It was a coincidence of gustatory pleasures, with James Hill in the kitchen doing the last of the cook offs for the 2014 COTY, and Paul Ferman providing a wholly masked bag of local and foreign reds and whites for the monthly wine tasting. It justified the huge attendance of 56.

First, the canapes, James providing something new in the form of a homemade olive bread, thin slices of a cakey bread flavoured with green olives, parmesan cheese and herbs; as well, freshly prepared rabbit rillettes, made with goose fat and a bit of pork as well as the seasonal bunny, served on thinly sliced Iggy's sourdough. The aperitif wine was the 2001 Tyrrells Vat 1, not an outstanding year and showing considerable bottle variation , with most tired and lifeless. Not so a Innocente manzanilla sherry also available, and appropriately sharp and tangy.

And so to the main event, a revisiting of James' mustard-braised pork neck with cognac. The necks were slow cooked for about 3 hours in stock with a mix of wholegrain mustard, brown sugar and herbs, then turned out and thickly carved. The sauce, enlivened by a hit of cognac and with prunes added, was poured over and the dish finished with garlic mashed potato and wilted silverbeet. Definitely sweet, as befits pork, but with balancing fire from the cognac and bitterness from the beet.

On the whole, the dish was well matched by the tasting lineup of 6 masked wines, 2 white and 4 red, with only an airy statement that there was a mix of Old and New World to help us. Wide and varied were the appraisals, but the wines were revealed as: 2008 Montmains 1er cru Chablis, still delicate and highly acid but a good foil for the sweetness in the food; 1999 Steingarten Riesling, deep gold and developed, perhaps a little too much so; 2009 Dom Fontaine, predominantly grenache from Gigondas in the S Rhone, a bit thin for the company; 2008 Craggy Range shiraz from New Zealand, big and intense with a meatiness that had many picking Spain or Italy; 2008 Trapio monastrell from Spain, a very well made wine that many picked as Bordeaux; and 2008 Lindemans Pyrus, really good drinking with a cabernets blend, and very popular.

The standard was maintained with the cheese, a rich, nutty caramel flavoured semi-soft number , finally identified by Ross MacDonald as a goat's milk cheese from Holland rejoicing in the name Midnight Moon. Certainly worth staying up for, and nicely balanced with some sliced Fuji apples and William pears.

The coffee, introduced by Spencer Ferrier, was a medium roast from NW Sumatra, pleasingly clean and bitter on the palate with an ok length. It was made even better by a birthday port from Gary Linnane. A splendid 1983 Stanton & Killeen, with heaps of rich sweet fruit and spirit to match, it was presented in magnums.