Rhone on the Rooftop in New York

Tonight, my brother, his girlfriend, my cousin and I celebrated the annual Chinese Mooncake festival! This festival is a longstanding tradition in our family where we have dinner together and have mooncake. The moon was especially large this evening, and glowed with a hint of orange.

For the occassion, I picked a bottle of La Framboisiere Cotes du Rhone 2006 from a wine store in Midtown Manhattan. The wine is from the commune of Rasteau in the southern Rhone, where Grenache is the dominant grape.

It was a beautifully still and warm night - perfect for dining on my brother's apartment rooftop! Situated on Long Island right across from Manhattan, the deck had gorgeous clear views of the city. Several BBQ's and picnic tables were already occupied but we were able to occupy one to ourselves. As my brother BBQ'd the meats, we had seared steak, chicken, sausages, and roasted eggplant, zucchini, and peppers served hot off the grill under one candlelight and the moon's strong beam. There's something about eating in the dark; flavours are even more piquant!

Throughout all the courses, we sipped on the Rhone wine that was interestingly bold and full of raspberry flavours at first taste. With food, the raspberry essences mellowed out to favour more earthy tones.

A hit of the evening with the wine was the Ptit Basque French sheep's milk cheese served with a baguette that was bought fresh out of the oven from the market across the street. We polished off the cheese course before we headed back inside for the star course of the evening - mooncake! I brought mini mooncakes from San Francisco with me specifically for this night. "Happy Mooncake festival!" the four of us toasted as we shared our first mooncake in the big city.