Lunch review by James Hill

Matthew Holmes was in the kitchen today for our third cook-off for coveted Chef of the Year glory. He was assisted by Nick Reynolds and Richard Gibson, who presented the wines in our Winemasters’s absence.

Canapés

He followed his previous theme of Japanese inspired menu we started with Sydney Rock Oysters from Merimbula that were served with a Japanese dressing of ginger, mirin, soy, sake and topped with some caviar roe and spring onion. Then followed black tiger prawns sitting on top of wasabi mayonnaise and pickled cucumber and topped with dill. Both were well received by members today, great flavours and texture and matched well with our aperitif wines.

Canape wines

KT Riesling Clare Valley 2015 fermented in a blend of stainless steel and old French oak had high acid over citrus, a little out of balance, not a typical Clare Valley Riesling. The Tyrrells Vat 1 Semillon 2011 had a good fruit focus, balanced with lemon/lime acid and good length, and was the preferred wine of the two presented.

Main Course

Norwegian salmon marinated in home-made miso with a sauce of soy, sesame, lime and ginger. It was accompanied by soba buckwheat noodles, seasonal mango and watercress. The salmon was cooked well and flavours perfectly integrated with peppery watercress, sweet mango and noodles. A great effort.

Main course wines

Our Winemaster chose two Chablis from 2018 vintage to complement the main course today. The first was Chateau Defaix and seeing this early so reflects that mineral/salty attribute with razor edge acid with a medium weight. What was most preferred in the room today was the William Fevre. It was vibrant with good density and length with lemon/lime citrus and minerality.

Cheese

Our Cheesemaster James Healey presented a new cheese to our Society today with no one hesitating a guess. It was a ‘Mont Enebro’ blue mould, a surface-ripened pasteurised goat’s milk from Central Spain presented in two logs. It is 100% artisan handmade cheese with the cheesemakers inoculating the logs with penicillium Roqueforti the same mold used to make Roquefort. However, rather than piercing the cheese in the traditional way and allowing the blue range to develop throughout, the mold grows on the rind of the cheese adding to the complex flavour and with a distinct ashed appearance. The interior is pure white and has a chalky flaky texture. Flavours are mild, nutty and citric with just a hint of blue at the rind. Today was an example of the cheese served young. Apparently, when it matures it is not for the faint-hearted! Our CoTD served the cheese with black grapes and sesame biscuits.

Cheese wines

Our cheese wines were Houghton Wisdom Shiraz Frankland River 2009 showing cherry fruit, full of life and tannins with some bottle variation. Some thought a bit jammy. We also had the Tyrrell’s Old Hut Shiraz 2014. This was an excellent vintage, fruit-forward, rich red and ripe with good tannins and length.

Coffee

Spencer Ferrier continued his coffee theme this year of coffee blends today deliberately skewed towards the high roast end of the roasting spectrum. High roast simply means that the beans are cooked in the roaster for longer.  They are distinguished by a blacker or darker brown colour. The effect is that much of the acidity in the oils in the coffee are removed by the heat leaving residual flavours that include the simple sensation of burned vegetable material.

This style is used with low-quality beans when mass quantities are required.  It is also deliberately done when an element of the burned, cooked and charred quality is to be introduced into the coffee drink.  It is common practice for quality beans to be used but more for the purposes such as to provide an element of this flavour spectrum rather than as a whole flavour of itself. In today's blend, he had mixed a much higher quantity of high roast coffees than for normal coffee drinking, but the beans, when left unaltered, will give an 'espresso' style to plunger coffee.  The darker bean also does pretty well in the espresso machine, and it is not uncommon in Italian-style espressos. This is the third of examples of coffee styles that build a flavour profile for blending to achieve a preferred taste.  It is generally popular but usually is better expressed with a more middle-roast coffee to provide other parts of the coffee palette.