Our President Steve O’Halloran helped out with his signature dish of white anchovies on goat’s cheese with a black olive. Always a good starter, this dish originated from Steve’s boating buddies.

Jonathan came good with two canapés: an asparagus on Philadelphia crostini – with crushed pistachios – and smoked salmon rosettes on cucumber slices with crème fraiche and topped with roe.

All good, tasty, light and well-matched with the Coal River Riesling on the table.

Ham baked two ways today: steaks and rotoli di prosciutto e porri (ricotta – leek parcels), with greens aplenty.  Jonathan served his ham with broccolini and spinach leaves.  This was accompanied by champagne-mustard cream sauce, using one bottle of dry sparkling wine, four shallots, 800 ml of chicken stock and twice as much cream, and a hint of Dijon mustard to allow the sparkling wine to shine. Tarragon and lemons were included as well.

The Cheese Master sourced a Gruyere Heidi, a hard mountain style cow’s milk cheese prepared by Frank and Elizabeth Marchand, originally from Switzerland, who established a dairy farm in northern Tasmania in the 1980s.  The cheese has a fine, smooth textured paste and a firm, elastic texture with excellent melting properties and is perfect for grilling, soufflés, and for fondue.

Wine Report

Today, on a crisp late‑June afternoon, we sat down to a delightful lunch of ham done two ways by our recently crowned COTY winner, Jonathan Casson. An excellent choice for a cold afternoon. The crowd of 32 certainly enjoyed this hearty meal, along with the canapés and the cheese to follow. See the Food Report for full details.

With regard to the wines, we started with a terrific Tasmanian Riesling from well‑respected winemakers Bubb & Pooley in the Coal River region near Hobart. The wine was their 2022 Riesling (12.5%). From old vines, this wine was a joy: complex, delicate fruit flavours including apple and grapefruit, crisp acidity, and a lovely light‑gold appearance. A first‑rate canape wine, drinking at the beginning of its prime period.

First of the lunch wines was the Tiger Tiger Chardonnay from Collector Wines near Canberra, although made from Tumbarumba fruit, as are many top‑quality Chardonnays these days. The wine was the 2021 vintage (14.5%). Now fully developed, it was a delight: intense fruit flavours, great acid balance, and a powerful finish with vibrant acidity. This wine won Best Chardonnay at the Canberra Wine Show in 2022. A lovely, complex wine we were fortunate to enjoy.

Wine 2 on the lunch list was the Willunga 2021 Trott Vineyard Grenache (14%) from Blewitt Springs in SA. We were very much in Silk Purse territory today, with this wine winning Best Grenache at the National Wine Show in 2023. This is Australian Grenache at its best: light in colour but packing powerful flavours of cherry and strawberry, plus some spicy plum. Mild tannin and fresh acidity. A great food wine. Grenache has certainly come a long way in the last 40 or 50 years, when it was regarded merely as a wine for the flagon trade rather than a serious table wine.

Wine 3 was the Wynns Coonawarra Black Label Shiraz 2012 (13.5%). I am aware that Phil Laffer was very impressed with this wine, which he regarded as the top of today’s reds. I beg to differ—a courageous decision, as Sir Humphrey Appleby would say. To my taste, this wine showed itself as a graceful, well‑aged Shiraz with fine tannin and good oak integration, with some spicy overtones, but the finish was disappointing, perhaps due to acid loss over the last 14 years. In any event, perhaps Phil had a better bottle at his table than ours, which can sometimes explain differing opinions about the same wine. Nice try, Steve.

Today’s final wine was the 2012 Yalumba Menzies Cabernet (14%). A wine from Coonawarra and from a very good year. Now fully developed, rich, intense, and lavish in its array of blackberry, mulberry, and earthy spice flavours. Concentrated power, yet at the same time an exquisite aftertaste. The structured acids, oak, and tannin were just right. A lovely wine.