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The sweet flavors of Madrone Mountain wines encircle a dish of Seafood Napoleon, sauced with a gastrique of the label'ss 2004 Late Harvest White and served with a glass of 2008 Starthistle Cuvee for a special five-course dinner Saturday at Medford's 38 Central restaurant.Bob Pennell

February 10, 2010

By Sarah Lemon

Mail Tribune.

The end of a romantic meal isn't the only moment to ply your sweet with sweets.

An entire Saturday dinner at Medford's 38 Central restaurant will match "dessert" wines from Madrone Mountain Vineyard with each course, savory and sugary alike. The event's chef and winemaker plan to convince diners that sweet wines aren't just for desserts.

"There will be no doubters," says Don Mixon, Madrone Mountain owner.

Confident in their concept, Mixon and 38 Central co-owner David Graham are opening the evening with the sweetest of the sweet: Madrone Mountain 2005 Late Harvest Gewurztraminer, companion to seared foie gras with grilled pears and toast points. Boasting nearly 15 percent residual sugar, the wine's thick, rich mouthfeel perfectly complements the goose liver's velvety texture, Mixon says.

"I think that just screams for the foie gras."

The pairing, in fact, is far from outrageous. In France, sweet, white wine often accompanies the finest paté. Europeans traditionally didn't ascribe to notions of matching wine to food that have become so popular in the United States, relegating sweeter vintages to the role of oenophilic afterthought.

"In Europe, historically, the most precious wines were the sweet wines because they were the most difficulties ones to make," Mixon says.

Sweet wines always have been precious to Mixon, an attorney who founded Madrone Mountain outside Jacksonville in 2002. Unlike most wineries in the Rogue Valley and elsewhere, the label makes exclusively dessert-style wines, mostly from local grapes with some Willamette Valley additions. While grape varieties garner most of the industry's focus, producing sweet wines, Mixon says, is more a question of wine style — the style being decidedly Old-World.

Of the various dessert-wine styles, late-harvest wines are common. In the simplest approach to this process, grapes are left on the vine until sugar levels increase dramatically, then the grapes are pressed and fermented to produce a wine with residual sugar that makes the wines markedly sweet. "Ice wine" comes from grapes picked after exposure to frost.

But relying on nature to elevate the grapes' sugar levels can cause them to lose varietal distinction, Mixon says. He prefers to pick grapes closer to the typical harvest time, press them and then freeze the juice. As the juice thaws, the sugar is more concentrated while the wine ferments.

Madrone Mountain also makes port-style wines, in which sweetness comes from adding a spirit, often brandy. Beyond sweet, port's alcohol content also is higher than regular wines, around 18 to 19 percent. Refusing to call his reds "ports," Mixon makes them from unconventional grapes with lower percentages of alcohol and residual sugar.

Although true ports — which Portuguese producers insist hail only from their country — usually are enjoyed at the end of a meal, Mixon is inserting his 2006 Mundo Novo into the high point of Saturday's event: the entree course of either peppercorn-crusted beef fillet or cocoa nib-crusted sea bass. Sauces flavored with the same vintage will finish each plate.

These and other dishes featured on the five-course menu, priced at $60.38 per person (including wine), will be offered individually Sunday, Valentine's Day, at 38 Central. Madrone Mountain's wines also will be available for purchase.

Lovers of sweet wine also can get their just deserts at home, pairing vintages and savory food with a few tips. The most straightforward coupling is one that either clearly contrasts with or more closely mirrors the food's flavors or textures, Mixon says.

Madrone Mountain's labels are clearly marked with the wine's percentage of residual sugar and grams per liter of acidity, a critical but sometimes overlooked characteristic of good wine, he adds. Sweet wines lacking acid can be cloying.

"Think about lemonade — good lemonade," Mixon says. "Wine should be refreshing — that is balance."

Reach Food Editor Sarah Lemon at 776-4487, or e-mail slemon@mailtribune.com.

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