10/31 Italian 🇮🇹 Halloween 🎃 Wine Dinner 🍷 at La Scene, Mercure, Hibiya

Description

The Italian Halloween Wine Dinner’s Menu and Wines selection 

Aperitif: French Bread with butter

Halloween Italian Sparkling wine: Gustav Klimt “The Kiss” Spumante Brut
Italian Grape Varieties: Garganega and Trebbiano

Klimt painted two bodies dissolving into one unbroken line of gold, the same blur the old feast saw between the living and the dead. Its bright, dry bubbles are the breath drawn just before that line disappears.

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Amuse: Soupe au Potiron / pumpkin soup

Halloween Italian white Wine: Montaia Romagna Albana DOCG Secco, 2024

An historic dry white wine from the Emilia-Romagna region, notable for being the first white wine in Italy to earn DOCG status in 1987

This vineyard’s clay still holds the shells of a sea that vanished from here millions of years ago, the land remembering what it used to be. Poured beside the pumpkin soup, that same quiet, buried warmth finally rises to the surface.

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Starter: Pan-Fried Cod, Mont-Saint-Michel Mussels Marinière, Colorful Petite Vegetables, Brussels Sprouts, Pommes Paille

Halloween Italian white Wine: ZIN Salento IGP Fiano, 2024

Puglia’s oldest cellars were carved underground, dug by hands seeking shelter from a world they’d already half-left behind. This Fiano still tastes faintly of that hush, surfacing gently beside the mussels’ brine.

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Main: Beef tenderloin, Sweet Potato and Bacon Écrasé, Brussels Sprouts, Orange Flavored Anchovy Butter, Natural Juice.

Halloween Italian Red Wine: Valpolicella DOC Superiore, 2022, from the Veneto region 

Italian Grapes: Made primarily from native varieties like Corvina, Corvinone, and Rondinella

Aged for months in large oak before it reaches the glass, this red spends its rest in the dark, a slow, deliberate pause that deepens everything that follows.

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Dessert: Tonka Bean Parfait, Fig, Caramelized Nuts

Halloween Italian Dessert Wine: Anima Mundi Terre di Offida Passerina Passito DOC, 2012, Marche region

Halloween in ancient times was the moment when the line separating the living and the dead was blurry; therefore, “Anima Mundi” is an ancient idea that refers to the universal force that connects all things in nature, the great spirit that connects all things. Its grapes are dried before pressing, concentrating what’s inside rather than letting it vanish. That’s the Anima Mundi idea: nothing here truly disappears; it only changes shape.
Poured beside the fig and tonka bean, it isn’t a dessert pairing so much as a shared afterlife.

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Coffee or tea and Petits Fours

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Vegetarians are welcome; please request in advance.

The sommelier-led Italian Halloween Wine Dinner

The Italian sommelier

Achille is Italian, exactly from the Salento area.
He completed a sommelier course through AIS (Associazione Italiana Sommelier).
He has an in-depth knowledge of wine varieties, tasting techniques, pairing, and service standards, including international cuisines and Michelin-level practices
Achille has experience working with NATO military personnel in Italy
He can speak Italian, Spanish, English, and Japanese