L36 Simon Poole - A Taste of the Eastern Mediterranean
Wine report by Stephen O'Halloran
Today’s lunch was a creation by Simon Poole, a first-time chef at the WFS. Congratulations, & please do it again sometime soon! Simon’s dish was a Middle Eastern chicken offering with pearl couscous & a delightful Turkish tomato salad, which was excellent. Canapés were very tasty as well. See food report.
We started off with a Tyrrell’s HVD Sem 2023 @ 11.6%. Perfection for the canapés. I thought this was a very well-made wine, with only three years of bottle age, just a baby, but drinking so well.
Boisterous fruit, powerful Sem flavours but balanced by plenty of acid, an excellent finish, crisp & clean. A top young Sem. Tyrrell’s have very definitely made their Sems over the last few years in a different style to years before, much more approachable when young.
First of the lunch wines was the Giant Steps 2021 Yarra Valley Chardy @ 13% from the Sexton Vineyard. This winery has produced some great wines over the last few years under the guidance of Winemaker of the Year in 2025, Steve Flamsteed, & his talented team. This wine is a worthy example of their skills.
The first taste revealed a wine redolent with stone fruits, peaches & nectarines, with vibrant acidity producing a finish that lingered with high-class Chardy flavours. An ideal wine for a plate of chilled melon & prosciutto on a hot day at an outdoor restaurant. Bellissimo!
Wine 2 was the renowned Morgon Beaujolais Corcelette from Daniel Bouland 2023 @ 14%. What a great wine! We have had this wine on occasions in the past & it has never failed to impress. No flim-flam, light plaything as many Beaujolais are; this is a serious wine deserving to be savoured. A great match with the chicken main.
To me, the wine was exotic, rich & juicy, with earthy complexities, succulent & alluring. A delight to the last drop.
The Frankland Estate Isolation Ridge 2020 was wine 3 today. A big Syrah @ 14.5%, with lots of flavours of pepper, spice & black fruits. Well-balanced oak & tannin integrate to create a supple, full-flavoured wine, now approaching its maximum maturity period, which should continue for some years yet.
Putting aside for the moment my lack of enthusiasm for WA Shiraz, the wine was very drinkable, without rising to any great heights.
Final wine was the esteemed Lindeman’s 2008 St George Cab @ 14%. Without doubt, one of our favourites at the Society. Huge black/purple colour, near opaque, with powerful flavours of cassis & leather, and hints of cherry & cedar.
A muscular wine, well balanced by excellent tannin & oak handling. Still some acid at the finish to help it along to a satisfying back-palate sensation. Intense & lingering all the way through.
Very enjoyable now & hopefully for another few years, although I did detect a trace of a slow decline, hardly surprising for an 18-year-old wine.
My pick of the day, the Morgon.
Food report by Mark Bradford
A warmish spring day greeted our Tuesday arrival at the REX, as did the prospect of a lunch prepared by first-time chef Simon Poole. We were not disappointed. A fairly new member of the Society, Simon presented a comprehensive Eastern Mediterranean lunch, all on his own.
Three delightful offerings accompanied the Tyrrell’s HVD Semillon.
First came hummus on cucumber slices, topped with raisins and flaked almonds. The hummus was homemade at Sonia’s International Food and Sweets in Willoughby, and the raisins had been lightly fried in coconut oil to caramelise them slightly. A sprinkle of paprika finished the dish. Simon noted that Sonia’s is the best place on the North Shore for Middle Eastern ingredients.
Next was Baba Ganoush on lavosh crackers, topped with semi-roasted tomatoes. The Baba Ganoush, also from Sonia’s, was homemade. The tomatoes were roasted with a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, then scattered with thyme leaves.
The final canapé was pickled watermelon with feta. The watermelon had been marinated in white wine, honey and chilli, with a coriander leaf adding a touch of colour. A dusting of sumac completed the dish.
The canapés were light and tasty, and they flew off the plate. One member observed that, being bite-sized, they left nothing for the REX staff to tackle with a broom afterwards. Their vivid colours were also notable, enhancing the overall experience.
The main was a Persian-style chicken tray bake with pearl couscous. The chicken Marylands were marinated overnight in paprika, EVOO, honey, sherry vinegar, red onions, marinated capsicum and currants, then oven-baked. They were served on pearl (or Israeli) couscous cooked in chicken stock and the reserved marinade, and dressed at plating with a mix of pistachios, green olives, dill, mint, parsley and lemon juice.
A side dish was a Turkish tomato salad (Gavurdağı Salatası) of tomatoes, green pepper, white onion and Lebanese cucumber. It was dressed with EVOO, pomegranate molasses, sumac and salt, and topped with chopped parsley and walnuts.
Comments from the floor were very favourable, and once again, the colours of the ingredients were eye-catching.
The Cheese Master sourced two chèvres today.
From the Mornington Peninsula and relatively new to the market, Capony is a semi-hard goat’s milk cheese from Main Ridge Dairy. This micro-dairy handcrafts a range of farmhouse goat’s milk cheeses from a small herd of Saanen and Toggenburg goats. The goats graze on the gently sloping hills around the dairy and are milked twice a day, with the milk travelling only a short distance to be transformed into cheese.
Selected cultures are used, and before the bacteria can create too much acidity, the curds are washed with purified rainwater. This retains the milk’s natural sweetness, and the resulting caramel flavour complements the delicate goat’s milk and smooth texture of this porcelain-white cheese.
The Persillé de Chèvre is well known and liked at the Society. An unusual blue goat’s milk farmhouse cheese from France, it is made by Ferme de la Tremblaye, south-west of Paris, which produces a range of goat’s and cow’s milk cheeses. With a focus on environmental responsibility, the B Corp-certified farm has adopted an agroecology model of sustainable farming that works with nature.
The cheese is dense and creamy, with a distinct ash coating, and its deep blue veins make a striking contrast with the white paste. The flavour is mild and savoury.
Simon crafted an excellent accompaniment for the two cheeses: fresh pears and Medjool dates, halved, seasoned and marinated overnight in EVOO and sherry vinegar, with chopped preserved lemons, Aleppo pepper, thyme and rosemary.
Today’s bread was a sourdough from Le 76 Patisserie in Neutral Bay.
Congratulations, Simon! Much thought and effort went into today’s meal and, most importantly, it seemed that you enjoyed the work. The members certainly enjoyed the fruits of your labour.
