Donato Enoteca and 100 Wines in Redwood City

The annual Enoteca 100 Grand Wine Tasting is the largest Peninsula/South Bay event of its kind in the San Francisco Bay Area. Every year, Donato Enoteca restaurant chef/owner Donato Scotti prepares a spread of all-Italian and Lombardia-inspired delicacies—fresh, flavorful, and ingeniously simple. And every year a seemingly regular local wine event turns into a gargantuan feast.

This year, by the time a giddy crowd of local wine aficionados and restaurant’s patrons arrived for the event, trays of salumi were sharing countertops with cheeses of various kinds, freshly baked breads, and house-made condiments.

Bruschetta with succulent tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and basil on toasted Italian bread was passed around. Then, house-smoked tuna arrived in a form of delicate finger sandwiches covered with radicchio and frisée leaves. Next, crostini with mushroom paste and Parmigiano-Reggiano made their appearance.

Thin-crust pizzas then began popping out of the oven, only to be swept away in mere seconds and substituted by more and more delectable pies.

Amazingly tender house-smoked duck breast came out lightly sprinkled with house-pickled vegetables.

And throughout the entire event the notorious whole pig, roasted to perfection, was distributed plate by plate to all the guests busy making their thoughtful wine purchases.

Rare, small-batch, and single-vineyard sparkling, white, and red wines, mostly from family-owned Italian wineries, were presented in sections by the region and offered to the public at a discounted price—an opportunity no one wanted to miss.

It wasn’t easy to decide which ones to choose, or even to try, but I made an attempt to pick one personal favorite, Tedeschi Amarone 2008 from Veneto—ruby-red with garnet flashes, full-bodied, well-balanced, and overall extremely pleasing.

As every year, Chef Donato’s friends from the Italian food industry—AG Ferrari folks—joined in with their own display of goodies, a Jazz On The Go band performed live music, and a great time was had by all.