Blake and Tracy Eliasson have been running their winemaking business, Settembre Cellars, for seven years now in Boulder. But it was just in May of this year that they opened up the tasting room. Once they did, they had to figure out what to do with it. And what they decided to do this week, was try to send people elsewhere, to Savory Spice Shop.
Attendees of “In Search of Synergy,” will be given glasses of Settembre Cellars Dry Riesling and Sangiovese and turned loose in the spice shop to see what it matches up with.
“We’ll kind of guide them
through it,” says Blake Eliasson, “but also let them explore their own
palate to see how the wine changed with the spice and vice versa.”
Blake
says that the event is a recreation of a personal project he and Tracy
did on their own. The pair says they had so much fun trying different
spice combinations with Savory Spice Shop owner Dan Herward that they
wanted to give others the same opportunity.
“When
we went down to try this tasting experience, we were trying to prep for
the tasting room,” says Tracy Eliasson. “But we had such a good time,
we just thought we should just do that as our tasting event.”
“We
were trying to come up with a series of spices that resonate really
well with the wine, and he just has so many,” says Blake. “So if one
works, you can try something a little similar or a little different.”
Something a little similar or different might be underselling things a bit.
The
Savory Spice Shop rocks more than 400 peppers, salts, herbs and more.
It advertises more than 160 inhouse developed spice blends ranging from
savory niches like gunbarrel venison sausage blend, to sweets like
vanilla and lavender.
However,
for the Eliassons, it was more than just a little bit of fun being
turned loose in the spice shop like kids in a candy store. The tasting
also satisfied ethical concerns. Both are vegetarians and as such had
been largely unable to participate in the majority of wine pairing
events they’d seen around town.
“Almost any of the wine tastings, or wine pairing dinners, it’s almost always a non-vegetarian main course,” says Blake.
“We’ve
gone to a few of them over the years, but generally the vegetarian
option is not in the forefront when they’re developing the menu,” says
Tracy.
“There isn’t really a direct correlation for swapping out the flavor,” Blake adds.
But when you focus on the spices… “It’s trying to get to the core component,” Blake says.
That was how the Eliassons discovered their love of fennel pollen.
“I
think it’s just really interesting to think on the spice level how the
flavor combinations and aroma combinations are working out together,”
says Tracy. “That way it’s not just for vegetarians, but another tool in
the set for creating flavor pairings.”
Tracy says that everyone experiences taste a little bit differently, that there’s no right or wrong way to experience flavor.
“What
you enjoy is the way to go,” she says. “And this is a way to do more
experimental pairings rather than have a chef pick it for you.”
If
all that tasting sounds fine and dandy, but you aren’t really sure how
one tastes spices with wine, don’t overthink it: You lick ‘em off your
fingers.
And if your
reaction to licking is that it seems a bit out of step with the relative
classiness of a wine tasting, know you aren’t alone in that gut
reaction.
“I was
worried about that when we first went down there and I asked Dan that
very same question,” says Tracy. “He said that’s just how we do it.”
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