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

Food

In our first wine tasting lunch post isolation, Mark Bradford was in the kitchen with a French-themed meal that perfectly suited a winters day. Our tables were plentiful with two glasses of aperitif wine and six glasses for our wine tasting,

Members took their seats as they arrived and shortly after Mark served the first of our two entrees. It was a pork, veal, gammon and green olive terrine topped with cornichon slices. The recipe came from one of Mark’s associate’s great gran who lived in the Beaujolais region. It was moist and appetising with good flavour, A little salt enhanced the overall taste.

Next up was a hot soup of leek and potato with a base of chicken stock served with some cream, chives and crouton on top. It was creamy and textural perfectly seasoned. Both entrees were a good match for our aperitif wines one a Beaujolais, the other a Pressing Matters Riesling, the room was divided as to which wine was the better match.

Mark chose a rich winter dish as the main, deconstructed beef and mushroom pie, a perfect match to our brace of Australian Shiraz and Cabernets in our wine tasting.

The meal was served with a square of crisp puff pastry, a rich and unctuous brisket casserole with Swiss brown and porcini mushrooms, carrot and bacon chunks.

It was accompanied by a tian of zucchini, rice and Parmesan with some sautéed broccolini. The meal was well received by our members commenting on the flavour and presentation of the meal and the wine matching.

Greg Chugg spoke to the wines the majority of which he had purchased in his term as cellarmaster. One of the wines was Burton Mclaren Vale Shiraz and Greg voiced his disappointment that Nigel wasn’t in the room to hear the wisdom of his comments (favourable we may add).

Our Cheesemaster, James Healey, served one of our favourite cheeses a Beaufort.

This huge benchmark cheese from the Savoie region of France is known as the ‘Prince of Gruyere‘. The rarest examples are made the traditional way between July and September when the cows are driven to graze high in the Alps and cheese is produced in small mountains dairies at altitudes above 2000 metres.

Each crusty wheel captures the rich diversity of herbage found growing in these remote alpine valleys and this is reflected in the unique condensed nutty flavour of every wheel. James advised that it is a raw milk cheese cut from 45 kg wheels and he was impressed with our cheese suppliers ability to be so precise with our order and weight request. Mark served some quince paste and cranberry pistachio crisps with the cheese. The fruit in the quince and crisps was a good complement to the cheese.

The coffee supplied by Nick Reynolds was an ONA single-origin.

The notes supplied with the coffee described it as mixed, natural process lot from Kenya is sweet and packed full of fruit. Look for notes of cherry, blackcurrant and coffee with a ruby grapefruit-like acidity on the finish.

Wine

Today’s wine lunch saw 8 glasses on the table. The normal 6 plus 2 for entrée.

We paired a white with a red to match Mark’s terrine. The 2015 Pressing Matters R9 Riesling is so named because it suggests a residual sugar of 9 g/l. While this wine showed some attractive apricot, botrytis notes it had a very sweet finish which left it unbalanced. The 2013 Laurent Gaulthier Vielles Vignes Morgon Beaujolais was made in more of a Burgundian style than Beaujolais. With a deep colour, there was very little carbonic maceration character and, in its place, some firm tannins and strawberry fruits.

Six more reds followed these two. Three Shiraz of varying age showed the diversity in this variety. The 2008 Oliver’s Taranga HJ Shiraz was a bit of a monster. Very strong oak vanilla aromas and flavours dominated some rich McLaren Vale fruit. Oak and grape tannins left a hard finish. The 1998 Seppelt Great Western Reserve Shiraz was still in pretty good condition. Berry fruit notes were in harmony with the oak and soft tannins. Former cellar master Greg Chugg (congratulating the cellar master on purchasing this wine) advised the lunch that later releases of it were rebranded as St Peters. A third Shiraz was the 2004 Burton McLaren Vale. A much better-balanced wine than the Oliver’s it was drinking at its best with bright berry fruit and fine tannins.

Then followed a pair of Orlando Jacaranda Ridge Coonawarra Cabernets. The 1998 showed the typical character of this renowned vintage. Bright cassis fruit with soft tannins and well-managed oak. Perhaps lacking a little texture and length. The 1996 version was the day’s mystery wine. A wine with more complexity and depth showing more Coonawarra mints notes than red currant. It drew a number of comments and guesses from the floor - a few came close. The final wine, from the same vintage, was the Limestone Ridge Shiraz Cabernet. Still, in excellent condition, it was a sophisticated wine with the Cabernet offering excellent support to the Shiraz. Again a wine of great balance and harmony.

Pleasingly we today extracted (with great difficulty for the 1996 wines) 15 corks and, albeit with some variance between bottles, we found no TCA. A good strike rate.