When asked by friends if I wanted to join them for a four course wine dinner a week ago on a Saturday night, I didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation.  Firstly, I had been mostly bed ridden for almost the entire week with strep and I was finally feeling human again.  Secondly, it was priced at just $25 and probably the best kept secret in town!

The Bucket Trade is a relatively new and fabulous addition to Old Towne Petersburg.  A great space with an impressive selection of not only beer and wine to buy, but also on self serve taps.  So much fun!  You can try it all out without having to commit to a whole glass or bottle.  Owners James and Aimee Hartle have also partnered with Chef Xavier Meers to produce snacks and regular food tastings including a monthly wine tasting dinner.  There are also regular beer and wine tastings and everyone involved is extremely knowledgeable and friendly.  I love this addition to Old Towne!

We began the dinner with a delicious white, a 2015 Madai Godello from Northwestern Spain, paired with a smoked trout mousse on a crouton.  A delightful pairing!  They stayed with the same wine for the second course which was interesting, and it totally worked.  A salad of endive, apple, walnut and blue cheese paired with it perfectly and was a refreshingly crisp prelude to the main course…

Main course?  A lovely venison stew with mash.  Pure comfort with a slight surprise of using pickled pearl onions, an interesting addition (to me) that worked.  It was paired with a 2012 Quinta de la Rosa, a lovely rich, full, big, bold and velvety red from Portugal.

Dinner was rounded out with a fantastic homemade berry ice-cream with a hardened chocolate glaze accompanied by a subtly sparkling sweet Italian red, a Malvasia du Casorzo Dolce.  A delicious end to a most delightful dinner.

As wine dinners go, this one was really lovely.  Very casual and unpretentious, thoughtful, oh so reasonably priced and quite honestly the perfect portions.  We did not leave unpleasantly stuffed nor did we leave hungry.  A happy medium. As we felt so good and it was only 9pm, Kerry invited us all back to her place.  So we stocked up on libations and headed to her house and carried on with the festivities.  The additional wine required more snacks and happily Bart produced Saucy’s newest addition….fried pork rinds!  Coated with their BBQ rub…..SO good.  Kerry gets the blame for any hangovers.