James Hill used his lunch to remind us of our deceased friend and member Graham Fear shown here as joint-winner with Steve Liebeskind at the 2017 Chef of the Year dinner

Today was the kick-off lunch for what we hope is going to be a very successful 2018 for your Society. James Hill, was in the kitchen and he was assisted by member Gary Linnane and a friend from Melbourne, Michael Morris. I fact Michael did a sterling job spending two hours separating the coriander and basil leaves from the stems for service. We need more guests like Michael. 

James had more recently planned this lunch in acknowledgement of our recently deceased member Graham Fear AM. James had sourced muntries from Graham's nephew who grows them in Victoria. Known as emu apples, beach berries or native cranberries, muntries are a low growing shrub found on the south coast of Australia. They popped up in the canapes and the main. Michael Morris bought them to Sydney for the lunch.

Canapés. Two canapés started the day. In no particular order, we had smoked trout meticulously stripped from the bones before lunch and added to muntries and served on a wafer. The other was a duck and lychee salad served on a spoon which also had the beach berries as well as roasted peanuts and other ingredients. Both canapés were excellent.

Aperitif wine. Our Winemaster had taken the final bottles of Tyrrells Vat 1 Semillon 2001 from our cellar to serve on the day. The 2001 was one of the last Vat 1’s wines under cork and some variation was expected and we were not wrong. However, other than a few dodgy bottles, the remainder were remarkably fresh, and one wonders what they would have been like at 17 years of age had they been under screwcap. At its best, it is a very good wine showing good acid and mature fruit.

Main course. James served soy and Shiraz poached beef fillets with crispy fried shallots on an Asian salad. The beef had been beautifully cooked rare the day before and left chilling overnight with the soy and Shiraz. Above you will see a photograph of James’s assistant, Michael, with the beef fillets. The meal looked good on the plate and followed up by tasting even better. Some comments were made about preferring a little bit more spice/heat in the dish but I thought it was about right especially for the wine. Salads are always a little controversial with our members, but James nailed this.

The Wines.

• Shiraz by Farr 2011 (cork)
• Anne Gros & Jean-Paul Tollet La Ciaude Minervois 2012 (cork)
• Woodlands Margaret Cabernet blend 2008 (screwcap)
• Fontodi Chianti Classico 2011 (cork)

An interesting selection of wines put on by Paul Ferman. Farr wines have an excellent reputation, so the 2011 Shiraz was somewhat of a letdown. A full-bodied wine, too fleshy and obvious hot stewed characteristics made it not particularly enjoyable. The Minervois (Anne Gros is Burgundy royalty) was a wonderful Languedoc wine made from Carignan, Grenache and a few other grapes such as Syrah. Beautifully balanced with soft fruit it was by far (no pun intended) the better of the two.

With the cheese, again, we had two very different styles of wine. The top-of-the-line Woodlands Margaret is a fine wine. It was bright, very clean and whilst not over un-oaked there was certainly the remnants of new oak still evident. The Chianti was in excellent condition. The savoury nose and palate of the Sangiovese fruit was evident and for some, including myself, it was the wine of the day.

Cheese and coffee. Cheese today was presented by Gary Linnane and he served one of Australia’s finest with Pyengana cheddar from Tasmania. Apparently, Pyengana has recently been impossible or almost impossible to buy for reasons that are not clear. This cheese comes in a few forms mainly relating to the ageing at the farmhouse where it is made and today we had one with less age which meant it was still quite firm and not a sharp as the more aged examples become. A wonderful cheese.

Coffee from Spencer Ferrier, was Agung Agung from Bali and is commonly called God’s Cheese. This is an excellent medium bodied coffee that members should seek out for home.

Our President, Keith Steele, celebrated his birthday today and plied us with some Portuguese ruby port, which was deliciously soft and much enjoyed.

The tradition of the Wine and Food Society is to remember our recently deceased members with Green Chartreuse and we did so in honour of Graham Fear AM and Michael Hobbs who also passed away the previous week.

The lunch was then closed. We now enter into the Chef of the Year cookoff cookoffs, an exciting time for your Society.