Food review by James Hill and wine review by Richard Gibson

Food

Our president Bill Alexiou-Hucker was in the kitchen today cooking for our first mixed lunch of the year. You never go hungry when Bill in the kitchen and today was no exception.

Canapés

Guacamole topped with tomato and a slice of chilli on mission corn chips. Bill loves this recipe, I agree it’s fresh and flavourful.

Tuna marinated in orange juice and dill topped with dill served on spoons, balanced and luscious.

Baked Greek-style meatballs (Keftedes) served cold with a dipping sauce of yoghurt, lemon salt and mint (Tzatziki). The meatballs were a combination of pork and beef however 90% beef for fat to add to the flavour as well also some grated tomatoes, salt and egg for binding.

Main

A seafood and tomato-based orzo dish. Orzo is a rice-shaped pasta also known as risoni. It was baked with chorizo, tomato and onion.

Great presentation with the seafood sitting on top of the orzo with the chorizo imparting a smoky taste to the dish.

The seafood was perfectly cooked with scallops and prawns seared on the hibachi and served with baby octopus and mussels in their shells.

It’s no easy feat to serve different types of seafood and have them come to the table with the integrity of the flesh preserved. Bill achieved that today. A great dish with fulsome flavours although most agreed it did need a little seasoning.

Thanks Bill.

Cheese

Our cheese master Mark Bradford organised a 3.6kg tub of barrel-aged feta as requested by our chef. It was baked with truffle-infused evoo and served with sprigs of thyme then drizzled with Greek thyme-infused honey over the cheese before serving with warmed olives.

Perfect with lunch today the baking enhanced the flavour and texture of the cheese with olives rounding off a great dish.

Surely a worthy contender for the Ross MacDonald cheese trophy.

Aphrodite Greek Barrel-Aged Feta is a rare example of a traditional feta. The authentic milky flavours, crumbly and slightly open texture, and yeasty finish are a revelation.

Greek feta is one of the oldest and most popular of all European PDO cheeses with origins that date back to a time when nomadic shepherds roamed the hills of northern Greece. Today, most examples are produced on a commodity scale and are predictable in texture and flavour, but Aphrodite Feta is remarkably different and deliciously superior. It is authentic, ‘real’ feta at its finest and most authentic.

Cheesemaking for Aphrodite Greek Barrel-Aged Feta begins with only the best-quality mountain ewe’s milk and a small amount of goat’s milk, depending on the season. This milk is beautifully and naturally infused with the aromatic flavours of wild herbs, flowers, and grasses ingested by free-ranging flocks.

The fresh curds are drained in special triangular wedges and sprinkled with sea salt from Missolonghi before being left to drain overnight. They are then hand-salted again and layered in beechwood barrels.

The inside of these barrels contains a unique microflora, introduced by smearing the staves with ourda, a mizithra whey cheese. After topping up with whey, the barrels are left at ambient temperature to encourage secondary fermentation, while wooden staves allow the cheese to breathe. Finally, the barrels are transferred to cooler, humid cellars to mature for at least three months, resulting in a different and far superior texture and flavour compared to industrial feta, which is matured in tins or plastic.

Bill generously provided a half bottle of dessert wine for each table. It was "Samos Vin Doux" a white muscat from Samos, Greece. A good match for the cheese presented today.

Jennifer Darin proposed a toast to our recently departed member Roger Prior who was well known to Dennis Cooper and Jennifer. He introduced Dennis to our Society.

Bread today a good sourdough from Fiore at McMahons Point.

Wine

Nick served a diverse range of wines well suited to an equally diverse number of appetizers and Bill’s Mediterranean mixed seafood risoni main.  We started with a fresh and fruity Jansz rose and a quintessential Hunter Semillon, Gundog Estate’s The Chase Semillon.

The rose is a Pinot Noir/Chardonnay blend  (Pinot dominant)) which showed fresh floral and strawberry notes on the nose, a textural and balanced palate displaying some complexity and a fairly dry and long finish – an excellent match with the Guacamole and tuna tartare.  The Chase Semillon is made from grapes grown on the historic Somerset Vineyard, now a grower's vineyard committed to sustainable farming and organic principles. It showed lovely floral and apple characters on the nose with a citrus and lemongrass palate (with some classic hunter hay/straw notes).  The wine was balanced and elegant with a fine acid line and length which well matched the appetizers and the meatballs in particular.

The main course was served with a modern Adelaide Hills Orlando Lynvale Chardonnay and a Trott Vineyard McLaren Vale Grenache. Both wines complemented the main very well (both displaying high acid lines) and the room was evenly split as to which wine was the better match. Personally, I thought the leanness and acidity of the Grenache was the better fit.

The Chardonnay displayed a citrus/peachy nose and a real depth of flavoursome ripe stone fruit on the palate (together with some flinty-struck match characters) balanced with a light touch of oak. This is a wine showing considerable elegance and balance – finishing with a fine minerally acid line.  A very fine example of a modern cool climate Chardonnay.

The Grenache, produced by Willunga 100, is grown from old vines in Blewitt Springs, McLaren Vale. The wine shows a very pretty cherry/red berry and spicy nose followed by a depth of savoury red fruit and spice on the palate with well-integrated (fruit) tannins and a long acid-driven finish.  A very good example of a modern South Australian Grenache style – highlighted by its fruit purity, freshness and fine tannin structure.

The cheese was also served with a white and a red wine - a Soave made from 100% Garganega grapes produced by Monte Tondo in the hills near Verona and a Barbera from Paolo Scavini in Alba, Piemonte.

The Soave was intensely floral perfumed (one member described it as a candy “bubblegum” character).  It displayed a bone-dry peachy palate with citrus tinges and was medium-bodied.  The finish was a little short and dominated by high acidity.  Our table did not have the best example of this wine, but it was better received on other tables.

The Barbera showed a spicy rich blackberry and cherry nose. The palate displayed rich, savoury, tart black fruit with a medium body with some herbaceous characters and spice.  The finish was long and accentuated by high acidity. To my palate, the tannins were perhaps a little aggressive (reflecting a very difficult 2017 vintage) and the wine was not completely in balance. 

Both wines matched the cheese and again the room was divided on the better match – again both wines displayed high acidity which well matched the cheese.