A Fabulous Lunch At Valette Restaurant with Gary Farrell Wines

I am so happy to share this post about my experience at Valette Restaurant, with fabulous wines from Gary Farrell Winery provided by Emily Martin!! We had a blast during our Gary Farrell Lunch in Healdsburg. After hearing amazing things about their wines, I finally got to try them for the first time as part of this influencer event, and they did not disappoint. We tried several varieties, including Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and the Dulcette (a Port-Style wine) to finish the beautiful lunch pairing.

As a first course we got to try a 2014 Ritchie Vineyard Chardonnay, which is legendary in the Russian River Valley and widely regarded as one of the best Chardonnay sites in all of California. I am not a huge fan of Chardonnay in general, but tasting this one changed my mind! This Chardonnay was perfectly paired with Hawaiian Ahi Poke Style, which I LOVE so much.

Gary Farrell is well known for great Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, as well as a gorgeous new tasting room located in Healdsburg! Reservations are required to visit the winery, and you must be at least 21 years of age. I haven’t been up to the winery yet, but I’m excited to visit their tasting room soon. Back to our extravagant lunch, for our second course we had a 2015 Durell Chardonnay paired with Day Boat Scallops en Croute, which was unbelievably divine.

For our next course, we jumped into to red wines. The first taste was 2015 Gap’s Crown Vineyard Pinot Noir that has subtle notes of elegant ground cloves, allspice, savory dried herbs, dried flowers, vanilla, blood orange, cranberry, and cherry on the palate. This tasty and complex wine was paired with Pomegranate Glazed Duroc Pork Lion prepared with brown butter and mushroom!!

And the last course (but not least!), we enjoyed something I always look forward to…dessert!! We paired the Dulcette Port-style wine with an incredible Cocoa Nib Tuile, which is like an elevated Snickers Bar, but even better!! Such a great pairing.

Many thanks to Emily for the invitation, Valette for the amazing food experience, and of course Gary Farrell for spectacular wines. I can’t wait to visit to the winery in the near future!!