Food review by James Hill and wine review by Stephen O'Halloran

Food

A big thanks to Steve Sparkes for coordinating this lunch with the team from Escoffier. Ian Mackenzie was Chef of The Day with Steve Sparkes, Steve Liebeskind and yours truly on canapés. Escoffier and Society members David Gregory and John Banks generously donated Truffles and Caviar.

Canapés

First up, home made potato blinis topped with crème fraîche and caviar.

Then followed seared roast beef topped with enoki mushrooms and truffle sitting on pea purée and toasted bread. The truffle pea purée was made a day before for a flavour boost.

Last up salmon tartare made with pickled shallots chives, mustard and lemon sitting in pastry cups.

Main

Our main today was duck breast with parsnip purée, mushroom croquette and carrot.

The duck was brined then cooked sous vide 57degrees for one hour last Thursday then seared skin side down today.

The leftover duck was used to make a duck croquette and sat in a mushroom puree that had a sweetness to it identified as ketchup. Rolled oats and almonds sat in the duck with a rich unctuous truffle jus.

Then carrot cooked sous vide and finished in duck fat.

The skills of our chefs shone today and showcased flavour, texture presentation and innovation.

Canapés and main were highly commended by members in comments on the lunch today.

Cheese

Il Forteto Pecorino Toscano Stagionato an Italian sheep’s cheese.

Spread across 650 acres of rolling hills the farm was established by a group of friends in the early 1980’s with the help of grants from the Italian Government. The group runs the farm on bio and organic principles, and apart from growing most of their own food and wine, it has also become very successful in the production of cheese and beef. They now produce more than 1000 tons of ewe’s milk cheese and 350 tons of stretched cow’s milk cheese, and the brand represents more than 20% of all Tuscan D.O.P Pecorino.

This was served with truffle-infused yellow box honey, caramelised mixed nuts and well-dressed mixed leaf salad.

Wine

We were treated today to a truly first-rate lunch, both in food and wine. I will as usual restrict my comments to the wines, but I must say the entrees and the main were superb.

We got the party started with a pleasant NV Champagne Jacquart Mosaique. Enjoyable, easy-drinking bubbles, that went well with the pass-arounds. A good first up choice, but not the sort of wine you would crawl over broken glass to get some more.

Using that analogy, the next wine was in my view, a wine to crawl over broken glass for, the Tyrrells Stevens Vat 4 Sem from 2007. 12%. In my opinion the wine of the day! Bruce Tyrrell always maintains that the purchase of Neil Stevens vineyard became the jewel in the Tyrrells Crown. Excellent fruit, great acid still, although now a 16yo, gleaming straw/green colour, no hint of age. A grassy/honey aftertaste. In a word superb. A big thank you to wine masters of days gone by for securing this treasure.

For the main course, we enjoyed some terrific reds, a Burgundy and a Barolo. Both most enjoyable. We started off with the Lignier 2015 Morey St Denis. 15 was an outstanding year in Burgundy, and in my view, the wine did not disappoint. I really liked it. Classy PN flavours, good residual follow thru. Nice balance, velvety finish inviting more, great food wine. I could have happily settled into a second bottle! Oh for those days of yore, a lovers wine amongst a game of footsies in your favourite French Bistro. 13%.

Next wine was the Massolino Barolo 2012%14 . Barolo has often been described as the “wine of Kings, the King of wines“. All I can say is that those ancient kings must have limited exposure to other great wines. That said, Barolo is generally an excellent wine. I have had many Barolos over the years, and some of the highly-priced ones are indeed terrific, but to my taste, I would much prefer an equally priced Bordeaux.

Barolo needs time, with those assertive tannins and high acid. Today’s wine had all those traits, along with that slightly tarry, cherry finish common to Barolo. All in all, at the risk of severe censure by the Barolo cheer squad, my view is that Barolo has become an example of the Emperor's New Clothes. Everyone gets weak-kneed at the sound of the name and heads drop, bowed in homage of anticipated unrestrained joy, but in my view, the wine never matches the hype!  Fire at will and may God have mercy on my soul!

The next two wines were an odd match, an Italian white, Vernaccia di San Gimignano 2021 @ 13% and a Chianti Classico from Isole Olena 2019 @ 14.5%, Both were enjoyable wines that went well with the cheese served, a hard cows milk from Tuscany.

The white was a mouth-filling Italian white but finished with a clean fresh flavour. Good fruit/acid balance, not sure if it would have been better served as an aperitif wine, not having tasted it before, am flying blind.

The final wine of the day the Isole Olena Chianti @ 14.5% from 2019, was in my view a bit on the young side, with excellent potential, but a few years off full maturity. An appealing presentation of fruit and some tannin, potentially a delightful food wine in 4/5 years.

Many thanks to all involved with this high quality lunch today.