a smack of white thrown in to lighten them up (and get the farmers of white grapes into the economic mix). As a result, they can get a bit sketchy after more than a decade. McLane says there’s nothing to worry about.

“I just opened all the wines,” she says, “and they’re holding up great.”

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Next comes an interesting pairing: blueberry Sorbet with lemon confit and an earthy Saint-Joseph, Paul Jaboulet Aine Reserve Personnelle 1996. Actually, after tasting the wines McLane says this one retains enough density that she may move it farther back in the meal, maybe even after dinner. Saint-Joseph wines can be brutes, and even with 13 years on it she thinks it may overwhelm a course that is essentially a palette refresher. It’ll be interesting to see what she does, but I’d bet on a last minute bonus wine and the Saint-Joseph arriving a little later in the line-up.

After the dainty sorbet course, it’s time for something manly: Kentucky bison served with fingerling potatoes, baby carrots, Brussels sprouts, saffron aioli, oyster mushrooms, smoked shallots and blackberry jus. It takes a brave wine to stand up to that mouthful of flavors. McLane offers two vintages of Hermitage, the alpha dog of the northern Rhone: Jaboulet’s La Pied Cote ’97 and La Chapelle 2003. I’ll leave the florid language to the professionals; these are Luca Brasi wines, thick-fingered and nimble at the same time. Hermitages routinely improve for 20 years after bottling, and are perfectly good another 20 or 30 years after that. This is the part of the meal where people are going to wish the next course was a couch to lie down on.

Which brings us to dessert: I’m not sure how all this fits together, but the menu promises white chocolate cake, honeycomb, black walnut, white peach, tomato jam and basil ice cream. That platter of contrasts will be accompanied by ’96 Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, also from Jaboulet.

The dinner is $100 per person, including tax and gratuity. The Seelbach offers discounted rooms to wine dinner patrons: $79. As a survivor of several Oak Room wine dinners, I highly recommend getting a room. Making it to the elevator is hard enough; making it all the way home seems nearly impossible.

Reservations can be had by calling (502) 807-3463.

Tom Johnson writes the wine blog LouisvilleJuice.com.