My Bride puts up with me, and sometimes I don’t know how she does it, but she pampers with attention and indulgence, and she is part of why my birthday celebrations get extended longer each year, as the years seem to get shorter.  I had heard about Oak & Reel almost from the time that they opened up.  A local guy who ended up working and then captaining the two Michelin Star restaurant Marea in New York City and it became a destination seafood restaurant.  He wanted to come home, because he heard of all the promise there was in Detroit.  He created a seafood focused Italian restaurant in the Milwaukee Junction district (every area in Detroit now seems to have a name) and I had never been in this part of the city.  He opens up in 2020 and somehow managed to survive everything the governor inflicted on businesses, if you wish to have to remember that year.  In 2022, the glossy periodical of Detroit names it “Restaurant of the Year.”  So, now I wait another year to try it out; and it was worth the wait. 

We started out at Oak & Reel with a couple of appetizers after my Bride had her Negroni and I had my Vermouth Cocktail.  She had Frito Misto with delicata squash, shrimp, Calabrian honey, and sage.  While I had Campanelle with lobster, corn, seaweed, and chive.  My Bride had Halibut with rosemary spaetzle, chestnut ragu cabbage, and capers.  I had the New Zealand Langoustine, with arugula, and Salsa Verde.  After all of that, we still had room for our Decaf Cappuccinos and we shared a Panna Cotta with pistachios and Carpano Vermouth granita.  The bill came served on the lid of California Anchovies, which always sounds good.

Fear not, that I mentioned the bill prior to the wine.  We enjoyed a bottle of di Lenardo Vineyards “Monovitigno” Sauvignon Venezia Giulia IGT 2021. A family-owned estate, di Lenardo Vineyards began in 1878 cultivating vines.  They own five vineyards, rent one vineyard, and a couple of controlled vineyards.  In 1987 they began producing and bottling their own wines from one-hundred-fifty hectares of vineyards.  The vineyards are in the Friuli DOC region, but this wine carries the Venezia Giullia IGT designation, as it doesn’t match up to what is needed for the DOC designations that are there. The wine is a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Sancerre clones. The whole berries are pressed gently in a pneumatic press, and after the first racking, the must is transferred to temperature-controlled fermentation still vats (Stainless-Steel) and the wine stayed on the lees until bottling, which was probably only a couple of months.  Clarification of the musts are made with their new “state of the art” “flowtation bio-system” and bottled under vacuum.  A pretty pale straw-yellow with green highlights this wine offered notes of melon, peach and sage.  On the palate there were tones of the melon, peach, and sage with fresh acidity, a slightly oily-textured wine with a finish of figs and tropical fruits. It was a very interesting wine with dinner.