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

Food

The last wine lunch for 2024 was a full house and saw James Tinslay in the kitchen with his arm in a sling.  He was ably assisted by Keith Steele and David Madson as well as “Team REX”.  The wine offering was Italian themed, as was the main.

Canapes

Keith prepared two canapes.  We started with Gilda, a classic basque pinxtos comprising of a cornichon, two guindilla peppers, an anchovy fillet and a pitted green olive on a stick.  Keith pointed out it supposedly represents Rita Hayworth’s legs in the movie of the same name (it has not gone unnoticed that the said heroine was once married to a man named James Hill). Just the right amount of heat, and a good match with the champagne.

Keith also provided Mushroom Ragout tartlets, a short cut pastry case filled with a mushroom ragout made with mixed chopped mushrooms, onion and celery cooked in a mixture of red wine, Marsala and veggie stock.

Not to be outdone, David made delicious hot smoked salmon rillettes to kick off the lunch. They were made from hot smoked Tassie salmon, a large piece of poached salmon fillet and dill, chives, capers, Dijon mustard, mayonnaise, lemon zest and juice.

The canapes were tasty and plentiful and worked well with the wines.

Main

James cooked lamb ragu today. Given the restricted use of his hand, he acknowledged the considerable help he received in chopping, particularly by Keith and James’ partner, and the boys in the kitchen.

We had some 10 kg of lamb shoulder of impressive quality, sourced by the REX kitchen.  The whole shoulders were cooked for 2.5 hours with a classic Italian soffritto of diced onions, carrots and celery.  During the cooking process, 1 kg of finely chopped speck, garlic, stock, 18 cans of tomatoes, tomato paste, thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, red wine and heavy cream found their way into the pan.  The pasta was fettucine, which was par cooked, iced and finished off later in the ragu sauce before serving. Wonderfully al dente and not as easy task to serve to some 50 people.  Instead of the “traditional” parmesan, James served over 1 kg of pecorino, finely machine grated a few days beforehand by Paesanella Food Emporium in Sydenham. The bread was a light rye from Cornucopia in Naremburn.

The ragu was a wonderful match for the Italian reds.

Cheese

Today’s cheese was Challerhocker, malty and sweet with a spicy finish, a truly modern cheese with a loyal new following. It was last served to the Society at the April mixed lunch.

The region of St Gallen is renowned for its Appenzeller production and in the late 90's, tightly controlled Swiss regulations limited creativity. When the regulations were relaxed, Master Cheesemaker Walter Räss, an Appenzeller maker, created a new cheese using rich, pure unpasteurised Jersey milk and a secret blend of wine, herbs and spices. He aged it for 8 long months, so he named it ‘Challerhocker’ meaning ‘sitting in a cellar.’   Washing the rind during maturation produces a robust, tacky rind and contributes to the nutty aroma of the dense, white paste.

James provided an assortment of nuts to accompany the cheese.

Wine

Our lunch today was an excellent lamb ragu by James Tinslay with some delicious pass-arounds with the pre-lunch wines. Those wines were the Bernard Bremont Champagne and a Nicola Bergaglio Gavi 2021 13%.  The bubbles were fine for me, but it was the Gavi that I could not wait to get my rookers around a glass. I have reviewed this wine before and really like it. Many thanks to Nick Reynolds for introducing this wine to our Society. I find the wine delicious, well balanced, great flavour with a fresh and crisp finish. A winner, the perfect wine for a pre-lunch drink. 

We then moved on to the red wines for our main. Our Wine Master had cobbled together 6 Italian reds from various growers and various years. Many thanks to Nick Reynolds for his efforts.  During the course of our lunch, I was beginning to feel that I was not the right person to be reviewing six Italian wines in a row. These wines are so different to our red wines that I find the gap in styles almost unbridgeable. After 50 years of drinking Australian red wines with their far bigger flavours, I now find many Italian wines, at least to my taste to be thin, tannic and acidic with little flavour. I know, I know, that these wines are "food” wines, but.... a dash of flavour would not go astray. These observations were evident to me in the first two wines the Luigi Pira Nebbiolo and the Massolino Barolo. For the above reasons, I found these wines disappointing. 

My flagging spirits were however revived by the excellent Chianti from Isole e Olena 2019 14.5%. A lovely wine, medium-bodied with lots of flavour, great with food or a standalone. My next favourite was the 2009 Marchese Antinori Brunello 14%. Lots of tannin and acid but blending in well to produce a balanced wine with a great mouthfeel and a clean satisfying finish. 

The final two wines, the Argiano Rosso Montalcino and the masked wine revealed to be a Girolamo Russo Rina Eta Rosso were enjoyable food wines but did little to excite. I found myself towards the end of the meal yearning for a glass of a Barossa Shiraz or a Margaret River Cabernet, just for a bit of flavour. Old habits die hard!

I fully accept that my taste buds may have been having an off day and that my palate needs to be taken off to a re-education camp, however, I always said I would report my honest opinion and there you have it! Fire at will!