Toast of the Coast: A Food and Wine Series

Toasts of the Coasts: A Food and Wine Series Thursday April 24: Anthony Hamilton Russell & Hamilton Russell Vineyards of South Africa Join us for our 3rd Annual Toast of the Coasts Food and Wine events at the Fish House! This series of wine dinners will feature master sommeliers and vintners showcasing stellar wines from around the world. Each event will highlight a selection of three wines paired with a four-course meal as presented by Chef Billy Ballou of the Fish House. In addition, each guest speaker will be bringing special bottles for door prizes and giveaways. All of the wines featured in the dinners have been hand-selected by our wine director, Don Elton Lott. ''The wines we are featuring showcase the best in class, all the while highlighting special vineyards from around the world. These dinners present a wonderful opportunity for an up-close-and-personal wine education experience with some of the best!'' The first dinner in the series is Thursday, April 24. We will be featuring Hamilton Russell Vineyards wines along with the proprietor himself, Anthony Hamilton Russell. The winery produces exemplary wines that are restrained, yet complex, and most importantly, express their respective origins and terroirs. When Anthony Hamilton Russell returned in the early 1990s from a stint at Wharton Business School by way of the illustrious Elon College in Great Britain, he had big plans for his father's vineyard, which he purchased in 1994. His first task was to help make South African wines known around the world — a countrywide initiative that is still underway — and, more importantly, to put the wines of Hamilton Russell on the map. Rather than trying to re-create wines from such mainstays as France and Italy, Anthony decided the main focus of Hamilton Russell Vineyards would be to produce wines that had a real sense of place, vintages that drew directly from Walker Bay's native terroir. He scaled back production at the vineyard to only two wines, a Pinot