Thanks to Steve Liebeskind for the food review and Chilly Hargrave for the wine review.

Today we started the COTY cook-off season with Grant Montgomery in the kitchen and over 50 people rolled into the Society’s room eagerly waiting for the fine fare with anticipation.

Canapes

We were treated to two starters:

Duck pancakes (Peking duck style) – what a hit these were and as good as you get in a restaurant. Beautifully presented duck with spring onion, hoisin sauce, coriander and cucumber all on a thin pancake and tied together by a chive.

Pate with onion chutney on a toast round – this was pretty and a refreshing canape. The pate was quenelled and sat on the onion and toast.

Main

Grant replicated his lunch of 2019 being a lobster tail in a shell sitting on two prawns, noodle birds nest and two strips of nori paper for colour. This was accompanied by snow peas, roast potatoes and a sauce of reduced fish and chicken broth with butter and lemon myrtle.

The main came to the table and looked colourful and presented beautifully on the plate – all were excited.

The general consensus was that it was a quality lunch and well deserved being in the cook-off. The hero was the lobster and prepared by having it thawed and place in the oven with garlic and butter for a short time and then torched before serving. This created a lovely redness on the flesh and was complemented with salmon roe and a sprig of dill. The prawns had their heads attached for presentation and the noodles gave extra texture.

Majority of attendees were very happy and praised how the meat was cooked although some members commented that theirs was overcooked and that they found it challenging to remove the meat from the shell. The potatoes and snow peas were terrific. The sauce presented to accompany the seafood was creative and looked good on the plate.

Cheese

One of the best cheeses presented in quite some time. This was even more relevant in light of the recent passing of the quintessential former Cheesemaster and life member Ross MacDonald. He would have been so excited and happy with the high standard of the Montgomery Cheddar that was served today. The cheddar had lovely colour, texture with a delicate creaminess. No salad or other accompaniment came with the cheese, but it was good enough to carry it off.

Excellent lunch to start the new year, a new decade and the COTY cook-off.

To finish, the Society toasted the lives of members Bob McCann and Ross MacDonald plus that of Society friend and restaurant bon vivant Tony Bilson who passed away since our last lunch. A number of members stood up and spoke of the quality of these men and what they meant to them and the Society. They will certainly be missed but always remembered.

The Wines

The aperitif wines at today’s lunch were an excellent opportunity to understand the longevity of Hunter Valley Semillon. From the highly regarded 2007 vintage, we tasted the Tyrrells Belford and the Vat 1. Individual preference depended on whether on like the fuller style of the Belford or the citrus intensity of the Vat 1. Nonetheless, they both drank beautifully.

With the exceptional fish course, we tasted a young Chablis and a mature Australian Chardonnay. The Louis Boileau Montmains 1er Cru showed the whetstone mineral aromas of the region, while the palate was slightly blowsy with lower acidity than expected. The winemakers of Chablis have a slight dilemma with the warming climate. Their grapes can be harvested at higher potential alcohols and consequently lower acidity. It’s interesting that the relevant authorities to their South are debating removing Chablis from the Burgundy appellation. Perhaps they are concerned about competition going forward.

The second Chardonnay was a 2010 Tapanappa from the Piccadilly Valley. This is Brian Croser’s label with fruit drawn from his vineyards surrounding the old Petaluma winery. It was starting to lose fruit and didn’t have the structure or intensity to carry the oak - excellent oak though it was.

With the cheese, we moved into some big Australian Shiraz. There seems to a certain love/hate relationship in the Society for these wines. Loved by some and hated by others. The 2012 Bests Bin 1 Shiraz at 14.5% alcohol was unusually big for such a good year. Normally about 1% lower, the wine showed both ripe and unripe characters typical of large canopy vineyards. The grapes for this wine generally come from various Great Western growers rather than the estate which is renowned for its Bin 0.

The second wine was a 2008 Kaesler Old Vine Shiraz. It was produced from two estate vineyards of average age in excess of 50 years. Its alcohol was labelled 15.5%, but may well have been higher. A wine of its time, it had stewed, jammy characters with tough tannins. Its portiness was perhaps an appropriate wine for the excellent Montgomery cheddar.