Food review by Mark Bradford and wine review by Stephen O'Halloran

Food

Today’s Chef of the Day was Paul Thorne, assisted with canapés by James Tinslay and James Hill.  On a sunny and cool late spring day, numbers were aplenty for Paul’s meal and the accompanying northern Italian wines for the monthly Wine Lunch.

Canapés

James T started us off with Anchovy Palmiers.  These French biscuits have puff pastry sheets that are layered with Philadelphia cheese spread, anchovies, dried tomatoes, freshly grated parmesan and mozzarella cheese followed by an egg and butter wash prior to baking.  So well liked, these savoury treats literally flew off the plate.

Next up, James H presented some Acciughe Salate. These are Sicilian anchovies; once caught the head is lopped off and packed in tins sealed with salt and EVOO. They are best rinsed in wine to remove the salt crust.  Today, the fillets were prised off the spine, rolled and served on oven-baked toasts with Gary Linnane's popular tuna and anchovy butter.

Finally, Paul gave us homemade prawn and pork dumplings in a Duck Consommé; the broth being one of Paul’s specialties.  The dumplings were a little too large, or the cups a little too small, to extract the flavoursome dumplings, but great taste.

Comments on the canapés from the floor were highly complementary.

Main

Paul served us wagyu beef cheeks today with star anise on a bead of potato mash with Dutch carrots, glazed with brown sugar.  The cheeks were marinated for 24 hours with a mixture of onions, garlic, celery, carrots, bay leaves with lots of red wine and duck stock.  This was then cooked low and slow, at 160 C for one hour then for three hours at 140 C.

Paul had first told us he would cook duck, then pork neck and finally settled on beef cheeks.  Luckily so as they were a perfect match for all of the Italian reds.  Usually not being one to blow his own trumpet, Paul knew the main was seriously good, and this was reinforced by all comments from the floor.  It was considered to be outstanding.

Cheese

The Cheese Master provided a Milawa Cheese Company Goughs Bay Goat Brie.  The Gough family farm is an hour’s drive from Milawa, and they have supplied goat’s milk to Milawa for generations. Within hours of its arrival, the milk begins its transformation into cheese. A blend of cultures and non-animal rennet is added to the milk and the resulting curds are scooped by hand into moulds to remove excess whey.  The young wheels are salted in brine, then placed in the maturation room, where slowly they develop a white velvety rind and mushroom aroma. Over their two-week maturation, they are carefully turned by hand each day, before being wrapped and delivered.

The consensus was that this was not the members’ favourite cheese.  Comments included lack of flavour and texture.

On a brighter note, and as a winner of the inaugural Ross MacDonald Cheese Award for 2022, Paul served an excellent salad for the cheese of dried figs soaked in whisky for three days, pecan nuts glazed in maple syrup and Tunisian dates.

Wine

Should anyone be in doubt about the value of their membership fees for the WFS, today’s lunch would have blown away any lingering uncertainty. In a word sensational. Great food and outstanding Italian wines were the theme for the day. Paul Thorne did a terrific job with the beef cheeks. The pass arounds were also delicious, Richard Gibson kindly donated many of his prized Piemonte Reds and our Winemaster pulled it all together like a master conductor. A wonderful afternoon. The quality of the wines was such that I had no chance of poking fun at some hopeless joke of a wine. My day for some fun was however saved by the cheese, a Milawa goat cheese. Something went wrong here. Tasted like and had the texture of plasticine!  

The lunch began with a wine now becoming a Society favourite, the Minaia Gavi 2021 13%. I have reviewed this wine before. Made from the Cortese grape in Piemonte. A very appealing wine, mouth-filling without cloying, great balance of fruit/acid. Rewarding finish. From my travels around the room doing a few pours, there was almost universal agreement that this is perfect aperitif wine.

We then moved on to the first red, a Dolcetto 2017 from Paolo Scavino 14.5%. Again, I have reviewed this wine not too long ago. Always a welcome visitor to our room, very popular amongst our group. This wine, aka the sweet little one, really punches above its weight, as it is regarded as an entry-level Italian red.  Excellent structure, medium body with a distinct sweetish taste on the first sip. As the wine travels down the red lane, other flavours appear, soft round fruit flavours with some tannin. A clean finish.  Teamed well with the food.

The second red was the Barbera d’Alba from the same producer 2017, 14.5%.  Much darker in colour and more intense fruit concentration. Most enjoyable, excellent food wine.

Wine 3 was the Vietti Langhe Nebbiolo 2016 14%. Again, medium to light body with evident tannin, a feature on Nebbiolo. Sufficient acid balanced it all out to produce a fine dining wine.

Wine 4 the Vietti Barolo 2016 14.5%, was again a light-bodied wine, with strong tannin and acid. Having said that the wine still had great texture and balance. Needed food support.

Wine 5 was my favourite, the Gabutti Barolo 2016 15%. This was a truly excellent Nebbiolo in every sense, medium body, deep cherry and that “tar” exotic aroma and greater depth than the earlier wines. Powerful finish. A stand-alone wine to be enjoyed without food. Thank you, Richard.

The final wine for our Italian venture was sadly my least favourite, the Cavallotto Barolo 2018 14%. In terms of overall structure, very similar to all the preceeding wines, but had a poor finish. Not sure why, but these wines seem to need plenty of time in the cellar and I am inclined to think that a 6 yo Barolo is just too young for drinking today.

Many thanks to all those who made a fantastic day possible, well done.