Revisiting our Berns Steakhouse feast: As Laura mentioned we split a 14 oz. Chateaubriand. It was a magnificent piece of meat. All dinners come with the house salad, French onion soup & two sides. While Laura had the house soup and salad I had a lobster bisque and a roast beet salad w/goat cheese, herbs & black truffle. For wine we had glasses of 1996 Faivley Mercury Blanc "Clos Rochette" and a Laetitia 2005 Arroyo Grande Pinot Noir. We tasted back and forth (a faux pas I know but what the heck) and the Faivley worked best with my bisque and her salad and the pinot worked best with her French onion soup and my beet salad. With the Chateaubriand we could have gone a million (o.k. about 5,500) different ways. The wine "book" is amazing. Every appelation in the world you could think of. Multiple producers AND multiple vintages. 40 vintages of Lafite. 25 vintages of Romanee-Conti, 20 vintages of Tignanello & Sassacaia. The list just goes on and on. I would love to have tried a northern Rhone, a Cote Rotie or an Auguste Clape Cornas but Laura would have just hated it. Too earthy and funky. Instead we split a bottle of 2002 D'Arenberg Dead Arm Shiraz from McLaren Vale, Australia. Laura and I visited the winery in 2002 and I've been a fan of the wine since the 1994 vintage. We actually tasted the 2002 in barrel there in Oct. 2002. Out of bottle 7 years later the wine still had the deep purple color but the fruit has mellowed some and the bouquet soars. Once our waiter decanted the bottle the air around us filled with black and blue fruit and the dustiness that's so typical of those Aussie reds. Next to our juicy, aged piece of beef it was wonderful. FYI, if anyone has bottles of the 02' in their cellar, you can drink it now and any time before 2020 or so. For this wine and food guy this was food and wine nirvana. 
As Laura mentioned, after the meal proper we were given a tour of the kitchen and wine cellar before being shown up the stairs to the dessert room. This tour was a much needed break and a chance to stretch our legs after 3+ hours of food and drink. The wine cellar is actually divided up between two locations. The older wines and a few bottles of everything else on the list are kept in house while a large number of bottles are kept in a warehouse size temperature controlled cellar across the road. The breadth and selection of wines on site are larger than 95% of the wine lists in the world. The fact that there are 250,000 bottles across the road puts this list and collection in the top 5 wine lists on the planet easily. Perhaps THE largest.
Once upstairs the process begins again. The dessert list is 40 items long. The dessert wine list including liqueurs, Scotches, cognacs, grappas etc. is 42 PAGES long. What's a guy to do? After having a wee bit of dessert and coffee I settled on a Scotch. A long-time fan of Islay malts, I decided to splash out (as if we hadn't already) on a dram of 30 year old Laphroaig. I've had the 10 year, 15 year, cask strength and single barrel versions but never the 30 year. What a treat. Smooth and rich, peaty, smoky and mellow with a suprising banana note. If I could have had a cigar (I won't even go into THAT rant) I could have died happily at that moment.
Folks. Wine and food lovers. Anyone who enjoys the best things in life. You owe it to yourself to visit Berns if you're anywhere within a 150 mile radius. It truely is an experience you will never forget.
Howard Bernstein (drooling) Owner, Casa di Vino
Des Moines Wine and Food Connection
