Alvins bruised salad and Hidden Bird Martinborough Sauvignon Blanc 2009

Version I

I like Masterchef. I think it is great and actually. I love Masterchef. There you have it, an unashamed and spontaneous pledge of affection. And like most Australians this year, I have taken a few recipes from the Masterchef website and given them a go myself. But the one I reckon has had the most hits is the one that the judges loved; Alvin’s drunken chicken and bruised salad.

Version II - bowl licked clean 2 minutes later

In the past four weeks, not once, not twice but thrice, I have fixed together Alvin’s bruised salad – minus the drunken chicken, that stayed quite sober each time. A fair-dinkum ripper (that mind you is the 383,590th time that ‘Fair-dinkum’ has been uttered since this election started). No really, this salad is the dogs bollocks, the ridgy-didge, the full-lot and the narly dude all rolled into one – even my daughter Imogen thought it was ‘rad-man’ – on my mother’s life!

It really is that good!

Oh yeah, we had a bottle of Hidden Bird Martinborough Sauvignon Blanc 2009 to wash it down – quite nice actually (the word 'Martinborough' is hidden on the label; get it, Hidden Bird), not bitter and astringent like those other savvies from the south island. This has got a bit more minerality than cats pee if you know what I mean!

Drink with http://www.masterchef.com.au/drunken-chicken-with-bruised-salad.htm
Drink now
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Screwcap 13.5%v/v $21 from Kooyong Cellars, Glenferrie Road, Kooyong

Pommery Brut Apanage NV, Reims Champagne

Well now, seems I have been away from this blog for ages! Just so happens that we are gearing up for the first Australian release of Pommery Brut Apanage NV - Hooray!!

Since Pommery started up shop in Australia late last year, there have been a few people out there in restaurant land snubbing their noses at the Brut Royal simply because of its association with Fosters. You see Pommery had been wasting away in the depths of the Fosters portfolio for about 4 years, and in this time champagnes such as Jacquersson and Lamandier have really rocked the landscape for champagne not only in Melbourne but the rest of the champagne drinking cities in Australia. But things are about to change.

Enter stage right Brut Apanage. Now the Brut Apanage has the same assemblage as the Brut Royal - a third each of chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier, but the fruit for the Apanage comes from Pommery's best 20 cru's whereas the Brut Royals fruit comes from 40 cru's. The Brut Apanage also differs from the Brut Royal where it has 6 grams/litre of residual sugar where the Brut Royal has about 10. And all the fruit is from vineyards owned by Pommery (Pommery is the second largest holder of vines in Champagne with over 200 hectares under vine).

The main selling point though is that it tastes mucho fantastico! This champagne is a classic aperitif wine, its just that simple! Clean, linear, and just ripper; thats all I got, its that good.

So, if you are in Melbourne next week, you can start by heading to Grossi Florentino's Cellar Bar where they will be pouring the wine, or if you are lucky enough to have a booking at Ezard you can order a bottle there too. And another thing, you won't be able to buy this in retail - sorry!