Seth Kunin has been making wine in California since 1998, and he pays tribute to the Old World Chateauneauf-du-Pape with his 2007 Pape Star from the Central Coast. This wine is a blend of Grenache, Mourvedre, and Syrah just like in the northern Rhone Valley, France except it’s expressive of the Central Coast of California; which gives it a slightly modern twist.

 Most of the time, I pair a wine with whatever I’m making for dinner, but tonight I picked the wine first. I had some extra time, so I walked through Whole Foods with no concrete plans, just an idea of the style and character of the Pape Star.

I strolled past the meat counter and these beautiful, pink veal chops immediately caught my eye. Veal is slightly more delicate than beef and would be a match made in heaven for the medium bodied red.

The Pape Star has smooth tannins and tons of cherry, raspberry and currant flavors with a hint of spice in the finish from the Mourvedre. It’s extremely smooth and gentle on the palate and has some bright acidity, reminiscent of blood oranges.

I wanted to showcase the plump veal chops by limiting the other ingredients I put on the plate, so I stuck with roasted yams to add an element of sweetness to the dish. I made a rich Dijon Mustard sauce freshened up by a fine chiffonade of fresh basil.

The combination of basil and mustard is something new that I had never tried but it worked very nicely with the succulent veal and the char from the grill. It reminded me of Dijon mustard sloshed on a charred Italian sausage from a cart outside of Fenway, only slightly more elegant.

On my way to checkout, I walked past a basket of heirloom tomatoes that were all different sizes, shapes and colors and I just couldn’t resist. I grabbed a bunch of them along with some blood oranges to make a salad.

There are millions of different varieties of heirloom tomatoes (too many to keep track of) with all sorts of funny names that sound like CareBear characters; I think I grabbed some Green Zebras and Big Rainbows.

I sliced the multi-colored orbs nice and thin, and showered them with blood orange zest, blood orange supremes, extra virgin olive oil, and a sprinkle of fancy sea salt crystals. The essential oils in the zest brought the juicy tomatoes to life and added an interesting flavor to the salad. I seasoned the chops and headed out into the cold to throw them on the grill.

They only took about 5 minutes on each side before they were medium in temperature, and I brought them in to rest. The chops were very well marbled for such a young animal and they were loaded with flavor, giving the Pape Star a run for its money as the star of the night.