Food review by James Tinslay and wine review by Charles 'Chilly' Hargrave.

Food

For our second post isolation lunch, David Madson was in the kitchen assisted by members Peter Fitzpatrick and James Tinslay. It was a cold Sydney day and the food was channelled to these conditions.

Given the restrictions on assembling canapés, et cetera, we started with an entrée of pea soup. The pea soup was served hot, although it could have been served cold in a summer climate. The soup was a combination of masses of iceberg lettuce and spring onion which were blended to present a beautifully complex soup with mouthfeel. The soup was topped off with wonderfully crispy croutons which had been fried with Parmesan and then sprinkled with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

David chose a rich winter dish as the main, chicken à la Normandy. The chicken presented was thigh, skin-on bone-in, which had been charred on a barbecue before being cooked with the ingredients of butter, bacon, cider, double cream, Dijon mustard and of course apples. The presentation with green beans and baked potatoes was simple and lovely. The comments from the room indicated that David hit the spot with the meal for the day.

Our Cheesemaster, James Healey, served one of our favourite cheeses with a Will Studd double cream Le Dauphin, a cow's milk cheese from the Rhône Valley. Heavenly. It was served The Cannery bread and fruit and nuts.

A much-admired meal.

The coffee supplied by Nick Reynolds was an ONA single-origin Nicaragua. The notes applied with the coffee described it as a hand-selected blend characterised by tropical sweetness, intense floral aromas and notes of yellow stonefruit that become more prominent as the brew cools. It was a medium strength coffee that showed come complexity without being overpowering.

Wine

The wines for today’s lunch were most generously supplemented by a couple of his Glandore Savagnin whites from our chef of the day. One with the soup and another with the main. The older wine, 2012 vintage, was showing some toasty development and a rich flavour with some typical spice notes. The current release, 2019 vintage, was a much fresher fruit-forward wine with an overlay of complexity from oak treatment.

The matching wine for the soup was a Lustau Jurana Fino. Perhaps showing a little flatness from time in bottle, it still had a delicious nutty flor note that was another good match for the entrée. Although not a Manzanilla, it has a refreshing salty tang on the finish.

To match the 2019 Hunter Savagnin there was a Gun Dog Estate ‘The Chase’ Semillon from the same vintage. Although under 11% alcohol it was quite full flavoured with the distinct regional citrus varietal character. That said it was perhaps a little light to match the chicken.

Our cheese was matched with two 2011 Crozes-Hermitage reds. The first from David Renaud was the cuvée, Georges Reynaud. This is sourced from 100% Bio vineyards with a long macération in concrete fermenters for over a month. It showed bright Shiraz fruit, but the tannins were still dry and tough. Perhaps an indication of the lack of softening from oak maturation. The final wine for the day was the Alberic Bouvet cuvée from Gilles Robin. Sourced from 50 years old vines in 3 separate sites close to the Hermitage hill, it was in a very different style. After 15 months in oak, it presented as a much softer style with more balance, although showing a little aldehyde which flattened the nose.