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

Food

Today’s lunch was presented by Amoush from the REX. Amoush is known for his Nepalese expertise, but a twist in theme this time around. Agreed by all, the result was sensational.

Canapes

We started off with vegetable skewers. They contained paneer cheese, usually made by curdling milk with lemon juice or vinegar, and mushroom shitake. Then hibachi grilled whilst continuously brushed with cumin, coriander powder, mustard, linseed powder, chilli powder and S&P to taste. These offerings were best described as flavour bombs, they blew the members away with their quality of taste.

Amoush then served up a chicken spring roll. It contained chicken thigh marinated in tandoori paste, yogurt, lemon juice and S&P, roasted in the oven. The mix consisted of shredded tandoori chicken, mozzarella cheese, capers and chopped pickle gherkins, all inside spring roll pastry and deep fried.

The second canape was a wonderful counterfoil to the first, much heavier and clearly well-conceived by a top chef. The canapes were also matched well with the starter wines on offer.

Main

Our main meal was a fusion of West and east – a porchetta of pork belly and Asian spices. The pork was stuffed with chopped ginger, garlic paste, roasted tomato, onion, spring onion, Nepalese spices (salt, Szechwan pepper, fenugreek seeds, turmeric, cumin, coriander, asafoetida, and chilli flakes) and then rolled. The pork had a sauce of a curry base (including tomato, ginger and garlic) cooked with pork stock, reduced to a desired consistency, then strained to make a smooth jus.

Amoush served this with a separate chat potato side. The potatoes were roasted in vegetable oil, S&P, and when the desired colour and crispness was reached, mixed with ginger, garlic, toasted Sichuan pepper, cumin, coriander powder, chat masala, chopped coriander and spring onion.

Cheese

The Society Cheesemaster had a well-earned week off. Head Chef Rob Doll served a Manchego; in theme, as the la Mancha region of central Spain is known for pork dishes, often with Manchego stuffing. Accompanied by a wonderful salad.

To this scribe, one of our best meals on offer today.

Wine

I think today was one of those occasions when you just hunker down, draw the wagons together, light a fire and just hope for better days when spring arrives. With a very small turnout,( maybe 30?) and some very unexciting wines, it could have been a very dull affair, but into each life, a little rain must fall, to make us appreciate the better days. The day was however saved by the superb roast pork loin served by Amoush. Read more in the food review.

About the wines, we had a bit of a cellar clear out, nothing wrong with that, so we had an array of wines on which I will only comment on the ones I tasted. The first was a German Riesling we had a few weeks ago (12 June) a Gunderloch from the Rhinehessen 2021  11.5%, a fine Riesling with, great balance between fruit and acid. Dryish with a lovely crisp finish, perhaps one of the better Rieslings going around.  The second wine I happened upon was the Hugel 2019 Gewurtztraminer 14.5%. This wine on its own would be regarded as a little too cloying and sweet for the Australian palate, but a well made wine.  However drunk on the heels of the Riesling, the residual sugar was too much to be ignored for an aperitif wine.

Moving onto the lunch wines we started off with a Brian Croser Tapanappa Piccadilly Valley Chardonnay 2021 14%. In my experience over many years, Croser has always made a distinctive style of Chardy, tight, restrained and disciplined, some times It seemed to me that flavour was a secondary consideration. His Petaluma range of wines both Chardy and Cabernet were however much sought after. A corporate restructure was carried out in the early 2000s with Croser establishing the Tapanappa label in 2002 with fruit grown in the Piccadilly Valley of South Australia.  The wine today a 2021 Chardy was to me a letdown. I accept that being critical of a Croser wine is akin to heresy, being arguably our greatest winemaker in the last 30 years, but from my perspective, this wine had little to offer. Unyielding, mean and tight with little fruit flavours, no real joy. Some at my table said the wine improved when mixed with the flavours of the pork main, which were delicious, however for me, the wine never recovered from that frosty initial first meeting.

The second lunch wine was a Vinden Estate Basket Press Shiraz from the Hunter 2010, 13.5%. By no means objectionable, just a little tired. Probably hiding in our cellar for 6 or 7 years beyond its best drinking date, the wine had lost acid and had become flat and flabby. No real joy there, sad really to see a good wine left in the cellar too long. Our Winemaster is on the right track in conducting regular cellar clearouts to reduce the frequency of failures such as the poor old Vinden Estate did today.

The third wine was a terrific Fraser Gallop Parterre Chardonnay 2014 from the Margaret River region 12.5%. To my taste, this wine ran rings around the Tapanappa. Right from the first sip, the wine was warm and generous with mouth-filling flavours of mixed stone fruits. Great balance leads to a rewarding clean finish. A great partner for the pork main. A lovely wine.

The final wine for the day was the ever-reliable Wynns Black Label Coonawarra Cabernet 2009, 14%. Here’s to Sue Hodder and her team at Wynns for producing year after year a consistently high-quality Cabernet. I can always remember having my first glass of this wine, a 1965 vintage, drunk at the Burning Log Restaurant near Dural in the very early 70s. I can still recall the powerful berry fruit flavours which have remained with me ever since. 50 years + have gone by, but the initial impact remains clear in my mind. The Wynns Cabernet has become a Society favourite, with good reason. Great value always, I am sure I have never had a poor bottle of this wine. Today’s wine now 15 yo showed full maturity, wonderfully integrated oak and tannin with that unmistakable Wynns flavour of mature Cabernet, powerful and lingering. Drinking at its peak now, but with all the required structures to go on for at least another 5 years.