On a beautiful autumn day 40+ members attended lunch created by Nigel Burton with canapés by Hilton Chapman.

First canapé was smoked salmon with a horse radish cream and finger lime pearls from Hilton’s garden. The acid from the lime went perfectly with the cream and salmon.

This was followed by pork, chicken liver terrine with cranberry and a home-made tomato relish with tomatoes sourced from Ricardo’s at Port Macquarie.

Terrine had great flavour combination and members asked Hilton about the tomato topping matching with wines given the high acidity.

Canapé wines were sparkling Shiraz 2011 by Seppelts and an Italian Fiano. He had requested the Shiraz as he believes this is one if the best wine matches with tomatoes. The room was divided on sparkling Shiraz some liking the style others not so. Fiano was a dry wine a good match for both canapé.

Our main course today was a ‘Zarzuela' Spanish fish stew soup very well executed with all ingredients perfectly cooked adding to the robustness of the soup that had flavours of fennel and saffron with smokiness from paprika.

Nigel cooked the ling, mullet, mussels, clams and tiger prawns in batches to ensure that the flesh was firm. Flavour was also enhanced by green, yellow and red peppers and chorizo.

Main course wines today were a 2012 Rias Baixas Albariño and a Lustau Manzanilla Papirusa both most agreed a very good match to the course. The Albariño showed fruit and acid balancing the dryness of the sherry.

Our cheese course most picked was Merco 'Manchego aged 12 months, a sheep cheese from La Mancha region of Spain. It was firm, dry, rich and creamy served with gin soaked strawberries and a quince paste provided by Hal Epstein.

A very good sourdough accompanied the meal.

Cheese wines were Gabaxo 2013 Rioja and Glandore 2011 Tempranillo from the Hunter Valley.

Both the Tempranillos were a good match for the cheese with the local version preferred on the day.

A perfect end to the lunch was the Bali Gold mountain coffee provided by Spencer Ferrier and a 1980 Lindemans port provided by Neil Galbraith to celebrate his birthday.