Food review by James Hill and wine review by Stephen O'Halloran

Meal

The room was packed today as we celebrated the last hurrah of our president Paul Thorne and Cellar master Chilly Hargrave.

Paul Thorne was Chef of the Day, assisting with canapés were Gary Linnane and James Tinslay.

Canapés

First up Gary Linnane made a white bean anchoïade served on a cracker. Gary used the Tarbais beans that Society member Scott Witt had provided.

The beans were puréed with some Parmigiano-Reggiano, cream cheese capers, anchovy, lemon zest and EVOO. Full of flavour, lemony, creamy, thick and rich.

Then came a canapé of crème fraîche with wasabi topped with a Sicilian white anchovy.

Last up was Paul’s signature dish of duck consomme, rafted and infused with juniper berry and star anise. Rich and flavoursome, a crowd pleaser.

Canapés were bountiful with good flavour hit to start our lunch.

Main

Paul served pork neck plated on a base of pea and ham soup. The pork comprised five pieces cooked in the oven for 4.5 hours at 135C. The pork was cooked in trays and sat on a base of onions and duck stock. The pea and ham soup was a combination of many vegetables and legumes/pulses including carrots, peas, beans (2 or 3 types) barley and lentils.  The ham hock flavour was infused and then shreds were throughout the soup.

The meal came to the table smartly presented with a late addition of finely chopped herbs. The pork had terrific colour and showed it was cooked perfectly. Pork can be a challenge to get right and, as it rests, it still cooks. The pea and ham soup provided good colour and the broth provided additional flavour and moisture to the pork.

Overall, the flavour was delicate and the seasoning was a personal preference.

The meal complemented the great Grand Cru Burgundy wines selected for lunch today.

Some commented there could have been more sauce on the plate.

The bread was from Haberfield bakery an old favourite of the Society from years gone past.

Cheese

Our cheese today was selected by our outgoing Cheesemaster James Healey and presented by Gary Linnane in his absence.

It was a white mould, cow's milk, farmhouse cheese ‘Marquis Brie’.

In France, it is increasingly hard to find farmstead cheese made with milk from a single farm. Most examples are produced in very small quantities from raw milk, and these are rarely found outside the area of production.

This soft, surface mould-ripened cheese, is a wonderful exception. It is handmade in a modern, purpose-built ‘fermier’ that lies in the shade of the Rambouillet deer forest, southwest of Paris. The original ‘Fromages de Brye’ made on small farms in the countryside outside the city varied in size depending on the season, and amount of milk available. Following in this tradition Le Marquis Brie de Rambouillet is made in two sizes using fresh pasteurised milk sourced exclusively from a small herd of pampered cows.

The unique combination of moulds, cultures and a traditional poplar wood box helps to ensure that the chalky centre of the young cheese slowly breaks down to a soft gooey texture over 3-4 weeks of careful ripening. One can tell when Le Marquis Brie is at its optimum because it has a distinct fungal aroma and is soft when pressed. The ‘cowy’ barnyard flavours of the mature cheese are a perfect reminder of why ‘fermier’ cheese is so special.

Some comments were made about the ammoniated nature of the cheese however once the ‘crust’ was removed the resulting paste was very pleasant.

Accompanying the cheese was a plate of figs, walnuts, dates and dried figs marinated in 12-year-old Scotch whisky.

Roger Straiton rose to thank Paul and Chilly for their considerable effort and dedication to our Society noting Paul and Chilly’s humour was very appreciated by all as well as Chilly sharing his wealth of knowledge of wine and the wine industry.

In closing Steve Liebeskind spoke about the recent convention of the Federation of Wine and Food Societies of Australia held in Melbourne and that at the convention he was returned as President with Mike Staniland Treasurer.

Wine

Today was a significant day for the WFS, our Wine Master Chilly Hargraves’s last lunch and Paul Thorne’s last event as President. As a result, we were in for something special on both food and wine.

We kicked off with two Chardonnays, a Collector Tiger 2017 and a Tilbury from Adelaide Hills from the same year. I must have been a little late in arriving as all of the Collector wine had gone, precluding me from a tasting.  From enquiries I made around the room, the wine seemed to have produced some mixed reactions. The general consensus seems to have been that it was an “old style Chardy”, with the usual objections that style attracts. The Tilbury I found quite acceptable, an enjoyable wine to go with the excellent pass-arounds prepared by our Chef du Jour, our President until next week. The Tilbury had good clean structures, 12.5 %, no winemaking faults I could detect, a more modern style and overall a good journeyman Chardonnay. Dammed by faint praise you might say.

The lunch wines. Now we get serious. Chilly’s final raid on our Cellar produced six superb Grand Cru Burgundies, three Echezeaux from Christian Clerget, and three Clos-Saint-Denis from Georges Lignier.

As I keep saying, the WFS is the place to be! All this for under $100. “ We few, we happy few, we band of brothers “, could sum up the mood of the room. A rare treat. Before I report on the wines, a little perspective on the part of the Burgundy district where these wines hail from. The Cote de Nuits area is where these wines call home, the sub-district of Vosnee Romanee to be precise. In this tiny parcel of land, the most expensive wines in the world are grown. La Romanee Conti, Richebourg,  Grand Echezeaux, La Tache, to name a few. A few years ago I commented at a function that these wines come from vineyards the size of postage stamps, with prices resembling Tasmanian postcodes! To illustrate the point, the vineyard of the Premier Des Grands Cru La Romanee-Conti consists of 4 acres!  Most of the others are also very small, but Echezeaux is much larger at 100 acres, but still small by our standards.

Whilst on the subject of Echezeaux, may I offer a little hint to assist in the pronunciation of this great Burgundy. Back in the 70’s when I first laid eyes on the name, I had no idea and mangled it totally. At or about that time my younger brother returned to Sydney from a few years in the UK, bringing along with him a French Lady, tres chic, you might say. She came to my rescue. After several attempts she had me pronouncing it phonetically, as  “Esch-au-show.“ Problem solved. Say it quickly six times and you have it for life. Sadly, some years later my Bro and she parted, she becoming apparently, “a charming little armful, but a dreadful little bedful“ (here’s to Ogden Nash).

Anyhow, getting back to the main story, my thoughts on this wonderful lineup are as follows.

No 1, the Echezeaux En Orveaux Grand Cru. 2015. A terrific combination of a top year and a great winemaker.  Totally excellent and a joy to drink. Love to revisit it in 5 years.

No 2, the same wine but from 2014, apparently a patchy vintage, and the wine suffered. Either that or some wine-making faults. Lacked flavour, a tad disappointing.

No 3, the same wine but from 2012. Better year, good fruit, a nice Pinot nose, enjoyable. Now 10 yo but holding up well.

No 4, the Georges Lignier Clos-Saint-Denis Grand Cru 2016. My pick of the bunch. A sound vintage and it showed. Wonderful complex Pinot flavours and aroma. A satin-like finish, superb, lots of time ahead, destined for greatness.

No 5, the same wine from 2012. Another variable vintage weather-wise but I found this wine highly desirable. Velvety finish with beautiful balance. A classic Pinot.

No 6, same wine but from 2009. An excellent year, producing a fine wine. Starting to show some ageing, but still in good fruit/acid balance, elegant, with mouth-filling Pinot flavours, still hanging in there notwithstanding now a 13 yo.

Finally, in closing, I was rummaging around in my wine log books trying to find some wine lists from the Len Evans Burgundy Dinners back in the 70s and 80s I attended with my mate Bayne Kelly. It was at these functions I first tasted any of these great wines. Evans was very generous, we all had a decent glass of the La Tache, the Romanee and so on. The memory lingers on, I had entered a new world! The cost for the dinner on August 22^nd 1979 was $55. We thought at the time it was very expensive!!

Thank you Chilly for your work over the last few years, we have loved it. You will be a hard act to follow. You really went out on a high note today, with the party in full swing!