L35 – Rob Guthrie Cooks for the Society at Our Special ‘Septmember’ Wine Lunch

Presidents remarks

An excellent roll-up of 45+ combined with some top wines & delicious food made for a great afternoon. A tried & tested formula, always works. Many thanks to all involved, with a special thanks to Rob Gutherie, who stepped in at short notice. 

Wine report by Stephen O'Halloran

Our canapé wine was the Bichot Mâcon Chardonnay 2020 @ 13%. A very drinkable canapé wine, a village wine as the French would say, enjoyable without rising to any great height, as you would expect from an entry-level wine.

The lunch wines were all Cabernets, all six of them. Readers of my wine reports over the years will know that I am very averse to reviewing multiple bottles of the same grape variety. After two or three bottles I have run out of interesting or funny things to say, & I am crying out for a Riesling or Sémillon to review.

In any event, those at the lunch had the benefit of a printout prepared by Acting Wine Master Steve Liebeskind, providing individual assessments. Well done Steve.

That said, I really enjoyed the line-up of the six Cabernets, with the exception of the ’05 Houghton’s.

21 years was a stretch too far for this wine, although some in the room disagreed. Fine, they were welcome to drink mine.

The colour was OK, but the nose was dank, revealing a flat & exhausted wine on the palate. A poor end to a multi-award-winning wine back in the day, but now another sad victim of excess time in the cellar.

As to the rest, they were all, in my view, top-notch wines, very typical of quality Cabernet.

My pick of the bunch was the Bel Air from Graves, a Merlot, Cabernet, Cab Franc blend @ 13% from the year 2008, a reasonable vintage in that district.

A wine with that priceless Bordeaux aroma of cigar box & leather, deeply coloured with an elegant finish. The sort of wine one would be happy to just sniff all afternoon. The odd sip now & then. The sort of wine from which romances can develop!

The remaining wines were all Cabs from different areas & vintages. The Juniper Estate & the Leeuwin Art Series were Margaret River wines. Both high-quality, typical classy MR products, my preferred district for Australian Cabernet, very often Bordeaux-like.

My fav was the Juniper, with an exotic range of flavours, a lovely wine. Several in the room expressed a preference for the Leeuwin, a tough choice!

The remaining Australian wine was the Houghton’s 2008 Gladstone @ 14%, a beauty. Supple, exquisite & stylish.

The wine bears the name of the famous viticulturist Dr John Gladstone, who spent years in WA undertaking painstaking research in the ’50s & early ’60s to determine the best region for fine wine production. The answer was MR.

This was a lovely wine, a credit to his work.

First of the French wines was the Ch Serilhana 2016 vintage from St Estèphe @ 14%. A Cab Merlot blend. Deeply coloured, black/purple, nearly opaque, with powerful & rich black fruits & plum hints. A mouth-filling wine, in my view bigger than the average Bordeaux.

Enjoyable, but I personally preferred the Bel Air, a touch more elegant & complex.

My pick of the litter, the Bel Air.

Food report by James Hill

Canapés 

With assistance from Denis Redfern and Julian Parmegiani.

First up, Rob with some mini prawn cocktails in homemade taco shells and Marie Rose sauce, topped with chives.

Then followed Julian Parmegiani, dishing out lupin beans in brine. They were served in small cups with instructions on how to eat them. Lupins are high-protein yellow legume seeds traditionally eaten in the Mediterranean basin. First time served at our Society, in my recollection.

Denis Redfern assisted with meatballs and a piquant dipping sauce. The meatballs were moist, very tasty, with a little heat.

Main

Confit duck legs with pea purée, duck fat potatoes and a blood orange sauce.

Our Royal Exchange kitchen brigade prepared the duck confit today, with Rob adding the perfect sides: duck fat potatoes, pea purée and the blood orange sauce.

Perfectly executed, highlighting flavour and textures, with the blood orange sauce adding some good acid balance to the duck.

All aspects of today’s lunch greatly appreciated and commented on by members.

Bread: a multigrain sourdough from Organic Bread Bar, Paddington.

Cheese

Mark Bradford had selected an English cow’s milk cheddar for our enjoyment today: ‘Ford Farm Cave Aged Cheddar’.

These cloth-wrapped cheddars are made by Ford Farm at their Ashley Chase Estate in West Dorset before being transported to limestone caverns in the village of Wookey Hole for maturation. The constant cool temperature and high humidity of the cave provide an ideal environment for the cheeses to develop a modern cheddar flavour profile that is fruity with a hint of sweetness. A very good match for the wines on taste today.

Denis Redfern accompanied the cheese with a well-dressed salad of rocket, apple, pears and raisins.