Like pent-up headwaters, the members flooded into the 1st lunch for 2015, around 50 of them. They may have come for the occasion, but they found a great meal and cheese, and some interesting wines from Paul Ferman.

In the kitchen, James Hill produced the goods, starting with canapes actually made by long-term member James Muir putting in a welcome reappearance. Little rounds of pecorino pastry enfolded a mix of chopped mussels and clams in a tangy green tomato sauce, topped with baby octopus and herbs; whilst a mousseline of flathead and anchovies was coated in seasoned flour and served in deep fried balls. They were washed down by a variety of aperitifs, notably a 2008 Stoney Rise riesling from Tasmania with good, slightly developed fruit, a creditable fino Innocente sherry and a brace of bottles including a fresh semillon cleanskin, probably from Lindemans.

A hot climate deserves a good curry, and we got one in the form of a Goan fish curry, made on ocean trout with the usual onions, garlic and ginger, plus a heap of spices and turmeric, in a coconut gravy. Rich and spicy but not too hot, it was served with lime slices, basmati rice cakes and wilted silverbeet with ginger and garam masala, and side dishes of onion and tomato sambal, cucumber yoghurt and an intense lime pickle. Plenty of flavour and colour on the plate and a great way to start the year. An eclectic pair of wines accompanied it: a 2011 Salomon gruner veltliner from Austria, and a 2011 Cos Pithos Rosso nero d'avola from Sicily. The former was pleasant but overwhelmed by the food; the latter light but dry and herby, a better match if not the best example of this little known but growing more popular variety.

The quality extended into the cheese, a Holy Goat La Luna chevre from Victoria: a supreme version of the style with a chalky sour but creamy paste ripening into rich sticky soft paste from the surface in. Some better wines to match: a 2007 Tyrrells Vat 9 shiraz, still young but with Hunter fruit and new wood starting to integrate; and a 2007 Barwang 842 Tumbarumba chardonnay, a fine example of cool climate wine of this variety with some developed notes. A salad of James' signature thinly sliced and pickled with red onion cucumber completed the picture.

Spencer Ferrier provided not only a Devon Estate medium roast coffee from SW India, but also an Indian Chai tea which blended well with the food if not the wine. And a fine old Lindemans vintage port was on hand to celebrate a couple of birthdays, not least Paul Ferman and treasurer Mike Staniland, age in each case withheld.

Welcome back, one and all.