Amontillado

The feast opens with a dry Amontillado sherry alongside the turtle soup — the first signal that this is no ordinary village supper. Amontillado is a sherry that starts under flor and then oxidizes, giving it that amber colour and nutty, saline depth, bone-dry and bracing. It's exactly the aperitif a Paris chef would pour to wake the palate before the courses to come, and the wine that lets the General understand, before anyone says a word, that a master is in the kitchen. A good dry Amontillado runs well under $25 and keeps for weeks once opened.