Season of Soup - Chicken noodle soup with Cave de Beblemheim ‘au chateau’ Alsace Pinot Gris 2007

With shadows growing longer and longer earlier in the day and noses become runnier and runnier, we retreat in to the kitchen for a bit of luvin in the form of soup. Soup has been for so long the one dish in winter that is not only remedial, but in so many forms can bring many smiles to the dinner table. Did I also say how easy they are to prepare.

Like all food, soup goes wonderfully well with wine. Be it vegetable, bisque, consommé or whatever, wine is suited to a gamete of soup styles.

This is going to be the first in a series of soup and wine matches, a ‘Susan’ series if you may – ‘...this goes with that at Susan’ you may remember.

So, without boring you anymore, I will kick off this series with Erin’s favourite – Chicken noodle soup!!
Prep time – 20 minutes
Cooking time – 40 minutes
Ingredients
· 2 tbs (or there abouts) olive oil
· 1 onion, finely chopped
· garlic
· 1 carrot, diced
· 1 stick of celery, sliced thin
· 2 potatoes peeled and diced
· 1.5 litres of chicken stock
· 300 grams chicken breast, minced
· 1 egg
· Parmesan cheese, grated
· 50 grams ≈ dried spag, broken up in to little bits
· Handful of flat leaf parsley
· Toasted croutons

Method
Heat the oil over a medium heat without burning or boiling oil. On same heat slowly cook onion and garlic until they are translucent for about 10 min. Add rest of veg and cook for 5 min.

While this is happening, ball the minced chicken, egg and parmesan cheese and sit in fridge for about 30 minutes to congeal the balls. The balls should be just smaller than a golf ball.

Add stock and bring to the boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15 min. Add chicken balls and pasta and cook for a further 8 min.

Add croutons and parsley and get stuck in!

Wine
Cave de Beblemheim ‘au chateau’ Alsace Pinot Gris 2007

This is a great little find from King & Godfrey in Carlton.

The colour is real Pinot Gris, coming through in pinkish greyish tones with a clear pink hue. On the nose comes white petal straight away with just a little bit of prickly acid. The mouth is once again all Alsace Pinot Gris; slippery glycerol, a bit of bees wax and clean long acid.

In Australia we seem to bastardise this grape and create wines that are either too thin or too big. Sometimes we should leave it to the experts, the French that is. Saying this however, I do believe T’Gallant from the Mornington Peninsula and Grey Sands from Tasmania are probably our best interpretations of this style of wine.

The reason for this match – the wines acid is ample enough to cut through the oiliness of the soup, not that the soup is acid, but the oily feel from the chicken, onion and garlic that is left after reducing all for so long.

So, I would drink the Cave de Beblemheim ‘au chateau’ Alsace Pinot Gris 2007 till 2016 and give it a 16/20.

Stay tuned for more soup adventures!!

Toodaloo