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

Food

A full house for our last wine tasting lunch of 2023 with James Tinslay as Chef of the Day assisted Keith Steele, Gary Linanne and yours truly on canapés.

Canapés

Keith Steele was first up with some prawn cocktail lettuce cups,

New season prawns served in a cos lettuce cup with Rose Marie sauce made with whole egg mayonnaise, chives, lemon zest and juice then seasoned. Crunchy lettuce, a good dollop of sauce and prawns in perfect condition. Delicious.

Gary followed up with a tuna spread on buttery Ritz crackers. It was made from chilli tuna, anchovies, eschallots, parsley and unsalted butter, smooth and flavoursome with a hint of heat on the back palate. This is one of my favourite canapés.

Chicken liver parfait followed served with sliced gherkins and radish sitting on toasted white bread crostini.

As with most recipes equal amounts of liver to butter and a good slug of cognac. The difference is that crème fraîche is added at the end of processing to lighten the mix and it is then passed through a fine sieve for a silky texture.

Plentiful canapés and commended by members today

Main 

James produced duck confit served with duck fat potatoes and asparagus.

The duck was moist and tender with a crisp skin and obvious lashings of duck fat used to cook the baby chat potatoes.

Then we had the jus, four litres of duck stock slowly reduced for six hours. A host of Asian ingredients went into the sauce however they didn’t dominate the overall flavour of the jus. Ingredients included Shaoxing wine, soy, oyster sauce, sesame oil, ginger garlic, spring onion and star anise.

Lip smacking good. A meal of quality, flavour and texture.

Well done James, as Richard Gibson said you’d be happy to have a meal of this quality at any Parisian bistro.

Bread today was from Cornucopia bakery in Naremburn.

Cheese

Cheesemaster Mark Bradford presented a French cow’s milk cheese today at the request of our chef, a hard cheese made from unpasteurised cow’s milk “Beaufort”

Famous since Roman times, this huge 40kg cheese is often referred to as the Prince of Gruyere. Only cheeses made from late spring or summer milk are selected, called Beaufort, as this is when the best milk comes from cows that have ascended into the rich mountain pastures.

A cooked curd cheese made from raw milk, the close, concentrated creamy texture and nutty, slightly sweet lingering flavours are typical of this rare cheese which also has excellent melting qualities.

It came to the table in perfect condition, you could smell the wonderful aroma of the cheese as it was presented to the table.

Our Food Master Steve Sparkes had the last word “we look forward to seeing this dish again, James”.

Wine

One of the best events I have attended at the WFS. A wonderful effort by JT producing 50 duck confit, perfectly cooked and delivered to the tables at the right temperature. Massive effort. Our Wine Master excelled himself in providing us with a mix of superb Pinot, Sangiovese and Nebbiolo, heaven! After lunch, I arrived back home to an unusually empty house, whereupon I kicked off my shoes, donned my velvet smoking jacket, slipped into my baby seal skin slippers and retired to my Chaise Lounge, clutching in one hand a snifter of Cognac and a fine Cuban in the other and thereupon reflected upon the good things that have occurred in my life. Soon I fell into a post-lunch haze “dreaming that last night I went to Manderley again” +. My dream was shattered by my mobile ringing and I returned to the present. The first thought that came to mind was how fortunate I was to join the WFS all those years ago. Becoming a member is right up there with some of the best decisions I have made in life.

With regard to the wines, the white for the excellent pass arounds was a Tapanappa Chardy from Brian Croser from the Piccadilly region in 2010 13.5%. From comments around the room, there was some bottle variation. The few glasses I had were enjoyable, but beginning to show some ageing, others in the room were not impressed. That is the sort of result you can get with a 13yo Chardy. Any remaining stocks of this wine should in my view be drunk soon.

We then moved right into the red wines for our main. First was the Tolpuddle PN 2015 13.5% from the Coal River region of Tasmania. A creation of Shaw and Smith with the backing of Yalumba and a top wine-making team working with fruit from one of the best vineyards in Tasmania. The result? In a word outstanding. This wine along with their Chardy must rate amongst our finest. This wine had great PN structures, a superb nose and a soft clean finish. In my view the wine is now fully developed, hard to see it getting any better. A comparison with the following wine is informative.

The next wine was the masterful Cheron Gevrey Chambertin also 2015, at 14%. I now see why PN lovers are obsessed with this grape. A wonderful wine, everything in perfect harmony, producing an elegant, deeply flavoursome wine with a soft velvet-like taste and lingering finish inviting one back for more. As I alluded to above, these two PN illustrated the difference between our locally grown PN and the French. In my view, this wine was still developing with time ahead for further improvement whereas the Tolpuddle had reached full maturity. The Gevrey would handle easily another 5 years or more in the bottle before it reached its glorious best. This is no adverse reflection on the Tolpuddle a superb wine, just a comment on how the same grape develops in different countries. In any event, the Gevrey was my pick of the day, narrowly edging out the following wine.

We then moved onto a Fontodi Chianti Classico Gran Selezione from 2015 14%, ah, Sangiovese at its best. Mouthfilling and fleshy but with a perfect balance of tannin and fruit flavours. Rich, earthy sensual, I’m beginning to run out of superlatives! Without a doubt the quintessential high quality unmistakable Italian wine. Like the aftertaste, the memory lingers. Wine no 2 by just a whisker.

The following wine was also a Sangiovese by another name the Brunello di Montalcino 2007 14.5% from the Tuscan region, produced under the highly regarded Argiano label. A direct comparison between this wine and the other Sangiovese led to disappointment. Perhaps any wine after the Fontodi would be a let down! Again there appears to have been some bottle variation from comments around the room as you might expect from a 16 yo wine. I felt that my wine was showing some age with a fall off in acid and fruit. Others were impressed. For me still very drinkable but lacking vibrancy, not really sure what was the problem, perhaps just getting old. A definite step down from the previous wine.

The final bracket was the match-up I was keenly anticipating between a Nebbiolo from the home of that grape, the Piedmont in Italy and the locally grown product from the Adelaide Hills from one of our most respected producers Stephen Pannell. The Italian wine was a Nervi Conterno from 2017 at 14.5%. The Pannell wine was from 2013 at 14%. What I noticed at the outset was that both wines in the glass were lighter in colour than I expected. Upon tasting both were medium body with plenty of tannin and high acidity.

2017 was by all accounts a tricky year in Piedmont, and perhaps this was reflected in the texture and structure of the wine. The Nervi was an elegant wine with excellent fruit, probably needing more time as Nebbiolo tends to do. Would be keen to see this wine again in 5 years when some of the tannins may have softened.

The Pannell wine now 10yo seemed to have reached full development. Again strong tannins so typical of the grape. Same texture as the Italian wine but lacking in complexity. A bit thinner in structure. An enjoyable wine but was short on flavour and finish. In the final analysis, the match-up was a bit of a letdown, as to me we were not seeing the famous Nebbiolo at its best.

Once again, thanks to James and Nick for a magnificent afternoon.

+ The opening line of Daphne Du Maurier’s classic novel, Rebecca.