Watershed Wine Dinner @ Senso

Watershed as I've learnt is one of the vineyards that resides in the region of Margaret River down in Australia. This wine dinner - a collaboration of WineBOS and Senso. As one may have surmised from the name, the dinner was accompanied by various wine from Watershed. I'm not knowledgeable about wines but I do drink it and preferences at this point of time is purely dictated by the tongue. I know what I like or not base on taste. I know very little else despite having attended wine appreciation. The differences between the new and the old world hasn't settled in me and I haven't gotten the grasp of the varietal of grapes that are used. So I'm not engaging in the subtleties of the drink. But for those that might be interested, I do have the listed course and accompaniment of this 5 course dinner.

Poached crabmeat salad with avocado, orange and green apple with Sambuca dressing served with
Watershed Sauvignon Blanc/ Semillon, 2006

Rigatoni pasta with braised rabbit in tomato sauce with Taggiasche black olives and fresh thyme served with
Watershed unoaked Chardonnay, 2005

Traditional Carnaroli risotto with braised duck and Italian porcini mushrooms served with Watershed Shades, 2004

Braised veal shank "Ossobuco" served with mashed potatoes, rosemary and lemon Gremolata served with
Watershed Cabernet Sauvignon/ Merlot, 2004

Chef's selection of cheese served with
Watershed Shiraz, 2003

The food was more or less as I had expected. Not so much on satisfaction. It was uninteresting without any highlights that the cheese was actually a highlight of the 5 courses. Those cheeses were quite good and to think that it required the least preparation.

There were a few items that I thought could have been improved. The rabbit in the rigatoni tasted much like fish and the braised shredded duck meat of the risotto tasted boringly flat. And had too little meat, rendering it almost unidentifiable as duck. This poached crabmeat salad seemed quite overdone and brought up more than a faint reminder of a unremarkable trout and crab roll from Bontá. Tthe osso buco was fine. I guess. It only had a small part of the meat from the shank. If I had to call it, the justification to the price tag of the dinner were the generous pours of wine.