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

Food

A nearly full house for Nigel Burton, Chef of the Year contender for 2023 and past joint COTY award winner, cooking a Marseilles Bouillabaisse.

Canapés

Greg Brunner and new member George Winyard assisted Nigel. Greg made mushroom pâte with garlic and thyme on a cheese biscuit with thyme and pepper. It had a good texture and flavour with a little heat.

Then pissaladière puff pastry, oily. I liked it. Onions, capsicum, olives and anchovies on puff pastry..loved it.

George’s canapé, West meets East, was a duck salad served in a crunchy wonton wrapper topped with sesame seeds and spring onions. The salad consisted of duck, hoisin sauce, lemon juice, sesame oil and cucumber. Big on flavour.

Main

Residents of Marseille are adamant that French fishermen eked basic sustenance from their unsightly leftover fish bits concocted this fish broth/soup/stew on the shores of the now sprawling metropolis. The name for this dish is derived from two actions bouillir (to boil) and abaisser (to reduce or simmer).

Nigel invited ast President John Banks to lunch today to give his verdict on Nigel’s efforts in the kitchen. John is renowned for his Bouillabaisse having produced it for fourteen years for our Melbourne cup lunch when our Society met at Lower Fort Street.

The stock was made up using the bones of traditionally Mediterranean fish Rascasse (known here as Scorpion) and Monkfish. To these fish, prawns, scallops and calamari were added to make up this traditional Bouillabaisse.

The Rouille was made using traditional ingredients of saffron, chilli, egg yolks and white vinegar, served on a slice of baguette.

Nigel’s signature “pommes frites” were a bonus!

It’s no easy feat to serve different types of seafood and have them come to the table with the integrity of the flesh preserved. Much research preparation and effort evident in today’s lunch. Thanks Nigel.

Pressure on the kitchen meant Nigel was unable to serve the broth at optimal temperature.

Many favourable comments on the dish today confirmed the verdict; yes Nigel, a success!

Cheese

Our Cheesemaster Mark Bradford, in theme, selected a goat's milk log ‘Buche de Montresor. It came to the table a little cool however the flavour profile was still very much evident.

Distinguished by the straw that runs through the centre, this cheese has been made for around a thousand years. The ashed rind makes a stunning contrast to the ivory-white centre.

Tasting Notes

Based on the traditional log shape of the region, the distinguishing characteristic of Buche de Montresor is the straw in the centre of the cheese. For 4 generations, this family run dairy has been making traditional goat’s milk cheeses on the borders of Touraine, Berry and Sologne, in the Centre region of France. Matured under a wrinkled geotrychum rind, each cheese is covered with salted, ground charcoal and cellared for 4 weeks.

When mature, the cheese looks quite rustic with flecks of blue mould on the rind. The ivory white paste is sweet, salty with a slightly acidic flavour and the fine texture changes as the cheese ages from soft to firm. The straw is placed in each cheese after the moulds are filled with curds, to provide strength by acting like a back bone to the delicate cheese.

Nigel served mixed-leaf salad dressed with tarragon, white wine, olives and garlic chives to go with the cheese.

Wine

Proceedings kicked off with a very enjoyable Soave from Monte Tondo 2021 12%. This wine from the Veneto region of Northern Italy was greeted by all with acclaim. I know because I was assisting with the wine pours, quizzing all and sundry what they thought, as I cannot recall us having this wine before. I did not detect one discordant note from the whole room, which is just about a first! we are a fussy lot. Anyhow this wine which is very popular in Italy is made from mainly the Garganego grape. Dry, but mouth filling, hard to describe the flavours, possibly a mixture of orange and honey with melon overtones. Nice clean finish. Overall a great success as a starter with food. More please. The 2023 is selling at Vintage Cellars for $18 PB. Gotta love that!

The next two wines were both Chardys, the Collector Tiger Tiger 2022 12.9%, from Tumbarumba fruit. We tried the 2021 of this wine a few months back, and it received a mixed response. This vintage however received an almost uniform negative assessment from the Room. The fruit content seemed reasonable, but there were a few things wrong.  No typical flavour and no real crispness due possibly to a lack of acid balance. I will leave this one to the winemakers in our group to sort out the problems. Overall a rather sad wine.

The second Chardy the Toolangi 2018, 13% did not fare much better. 4 years older than the  Collector, we were hoping that the extra bottle age might bring some joy after the disappointing first Chardy. Alas, we were bound for sorrow again. This wine seemed to replicate the faults of its predecessor. Looks like a joint failure on the Chardonnay front today! Most unusual.

Wine 3 eventually brought some joy to the room. The Yalumba Menzies Cigar from Coonawarra 2008 13.5%. Wonderful wine, just what was needed as Balm for our injured palates. This was a wine that Mr Menzies himself would have been proud of.  Deep cabernet flavours of blackcurrant and blackberry resulting in a lingering powerful wine, dark almost impenetrable colour, tannin and oak blending in with perfection right through the middle palate till the satisfying finish. You guessed it, I really enjoyed this wine. Drinking at its peak at 16 yo. Looks like it could easily go on for another 10 years, all the required structure is there.  

The final wine for the day brought us back to earth with a thud, in what has been an unusually poor day for our wines, with only 2 out of the 5 wines on display being up to our normal high standards. The 4^th wine was a French Syrah from the reliable Northern Rhone grower Yves Cuilleron, the Les Vignes d ‘a Cote, 2014. 13%. Just what went wrong here is anyone’s guess. I was stumped. The wine did not even taste like a Syrah, no spicy pepper, no vibrant fruit at all. The wine had a faint trace of unripe fruit, or maybe at 10 yo it was tired, losing or had lost acid, leading to a flabby finish. Another one for Autopsy by our resident winemaker there on the day, Phil Laffer.  Been a busy day Phil!   

Today was an example of what Len Evans said decades ago, “you pay your money and take your chances“.