All members in attendance except for Alex Davies. Special Guest - Benjamin Icky.
The day started with a bang, with the Hendry's car getting kissed by a spinning car that had just been T boned. Fortunately no one was hurt. The theme was to be unorthodox, with points for matching food. On matching food and wine, i had a theory that younger more textured / tannic wines would go better with food, that proved to be false with older wines still providing greater pleasure. Matching an appropriately weighted wine with the food was of importance.
Entree
Bruschetta
Steve H - Giusto Di Notri Rosso Toscana 02. Dark fruits, tar, tongue puckering dusty velverty tannis almost nebbioloish. A powerful wine. Perhaps a little too big as an opening wine with bruschetta.
Dave H - Chateau Carbonnioux Grand Cru 06. Savoury red fruits, a lighter styled wine, hint of Ribena, minimal tannins and oak. The better food wine.
Tasting Plate
Skewered olive, marinated fetta and gravlax. Pan fried snapper with dill butter. Coconut prawns with lemon/lime.
Mark B - Penfolds Yattarna 02. A nose of stone fruits and oak, sauterne fruit flavours, solid intensity of flavours with a slightly sweet finish.
Steve B - Pieriopan La Rocca 07. Delicate and floral on the nose, minerals oak and butter flavours with a mid palate with some unusual tropical fruits. (Brought to the previous Weapon club but not picked by anyone)
Both wines shared similarities and went well with the seafood.
1st Course
Mini Arancini stuffed with stilton on poached pear salsa.
Paul B - Brown Brothers Moscato. Fizz, Sherbert, Fruit tingles, 7up sweetness. The look on Paul's face as he revealed... priceless "I grabbed the wrong brown paper bag from the fridge".
Steve B - MR Mountain Wine 07. Lychees, floral perfumes, musky and sweet finish.
2nd Course
Beef Bourguignon with crusty bread and salted butter.
Mark B - Vasse Felix Black Knight N/V. Inviting nose, Shirazy, oaky. The oak provided a nice contrast with the dish.
Jan - Morris Sparkling Durif. Red Currants, strawberry, missing a mid palate, lighter than the Black Knight.
3rd Course
Rack of Lamb with Garlic Mash
Tim - Viette Barbera D'alba Scaronne 05. Herby, tar, black fruits. Refined but firm tannins, black rose petals... not overly oaky, but too young.
Ben - Kanook Estate 05 Cab Sav. Black berry, plums, hint of mint, solid oak. Softer tannins suited lamb and mash better.
Surprise Course
Happs White fuscia... no comments
Paul B - Pierro SSB. Straw, citrus, dry and picked as a Riesling.
4th Course
Beef sliders wrapped in prosciutto , strawberries and a dollop of weapon sauce with hand cut fries and rosemary salt.
Steve H - A Napa Valley Shiraz 05, a little blown away by Cameron's wine.
Cameron - Yalumba Octavius 01. The nose on this wine got me really excited, it was the perfect balance of just enough age, oak, and fruit. Stewed fruits, hints of oil that added to complexity, soft tannins and oak. The beef sliders had moved over and the wine was centre stage.
For the record, i thought we had 2 cab savs.
Dessert
Roquefort with honeycomb, muscatels and crusty bread.
A difficult task to bring a dessert wine that isnt a dessert wine.
Dave - Joseph Moda (1997 i think)
Tim - Te Whare Ra "Toru" Gewurztraimer, Riesling, Pinot Gris.
I feel Dave's thoughts were to go with a big wine. I wanted to bring a floral & fun wine to end the day. Both wines didn't match the food and it was the first course that had a red up against a white. The red/white constrast detracted from both wines, confused tastebuds and probably made the food matching worse than it actually was. Thankfully Jan brought a Tokaji Aszu (5 puttonyos) to sweeten things up a bit.
My thoughts on the day were:
- An excellent line up of wines.
- The focus on matching food with wine brought an element of diversity to the wine selection and indirectly put wine back in the spotlight (but a refreshingly different spotlight).
- Stand out wine was Cameron's Yalumba Octavius. I will look at big wineries differently after that experience.
