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

Food

There’s no better place to be on a Tuesday than enjoying lunch in our Society rooms especially when we have our dynamic duo of Nick Reynolds on canapés and Steve Sparkes, our Foodmaster, on main.

Canapés

Nick’s appetisers for lunch today were:
Tapenade-filled gougères with parmesan.
Sourdough crumpets with lime marmalade, sour cream and chorizo.
Tartlets with Mediterranean-flavoured white bean purée, nduja and chives.

Main

An exquisitely rich meal today of hearty oxtail stuffed with boudin blanc, creamed cabbage and a buttery mash.

Steve used fourteen kilos of oxtail to make the ‘sausage’ and a stock to make the gravy. The boudin blanc was made with chicken breast, white bread and foie gras. The recipe is by a British Michelin-starred chef Steve Crane of Sussex.

The meal certainly had that ‘wow’ effect.

High praise for all aspects of our lunch today reflecting the quality presentation and flavours. A lot of effort was involved with all the dishes today.

Thanks, team, first class!

Cheese

Our Cheesemaster Mark Bradford selected a cow’s milk cheddar from Devon England for lunch today.
Mature, clothbound Farmhouse Cheddar made the old–fashioned way is hard to find, and demand is greater than supply. This rare farmhouse Cheddar has been carefully graded from a young age and matured for 18-24 months. The result is a classic Cheddar bursting with evocative flavours, with a firm, open and moist texture, an aging earthy aroma, and a lingering tang.

Steve accompanied the cheese with a homemade fig, pomegranate jam, and a salad composée.

Wine

The highlight of today's lunch was a truly excellent dish of ox tail, done in a style that only our wonderful Foodmaster Steve Sparkes could create. Brilliant! See the food report and photos for more details of this sensational presentation. 

To accompany the main, we also enjoyed some very tasty pass arounds prepared by Nick Reynolds, which paired very well with the aperitif wine, a Soave from Monte Ronca from the Veneto region of northeast Italy. Vintage 2020 and 12.5%. This is a very popular wine in Italy, quite dry, clear and crisp with good acidity and a slight hint of apple and pear on the palate. Made mainly from the Garganega grape coupled with a dash of Trebbiano. Restrained, but very enjoyable with food.

We then moved on to the red wines for our main course. They were the John Duval Plexus 2014 and the Helen's Hill Shiraz 2021. The Plexus was a Barossa wine composed of a blend of Shiraz, Grenache and Mourvèdre, 14.5% a wonderful wine, my pick of the day. Readers of my notes on our wines will be aware of my great respect for Duval as a winemaker, one of our greatest. The wine was in my view a glorious cocktail of red wine flavours with the Grenache standing out. Medium weight, rich and voluptuous, hints of dark cherry with excellent balance between the oak and tannin. A firm finish. Now a ten-year-old, but with many years of fine drinking ahead. The second wine was the Helen's Hill Shiraz from the Yarra Valley, 14.8%. A very enjoyable wine, but I think drinking a few years too soon. This wine was to me a classic Shiraz, peppery, medium body, noticeable tannin present with residual spice on the palate. I would like to drink this wine again in say 5 years when it has rounded out a bit more. 

The wines with the cheese were a Chardonnay and a St Hugo Cabernet which in my view, was nearly as enjoyable as the Duval wine. The Chardy was a Larry Cherubino Folklore 13% from WA. The St Hugo was a 2001 Cabernet from Coonawarra 14%. The Chardy was a big wine, mouth-filling and rich. There was lots of citrus flavours grapefruit, and peach. The texture was creamy and soft, with a clean finish. I am aware that the pairing of cheese with a Chardy is regarded by some as a much better combination than cheese and red wine. I personally think that suggestion could be correct in so far as soft cheese, eg a brie with a Chardy would work. But I do not agree that the combination works with a hard cheese like we had today. The Devon cheddar was to me far too sharp for the white wine but went well with the St Hugo. The St Hugo was a multi-award winner, for good reason. A terrific wine with huge berry fruit nose, a big colour, dark and intense. Redolent aromas of blackcurrant and plumb with earthy spice are still present despite the wine now being 23 yo. There was great balance between oak, tannin and acid. Just pipped at the post by the Duval Plexus for the wine of the day.