Morton’s Franciscan Wine Event

This past summer, we attended a terrific wine event at Morton’s. We don’t have a lot of wine events going on in the summer. People are traveling and it is hot, so there is not a lot of demand for events such as this. Usually we are all counting down the days for Disney’s Food and Wine fest or searching our emails for something fun to do.

That’s just what happened; I got an email from the fine folks at our local Morton’s, advertising a wine event for $60.00 including passed appetizers and a wine blending from Franciscan. I couldn’t recall if we had had Franciscan wine before, but it sounded fun.

We really like Morton’s and have been there many times. The location here in Orlando has been there forever. It’s a small place and you would miss it if you drove by. A low ceiling, dark wood, decorated with wine bottles and boxes. It is reminiscent of a supper club from back in the day.

As always, the service was exceptional. We were greeted promptly and warmly, and then led to a banquet style room on the far side of the dining room. There were three round tables for ten, set beautifully with many wine glasses on special mats. We were given a glass of Franciscan Chardonnay. It was super cold and crisp, and as someone who does not like chardonnay very much, I have to say it was wonderful. Not sweet or over powering, but clean and had a soft light fruitiness to it.

The passed appetizers started to roll in; mini filet mignon sandwiches, bruschetta with sliced beef, and crab cakes. All were amazing. The crab cakes, were essentially crab with a light something or another to keep it together. The bruschetta with sliced beef had a tasty horseradish mayonnaise and arugula. I have to say the filet mignon sandwiches were very memorable, they have them on the bar menu and they are perfect for a snack with a drink. I loved them.

The host asked everyone to have a seat and they began the wine tasting. Each place setting had 6 glasses on a place mat that was more like a map. There was also test tube looking thing in plastic to keep it sanitary. This was the strangest wine tasting I had been to so far.

Our hostess then explained that the “test tube” was used to blend the wine and we would be making our own mertiage. Fun! They poured different types of Franciscan wine in each glass and we used the tube to take a little from each and place in an empty to create a blend or mertiage similar to their own Magnificat.



It was a lot of fun with wine free flowing and some very interesting mixes being made. Everyone had a great time and really enjoyed the seminar.