When Charlie Trotter was asked what his last meal would be, he was a bit vague on the food. But he was highly specific on the wine. As he told author and photographer Melanie Dunea for her book My Last Supper, “I would eat many courses of tiny, raw and delicate seafood. The china plates would have wonderful things like oysters, crustaceans, sardines and anchovies.” The wine? An entire bottle of Château Margaux 1900.
Now some lucky bidders can enjoy that meal, including that wine, while paying tribute to the legendary chef and supporting children’s charities. Chef Emeril Lagasse is offering a lot called “Chef Charlie Trotter’s Legacy” at his 20th annual charity auction, Carnivale du Vin, in New Orleans on Nov. 16. Bids will be taken in person and by proxy on Carnivale du Vin’s website.
Two Culinary Giants
Trotter and Lagasse were longtime friends and culinary collaborators. Both first achieved fame in the 1980s when fine dining reached new heights in America. And both always put a special emphasis on wine, earning Wine Spectator Grand Awards at their restaurants.
Trotter opened Charlie Trotter’s in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago in 1987 when he was just 27. Trotter was among the first to popularize tasting menus in America and was an early advocate for cooking with fresh, seasonal ingredients. His cuisine was a distinctive, imaginative blend of French techniques, American inventiveness and international ingredients.
He also took his wine quite seriously. The restaurant won a Grand Award in 1993 with a cellar that roamed the whole world, putting special emphasis on Burgundy, the Rhône and California. Trotter hired and nurtured some of the best sommeliers in the industry, including Larry Stone, Joseph Spellman and Molly Wismeier.
Always intense and cerebral, Trotter retired in 2012 to follow other pursuits. Tragically, he died of a stroke just a year later at age 54.
To pay tribute to his late friend, Lagasse is offering to cook a tasting menu dinner for eight people in the wine room of his Grand Award–winning flagship, Emeril’s in New Orleans, paired with a bottle of Château Margaux 1900 donated from Trotter’s cellar by his widow, Rochelle Trotter.
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Great Food and Historic Wine for a Worthy Cause
Lagasse and his wife, Alden, founded the Emeril Lagasse Foundation in 2002 to support children through culinary, nutrition and arts education. Since then, the charity has raised over $20 million for various organizations. Carnivale du Vin is the organization’s premier fundraising weekend, capped by the gala auction. Winemakers have played a leading role at the event over the years.
Another lot will also highlight wine at this year’s event. Paul and Suzie Frank, the founders of Napa’s Gemstone Vineyard, are donating one bottle of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon 1973 and one bottle of Chateau Montelena Chardonnay 1973 from their personal cellar as an auction lot. The wines are famous for being the top scorers at the Paris Tasting in 1976. Other bottles of these wines were displayed at the Smithsonian Institute to mark their help in putting California wine on the world stage.
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