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

Food

A good turnout for our chef of the day Hal Epstein. Hal usually challenges us with some special ingredient to identify, today he challenged himself with a degree of difficulty in producing bountiful canapés and a pasta-based dish for the main.

Canapes

Canapés were mixed antipasto consisting of:

• Bundnerfleisch is an air-dried meat that originated in Switzerland served with sun-dried tomatoes.

• Liverwurst topped with Polska Ogorki (pickle). Sourced from the German butcher in Bexley North.

• Olive paste both served on seeded ficelle.

• White anchovy on cucumber.

• Perfectly cooked spring asparagus with hollandaise and secondly bread crumbs.

Main

Lasagna al forno and ensalada.

Hal had cooked the lasagne over the weekend and reheated it in the kitchen. It didn’t detract from the flavour and texture producing a very good example of lasagne.

He used the traditional ingredients lasagna flat pasta, Italian bechamel sauce (also known as besciamella) and ragu (sauce made with beef, carrots, celery, wine and tomatoes). Al Forno in Italian means from the oven or a dish that was baked in the oven.

A spring salad simply dressed with a vinaigrette olive oil and vinegar consisting cos lettuce rocket radish and cherry tomatoes accompanied the main.

Many favourable comments on both canapés and main today.

Thanks Hal.

Quote of the day ..thanks Bayne:

“Lasagne when you’re hungry

Good red wine when you’re dry

A lover when you need one

Heaven when you die.”

Hal reminded us that as chef of the day, it’s not only lugging in, preparation and cooking but sourcing food and products for your lunch that are your many tasks.

Bread today was a crusty sourdough baguette from ‘baker bleu’ Double Bay.

Cheese

In theme, our cheese master, Mark Bradford, sourced Mauri Taleggio a washed rind, cow’s milk cheese from Italy Maurice

The unique micro-climate in the natural caves where these cheeses are matured, under the Grigna mountain, is key to the flavour and profile of this cheese. The Mauri family have made cheese near the village of Pasturo for four generations and are the only producers to claim Stagionatura di Grotta (cave ripened) on their products.

Washed and brushed several times over a month, and matured in stacked wooden pine boxes, the cheese develops a thin bloom flecked with grey yeasts and blue Penicillium mould on its distinctive orange rind.

Beneath the thin, crusty rind the ivory texture of the cheese begins to change slowly as it ripens, becoming buttery and soft, balanced with a distinctive yeasty flavour. Mauri Taleggio is considered one of the finest DOP cheeses made in Italy.

We’ve seen this cheese before it had a firmer texture than when served previously.

The spring salad was reprised as the cheese accompaniment.

Wine

Hal Epstein was the Chef Du Jour today and he served up a very nice meal indeed. The initial pass arounds were excellent.

With regard to the wines, we kicked off with a Nicola Bergaglio Gavi from 2021, 13%. An excellent way to start. We have enjoyed a few bottles of this wine over the last few months and I for one am really warming to it. Fresh and clean with good acid/fruit balance. The grape variety is Cortese, grown in the Piemonte district. A very popular white wine in Italy for good reason. A great food wine.  Garcon, another bottle, please!

The second wine was a Soave from Monte Tondo 2021, 12%. Another enjoyable Italian aperitif wine. Made from the grape variety Garganega grown in NE Italy, with some Trebbiano sometimes added. Again a well made wine with good structures. I did however prefer the Gavi, a little more complex and a better finish.

We then moved on to our red wines for the afternoon, commencing with delightful Chianti Classico from Marchese Antinori 2010. Sangiovese at 14%. A really lovely Chianti in my view. No flim flan light red in a basket, this was a serious wine, great structure with gravelly tannins, deep cherry colour and flavour and a strong lingering finish. My wine of the day!

Next cab off the rank was a 2012 Primitivo from Monili, 13%. The grape is Zinfandel and is grown mainly in the Puglia region of Italy. The grape originates from Croatia. Large plantings have been made in California and South Africa. Marketed in Italy as Primitivo, the wine enjoys reasonable success. A strongly flavoured, big wine, but somewhat hard. I very much preferred the Chianti. The final bracket with the fine cheese was two Australian reds of distinguished pedigree, a Saltrams from the Barossa and a Lindemans Coonawarra.

This was for me, a real stroll down Memory Lane, but sadly, without a happy ending.

Back in the late 60’s when I was commencing my wine odyssey, Saltrams was a huge player in the Australian wine scene. Their Mamre Brook Cabernet and Pinnacle Shiraz were highly prized. I have many fond memories of lunching at the Papallion in King St where mine host Peter Damien would serve the best roast duck in Sydney, washed down with a glass or three of Pinnacle Shiraz, as one played under table footsies with the right companion. Ah the memories, my heart shall be dust before I forget. I digress.

Some years later Lindemans under Ray Kidd’s stewardship produced the famous trio of Coonawarra Reds, St George, Limestone Ridge and Pyrus. All wonderful wines, I think Pyrus was my favourite. These were state of the art quality wines. I am now of course going back 40+ years.

The wines we had today were the Saltram No I Shiraz from 2010, 14.5% and the Limestone Ridge Cabernet Shiraz  2012, 14%.

Consuming these wines today made me experience that sensation you get when you go back to your old primary school and think to yourself “I remember it being much bigger, it is so small“.

Having had a few Saltram’s wines from time to time in recent years, I was not expecting much and I was not surprised. Big alcohol, hard and heavy, strong tannins masking any fruit, out of balance. I did not enjoy it at all.

The Limestone Ridge was better, but still tannic and hard. A tad disappointing. Mind you, it has been some years since I have drunk any of this famous trio. So what has happened?

Were these wines from all those years ago when our palates were less educated, as good as we remember? Do we remember them through the rose coloured glasses of relative youth?  Have our tastes changed dramatically away from this style? Have these wines been gradually downgraded in quality by the producers?

For my part, I think it is a combination of all three, leading to a somewhat sad, but perhaps inevitable conclusion to our jaunt back in time to the Australian wine scene 40+ years ago... My old mentor Marcel Proust summed it up in his expression, “Remembrance of things past“.