A Hundred Years of Wine

A Hundred Years of Wine

One of the old corks from our last century winesPicture this: you’re in a dark, musty, dirt-floored wine cellar, surrounded by bottles of all shapes and sizes, covered in dust and cobwebs. You light the candle in your rat de cave and scrape away the dust to begin examining the labels. Your heart beats faster and faster as you discover Château Pétrus 1896; Laffitte Rothschild 1932; Dom Pérignon 1767…

Scrrrrrrrrrratch! Think again! This is real life and welcome back to the real world 🙂

However, my husband recently did dig out some old sweet white wines from the back of the wine cupboard and we decided we ought to drink them before they got too old. By too old I really mean before they go off; our wine budget does not stretch far enough for wines that will keep for centuries! We’re talking ten, maybe twenty years here, which isn’t that bad by a long shot. But as John kept finding more bottles of older and older wines – several going back to the last century – we realised we would need some help to drink them. (Life’s rough, isn’t it?) We’d just have to have some friends to the house to enjoy them with us over dinner. As I said John mostly found old bottles of sweet white wines so to balance out the offering we asked our friends to bring along a different bottle of wine from the 20th century, and thus the dinner became The Last Century Wines Dinner.

Our request resulted in a stellar wine list, for which we then put on our thinking caps, got out our books and did some internet searching and came up with these pairings:

  LAST CENTURY WINE DINNER – MENU Saturday, June 4th 2011 
Apéritif Champagne 1998 Premier Cru Ployez-Jaquemart L. d’Harbonville Canapés: –          Peppery parmesan sablés
  A rather lovely medium bodied, slightly oaked Champagne from a small producer   –          Duck Food à l’orange
     
Starters Anjou 1959 Moulin Touchais  An incredibly old sweet Loire Valley wine –          Chicken liver parfait on curried macarons
    –          Hung Shao pork belly, beet greens 
     
Fish Muscadet Sèvre & Maine sur lie 1999 Pierre Luneau-Papin Le L. d’Or Haddock in a Thai syle broth, coconut, coriander
  A still amazingly fresh but aged Muscadet to cleanse our palates and enhance the fish course    
     
Beetroot & Orange Gazpacho Shot
     
Main Constantia 2000 Groot Constantia Gouverneurs Reserve  A Bordeaux blend from South Africa that should be nicely aged by now Venison and Visciole a mollo Cherries, parsnip purée, broad beans, parsnip crisps  


     
Cheese Pomerol 1998 Chateau Certan Guiraud A really good Pomerol Chateau now renamed Chateau Hosanna after 1999. A blend of Merlot and Cabernet Franc Aged Gouda, Old Amsterdam, Saint Nectaire; homemade bread and biscuits
     
Trou Champenois: Champagne sorbet to cleanse the palate 
     
Dessert Sauternes 1995 Chateau Lamaringue A deep golden Semillon-Sauvignon Blanc blend from a small producer Orange & White Chocolate Fantasia
     
To Finish Coffee and Petits Fours: –          Strawberry shortbread –          Black & White Chocolate Truffles
Duck Food a l'orange
Duck Food a l’orange
Chicken Liver Parfait on Curried Macarons
Chicken Liver Parfait on Curried Macarons
Hung Shao pork belly, beet greens
Hung Shao pork belly, beet greens
Haddock in a Thai syle broth, coconut, coriander
Haddock in a Thai syle broth, coconut, coriander
Beetroot & Orange Gazpacho Shot
Beetroot & Orange Gazpacho Shot
Visciole a mollo cherries from Supercherry
Visciole a mollo cherries from Supercherry

John and I did all the cooking with the help of course of my trusty Thermomix, which I used for around 20 different processes, including:

  1. Grating Parmesan for the sablés (shortbread)
  2. Making the savoury pepper and parmesan shortbread
  3. Gently shredding slow-cooked duck meat (on reverse blade direction; this works incredibly well and is so much easier than doing it with two forks or with your hands!)
  4. Making orange jelly by heating orange juice and dissolving gelatine into it
  5. Chopping shallots
  6. Chopping garlic
  7. Reducing red wine and port with thyme and shallots
  8. Cooking chicken livers
  9. Melting butter
  10. Blending the chicken liver pâté
  11. Grinding curry spices
  12. Grinding almonds
  13. Beating egg whites
  14. Blending the gazpacho
  15. Chopping lemon grass, herbs and spices
  16. Chopping, cooking and puréeing parsnips
  17. Reducing stock, cherry syrup and red wine for sauce
  18. Making bread
  19. Making sorbet
  20. Whipping cream
  21. Melting white chocolate
  22. Making shortbread
  23. Making chocolate ganache
  24. Grating white chocolate

I should mention that some of the cooking had been done a couple of days earlier by Chef James Knight Pacheco of The Restaurant and Out of the Frying Pan fame during a cookoff at UK Thermomix headquarters. James is responsible for the starter of “Duck Food à l’orange” which he originally created for the UK Thermomix Demonstrators’ Conference in May. That meal and our starter are surely a portend of good things to come at James’ new venture, Assemblage Restaurant, opening in November 2011 in the Shoreditch section of East London.

Venison and Visciole a mollo Cherries, parsnip purée, broad beans, parsnip crisps
Venison and Visciole a mollo Cherries, parsnip purée, broad beans, parsnip crisps
Venison and Visciole a mollo Cherries, parsnip purée, broad beans, parsnip crisps
Venison and Visciole a mollo Cherries, parsnip purée, broad beans, parsnip crisps
Aged Gouda, Old Amsterdam, Saint Nectaire; homemade bread and biscuits
Aged Gouda, Old Amsterdam, Saint Nectaire; homemade bread and biscuits
Orange & White Chocolate Fantasia
Orange & White Chocolate Fantasia
Strawberry shortbread, Black & White Chocolate Truffles
Strawberry shortbread, Black & White Chocolate Truffles

The highlight of our meal was the slow-cooked filet mignon of venison with its superb Visciole a mollo cherry sauce. Absolutely smashing! Visciole a mollo cherries are small, tart cherries from the Le Marche region of Italy, and I had a jar of them in syrup. [Note to Supercherry UK: get the boys in Italy to remove the stones!] To make my sauce I reduced some chicken stock in the Thermomix on Varoma setting, added shallot, garlic and the Visciole a mollo cherries with their syrup. A good dash of red wine later and a knob of butter and voilà ! A fantastic taste to enhance the venison.

Bon appétit !

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