Renato Ratti Piedmont Dolcetto D'Alba Colombe DOCG 2010

Ernest Hemingway wrote the classic WWI novel, 'A Farewell to Arms' where he chronicled his time as an ambulance driver in the Italian army. It is one of my favourite books. Early in the book Hemingway, in great, detail describes and then mocks the many beautiful army uniforms that the Italians were famous for, but not their fighting. If only Hemingway got a load of the is.

The Renato Ratti Piedmont Dolcetto D'Alba Colombe DOCG 2010, with the splendid army uniform circa the Napoleonic War, is all finesse and style but still has the mongrel and grunt to hold it s own on any front. Dusty garnet in the glass, the nose throws up earth and spice, tart dark fruit with as hint of bitter chocolate. The palate is pretty much more of the nose with tart dark fruit - think prickly plums, spice and earth all kept in tune with seamless acid and tannin balance. I love it!!!

Drink with bloody lamb
Drink till 2018
97
Quality cork 13%v/v $35 Seddon Wine Store

Vinea Marson Heathcote Syrah 2008

As was in August 2011, only William Shakespeare can give it true justice:

My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth and disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my Love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, 
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did expect.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;
    For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
    Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

Sonnets 147

Brooding. Dark. Blackberries. Black Olive tapanade. Soy Sauce. Balsamic. Lust. Love. Envy. Need. Want.

The Vinea Marson Heathcote Syrah 2008  

Drink!!!
Drink till you have licked all residual flecks from the glass
100/100
Diam cork 14.5%v/v

Cavallotto Piedmont Dolcetto d'Alba 2011

“If it is true that there is no greater sorrow than to remember a
happy time in a state of misery, it is just as true that calling up a
moment of anguish in a tranquil mood, seated quietly at one's desk, is
a source of profound satisfaction.” Primo Levi, The Periodic Table

All things beautiful do not always come from a happy place.


The Cavallotto Piedmont Dolcetto d'Alba 2011, like Primo Levi from near Turin, is a seductive work of tart red cherries and chalky fine tannins that flows in layers and just keeps giving. A beautiful work of art. Yes art. A stunning wine indeed.

Drink with osso bucco
Drink till 2024
98
Quality cork 13.5%v/v $33 Gertrude Street Enoteca, Fitzroy

Moondarra Gippsland Studebaker Pinot Noir 2012

For the cool people:

"We were lounging in a Camden flashback in the commons, splitting a Molson, our sunglasses on,our eyes glazed over, a peeled orange sitting untouched between us on a table, and we'd already read our horoscopes and I was wearing a T-shirt that read IF YOU'RE NOT WASTED THE DAY IS and waiting for my laundry to dry and she was alternating between playing with a pencil and smelling a Thai orchid a secret admirer ha sent her and heavy metal pop - Whitesnake or Glass Tiger - was playing from somewhere where we couldn't figure out and it was driving us nuts and her dealer wasn't coming up until next Tuesday so we were fairly unresponsive toward certain events and in the sky things were getting dark." Bret Easton Ellis Glamorama

Moondarra Gippsland Studebaker Pinot Noir 2012. Its cool. Its now. Its dirty. Its got spunk. Its now. Its what Bret Easton Ellis would make his characters drink if they weren't strong out on xanex. Cool and dirty.

Drink
Drink till theres no more
95
Screwcap 13.5%v/v $32 Seddon Wine Store

Abbazia Di Novacella Alto Adige Sylvaner DOC 2010

Thinking about this last night reading Christopher Hitchins 'Arguably', I went to school with three Sylvaner's. There, that's today's segue for the wine; short and succinct. Kinda how Christopher would have liked it.

The Abbazia Di Novacella Alto Adige Sylvaner 2010 for more than 4 weeks now has been staring at me while working at Seddon Wine Store, all the while sending telepathic messages to for me to grab my wine knife, remove the foil and pry the cork out - think 'The Shining'. I did this on Thursday night, minus the Jack Nicholson "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy", and was like, "Wow. This Good". Again, think Korg in '20,000 Years BC'. So many quotes today.

Anyway, the wine. Golden yellow in the glass with a slight greenish hue. The nose was full of ripe rock melon with the slightest lick of dried green herbs. The palate was just super, with a fine mix of more full rock melon, gentle grapefruit acid and then all of the sudden there was this sudden STOP of flavour. What was next was a great wave of dried green herbs and an almost phenolic impact that pretty much cleaned up all the residual flavour from the primary palate. Just great. End Quote.

Drink with crab mornay
Drink till 2015
94
Quality cork 13%v/v $34 Seddon Wine Store

Hoddles Creek Estate Yarra Valley Chardonnay 2011

You see, a funny thing happened on the way to the winery. The Chardonnay grape, a grape that can be done this way or that, decided to stand up for itself and spoke to the winemaker who just happened to be driving the tractor. This is the conversation that took place, word for word; I swear!!!

Chardonnay Grape (CG) - hey winemaker person
Winemaker (WM) - yeah little chardonnay berry
CG - that building we are heading to, the winery. Now I'm not trying to tell you what to do when we get there, but I'm just giving you the skinny of what may happen
WM - the skinny hey. This should be good.
CG - sigh!!! Yes the skinny. Now when we get there I reckon you have two paths that you can take. First path is the old school path. This is where you allow me to suck up as much new and used oak as you can give me and then allow me to go through not one, but two ferments; oh the butterscotch. Secondly, the new school method where you can pick me green and just bath me in the steel tank just so as I can get all my sugar, which is not much, in to CH3CH2OH. Lovely!
WM - so then, you know the skinny.
CG - but, as the Bard would say, 'here in lies the rub!'
WM - since when do you read Shakespeare?
GC -you'd be surprised what gets passed along in the canopy. Anyway, whats it gunna be?
WM - well, seems you have been doing your homework, but I'm one step ahead of you.
GC - go on ......

This did go on for a while so I will not bore you with, as the Chardonnay grape calls it, the skinny. In the end the wine maker was all over the two methods - old and new school - and he managed to combine the two methods to bring us a chardonnay that is dripping in uber cool licks. The Hoddles Creek Estate Yarra Valley Chardonnay 2011 is a wine that was made in a difficult vintage, but Franco D'Anna put together a cracking wine that has surely got to be one of the bargains of the year.

So the wine. All chardonnay on the nose with citrus and a touch of stone fruit and toasty oak. In the mouth there was plenty of natural acidity coming through, but there was also a great mix of more stone fruit and a touch of leesy creaminess without being bathed in butterscotch drops. Like I said, easy one of the bargains of the year.

Drink with grilled whiting
Drink till 2014
95
Screwcap 13.2%v/v $18 Prince Wine Store, Essendon

Spring blooming

"Who are the violets now
That strewn the green lap of the new come spring?"
William Shakespeare - Richard II

Tour reading #2

Oh Cadel, did you go too soon? My lament is that you did, and with that I turned to some Tour reading; #2 - Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte or Ellis Bell, the pseudonym it was published under in 1847.

This passage by the guest Mr. Lockwood directed at the servent Joseph:

'"Sir," I exclaimed, 'sitting here within these four walls, at one stretch, I have endured and forgiven the four hundred and ninety heads of your discourse. Seventy times seven times have you preposterously forced me to resume my seat. The four hundred and ninety first is too much. Fellow martyrs, have at him! Drag him down and crush him to atoms, that the place which knows him may know him no more!'

Tour reading #1

I do love The Tour de France, and I try and watch as much as possible. The thing is I get a little bored when there is not too much happening. So I read. An exert, and maybe a prediction of things to come, from something that has been on my bed side table:

'He (maybe Wiggins, but Godfrey for the purists) can have few illusions. he had been offered a glorious title, so glorious that he had not even dared to accept it, and yet the very men who had elected him were already disputing the rights bestowed on him ....'     Zoé Oldenbourg; The Crusades

NB: the flash race car is the closest thing Henry has to a bike
                

A summers day in Brunswick

“Shall I compare thee to a summers day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds to shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”
“But the eternal summer shall not fade.”

William Shakespeare, Sonnets - 18, 19

S.C. Pannell Adelaide Hills Nebbiolo 2007

"what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

I'm bleary eyed this morning. It's not because I tied one on last night - that would be Friday nite. I'm bleary eyed this morning because I had a really restless nite sleeping. You see I had this dream where I was the 'Great Gatsby', Robert Redford version, and I was there in the Long Island mansion swanning around with a bevvy of beauties and a herd of hangers-on. My attention really got going in this dream when all of the sudden one of the said beauties was dancing ona table holding a bottle of S.C. Pannell Adelaide Hills Nebbiolo 2007; thats the funky shit!

So today as I sit at the kitchen counter, I am reading in peace yesterdays and todays The Age newspaper, and I read not one but two articles with reference to 'The Great Gatsby'. Am I still dreaming or am I actually writing this?

So, onto the wine then. It wasn't that long ago that I pulled one of these out of my cellar. A dark and dirty reddish purple in the glass with lovely and dependable aroma's of rose petals, cherries and a leather the longer it sits in the decanter. Lip smacking tannins give way to big and full fruit, but not ripe fruit; tart and crisp instead. It's a great example of a very good Nebbiolo being made in Australia.

Drink till 2022
Drink with braised goat
92
Screwcap 14.0%v/v $50 Dan Murphy's Hawthorn East

Wine fact #3: Retsina

“You there! Drawn onwards through this stretch of Hell, tell me you know me. Say so, if so you can. You! Made as man before myself unmade.’
And I replied: ‘The awful pain you feel perhaps has cancelled from your memory. Till now, it seems, I’ve never ever seen you....
Dante Alighieri, canto 6 40-46, Inferno



You may think that this is about extreme, but I do not. It all really started back in 2002 and it was my first trip to Wagga for Res School at Charles Sturt University where I had just started Wine/Vit science. And one of the first units involved wine evaluation with Malcolm Allen. The usual stuff was looked at; pH, alcohol, clarity of wine, baumé and other fascinating wine tid-bits. Then he gave us some Retsina or Ρετσίν in Greek. Gosh it was awful. I’m not sure what the lesson was, but whatever it was the message was duly noted; Retsina is to be avoided. To this day I have not, and doubt if I ever will, had good Retsina. This is what Wikipedia has to say about it...
“Its unique flavor is said to have originated from the practice of sealing wine vessels…”
Unique flavour indeed. You’d think that they would have got it right after 2000 years wouldn’t you?

So then, Retsina is not a nice wine, and that’s a wine fact!

Wine Fact #2 - It's not broken glass!

Many years ago when I was working in an un-named three hat restaurant in Melbourne, I was confronted during service with what can only be described as one hysterical woman who single handedly brought service to a screeching halt! The problem you ask, and I quote, “Ohh my GGGGOOOODDD!! (God not good people) There are smashed shards of glass in my wine. Ohhhh GGGOOODDD, someone call an ambulance!!!”

A good 15 minutes later said woman had composed herself and had sheepishly decided not to sue ‘the pants’ off of said restaurant. What were initially thought to be shards of glass were merely soluble crystals of Potassium Bitartrate, or KOCO(CHOH)2COOH for all you science geeks out there. From here I’ll let Mr. Rankine take over from 'Making Good Wine',





“When the wine is cooled the solubility limit of potassium bitartrate is exceeded and some comes out of solution as a crystalline deposit. When this happens to white wine in the bottle the deposit is unsightly and may be mistaken by the uninitiated for broken glass .... Potassium bitartrate is present in the grapes, partially precipitates as argols during fermentation because of its low solubility in alcohol, and is present in the young wine as a saturated or even a super-saturated solution in excess of its normal solubility.”

The crystals are usually present on the under-side of corks and sometimes will settle at the bottom of the wine bottle.

So there you go. Doesn’t exactly say it’s not going to kill you, but when Rankine refers to it as “unsightly”, well “Sex in the City 2” was unsightly but that didn’t kill anyone – no-one we know of anyway. And that’s a wine fact.

Spinifex Bête Noir Barossa Shiraz 2008

There are times in everyone’s life when they have to admit they were wrong; Lady Di got it wrong with Charles, Richard Nixon got it wrong with Watergate, JVC got it wrong by betting on Beta and even the great Arthur Fonzarelli occasionally got it w-w-w-w-w-w-wrong. And I got it wrong with Barossa Shiraz! There you have it; I admit that not all Barossa Shiraz wine is merely a Christmas cake in a bottle. And the wine that did it for me, the Spinifex Bête Noir Barossa Shiraz 2008.

Midnight purple in the glass, this wine is very intriguing on the nose with lovely wafts of chocolate and pepper and a just a faint lick of licorice. The palate is jammed (sic) with raspberry and blackberry fruit; tart raspberry and ripe blackberry, spice and more juicy chocolate.

I just guess that today’s Barossa shiraz is not what it was five odd years ago. Just like I guess the same for chardonnay today compared to what it was 10 years ago – all buttery and oak! I look forward now to opening up to more delights from what used to be the ‘Heart of Darkness’,

“They were dying slowly – it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now – nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom.” Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

Drink with seared lamb and black pudding
Drink till 2016
94
Screwcap 14.5%v/v $42 at Blackhearts and Sparrows, North Fitzroy

Watershed Margaret River Shiraz Cabernet 2005

“Although Woundwort had shown himself at the last to be a creature virtually mad, nevertheless what he did proved not altogether futile. There can be little doubt that if he had not done it, more rabbits would have been killed that morning on Watership Down. So swiftly and silently had the dog come up the hill behind Dandelion and Blackberry that one of Campion’s sentries, half asleep under a tussock after the long night, was pulled down and killed in the instant that he turned to bolt” Watership Down, Richard Adams

For those of you who know me, I am a sport tragic. Every now and then you can hear “Tim from Brunswick” on talk-back radio SEN 1116 AM, be it a quiz or singing the praises of my favourite ever footballer, Stephen Michael, the great South Fremantle ruckmen who decided to stay home instead of pursuing a VFL career; I love you Stephen if you ever read this.

So, it was a month or so ago that SEN were discussing books that made the transition to the big screen (not exactly what you would call sport talk-back). It must be said, before I go on, that a good proportion of SEN listeners are your quintessential Aussie Bogans; very myopic in their beliefs about pretty much everything. So anyway, SEN were asking listeners to phone in with what they would consider good book/movie transitions; Star Wars (true), The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Godfather, The Club (David Williamson) and plenty more were announced. Me? I phoned in with Richard Adams ‘Watership Down’. You know the one; rabbits.

I was quite surprised with the ‘guffaws’ I was getting from not only other listeners but also from David Schwarz, one of the presenters. Fortunately the worldly Francis Leach was there to explain what the book/movie is about (I am not going to explain the pretext of the book now – I will be here for sometime).

It was time to announce the best call, and it was me!!!!! My prize? Not the round of golf at Devil Bend (which I had won on a previous call), not the Adidas pack, but two bottles of Watershed wines from Margaret River. Geez I thought, I won some wine on a sport talk-back radio station discussing a book about rabbits – funky shit that one!

So, the wine in question today is the aforementioned Watershed Margaret River Shiraz Cabernet Shades 2005. Off the bat I must say that I am not a big fan of the ‘Aussie Blend’ of Shiraz and Cabernet. To me the combination strips away the primary characters of each varietal. But hey, who am I to complain – the wine was free.

Well, to my surprise, this was actually quite good. Wonderfully dark in the glass, the nose threw up cassis, saddle leather, tobacco and a real waft of Margaret River green; think dried herbs. The palate was a bit restrained early but then produced some really good licorice and black fruit. A really good wine and a nice surprise.

So next time you tune in to SEN 1116AM, don’t be surprised if “Tim from Brunswick” is rambling on a bout South Fremantle and Stephen Michael , because he really is the best player I have ever seen, even if he did not play in Victoria.

Drink with a cheese burger and onion rings
Drink till 2011
90
Screwcap 13.5%v/v $19 or there about’s at The City Wine Shop, Spring Street Melbourne

Dr Bürklin-Wolf Wachenheimer Riesling 2007

“Behold! The beast who soars with needle tail
through mountains, shattering shields and city walls!
Behold! The beast that stinks out all the world.”

Canto 17, Commedia Cantica I: Inferno
Dante Alighieri

By golly it is hot! Right now most of south east Australia is sweltering in a very unseasonal heat-wave, and though I will concede that we have not quite got the conditions of Dante’s Inferno, it is only November and all we have to do is think back to what happened in February this year in Victoria.

There are a few measures we can take this summer for cool respite; the beach or pool, midnight showers, icy cold beer and mouth watering Riesling. So it is Riesling I have been turning to lately (there is always room in the fridge for beer as well!) and one of those has been the brilliant Dr Bürklin-Wolf Wachenheimer Riesling 2007 from Germany. This is a wine that I had on the pour at The Point Albert Park and was a wine that was greeted very well by the dining public while it was on.

Though it is probably not the current vintage, this wine has fantastic minerality and flintiness that make it perfect for lazy summer day salads and seafood. In the glass the wine has a very yellow gold colour to it, which is very deceptive to what is to follow on the palate. The nose throws up a very distinct stewed pear and lime aroma, with, as I just said, a very surprising palate following of crisp, clean acid holding together a bright linear feeling of flint and river stones. A massive contrast to the colour and nose but one that is rewarding none the less!

Super balance, gorgeous length with complexity I have not seen for a long time. Dare I say mucho fantastico!

Drink with sashimi
Drink till 2013
98
Quality cork 12%v/v $35 from King and Godfrey Cellars, Carlton

Summer BBQ Time! - Cookbooks Part 2: Ross Dobson's Chinatown: sweet sour spicy salty

Home from hospital – it’s a good feeling! The stay at North Park Private to try and get Henry to sleep has sort of worked, cos’ I have come home with some better strategies for him to sleep longer – fingers crossed!! Home from hospital also means no more hospital food. I can categorically say that I will not miss their cooking! Sitting down and filling out my meal orders was probably one of the hardest things I did in the last week. All I could think about was my BBQ - pork, beef, crabs and prawns sizzling away while I sip a frosty beer.

It is going to be a bit tough to get organised for a feast tonight with not much in the fridge or pantry, so it will have to wait until tomorrow night for our gourmet spectacular. So to continue my series on summer cookbooks, tomorrow I will be using Ross Dobson’s Chinatown: sweet sour spicy salty.

A couple of weeks ago I had a massive hankering for some home cooked Chinese food. My cookbook range on the subject was very thin, so instead of spending mucho $$ on some new glossy from Kylie Kwong, I borrowed one of the many cookbooks my sister has on the subject, with Ross’ definitely looking the best.

So, in no particular order of what’s going on the BBQ this summer, here are some of the dishes that will get a decent circulation; and yes, I know I have two tofu recipes here carnivores, but they are both delicious so get used to it you meat lovers out there.

Salt and Pepper Tofu – this is such an easy and cheap dish to prepare. It will only work on the BBQ if you have a side wok attachment.
• 600 grams of silken tofu, cut in cubes
• 750 mL vegetable oil
• Half a cup of cornflour
• 1-2 teaspoons of Sichuan pepper and salt mix – one tbsp Sichuan peppercorns, two teaspoons and two tbsp salt
• One lemon, cut into wedges
Cut up tofu in to cubes and carefully place onto a plate lined with paper towels. Place a couple more paper towels on top and leave for about 30 minutes so the water may be absorbed; roll in cornflour. Heat oil in wok and gently slide/place tofu cubes in wok two at a time for about a minute or golden brown. Remove and place on a paper towel to drain then toss in salt and pepper mix. Serve with Peter Lehman Barossa Semillon 2006.

Char Siu rack of Lamb - another super dish for the BBQ with fantastic sweet and spicy flavours from the marinade combining with the juices of the lamb.
• Third of a cup of Chinese BBQ sauce – Char Siu
• Two tbsp honey
• Third of a cup lemon juice
• One teaspoon sesame oil
• One tbsp peanut oil
• Rack of lamb, about 750 grams
Combine Char Siu, honey, lemon juice and sesame oil and rub marinade in to lamb rack and refrigerate for at least eight hours. Char the rack on the BBQ for about 30-45 seconds to burn a little; this gives a really good flavour hit from the Char Siu. Place in a baking dish and cook for a further 20 minutes in BBQ. Allow to rest for 5-10 minutes and carve up. Serve with Penfolds Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 or De Bortoli Estate Yarra Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2007.

Chilli Blue Swimmer Crab or Singapore Chilli Mud Crab - this will get messy so don’t forget finger bowls and not your children’s wading pool!
• Four blue swimmer crabs/mud crabs
• Three tbsp Chinese chilli sauce
• Three good glugs of tomato sauce, not ketchup – we are in Australia people!
• 200mL chicken stock
• One teaspoon castor sugar
• Half a cup of vegetable oil
• Two garlic cloves, roughly chopped
• One tbsp grated ginger
• Two spring onions, white bit chopped and green bit sliced diagonally
• Two large red chillies, not birds-eye, thinly sliced diagonally
• One egg, lightly beaten
Combine chilli sauce, tomato sauce, stock and sugar in a mixing bowl and dissolve the sugar; set aside. If the crabs are still alive, put them in the freezer for about an hour. Using a cleaver or a heavy bladed knife, make and incision through the head of the crab, put the crabs on their back and lift the tail apron and using your thumb, lever off the top of the shell. Remove the spongy grey gunk and rinse. Cut the crab in half and half again and refrigerate until ready.

Heat the oil in the wok to very high heat. When it reaches smoking point, toss half of the crab contents in and give a good toss for about 3-4 minutes or until coloured. Remove from wok.

Drain almost all of the oil from the wok and add garlic, ginger, spring onion whites and half of the chillies and cook for about 7 seconds then toss in crab and sauce mixture and bring to the boil – keep the kids away at this time cos’ it gets really hot! Keep tossing for a while then slowly pour the egg in as you keep stirring. Cook for another minute. Serve with green spring onion and remaining chilli as garnish. Serve with Provenance Geelong Pinot Noir 2007 or Pepper Tree Hunter Valley Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2008 – this has a lovely tang to it!

Tofu with soy and ginger – this is a great appetiser for something like the last recipe.
• 600 grams of silken tofu, cut in cubes
• 750 mL vegetable oil
• Two tbsp light soy sauce
• One tbsp fish sauce
• Two teaspoons grated ginger
• 40 grams tapioca flour
• Half a teaspoon of fine ground white pepper
• Two spring onions, green part only thinly sliced, diagonally
Prepare the tofu the same way as the first recipe. Simmer fish sauce and ginger in a small bowl to soften ginger. Remove from heat. Heat the oil in the wok to very high. Toss the tofu in flour and cook until golden brown and drain on paper towels. Reheat the sauce mix and pour over tofu with spring onions to garnish. Serve with Bloodwood Orange Riesling 2009.

Summer BBQ time! - CookbooksPart 1: Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook

‘Nature forms patterns. Some are orderly in space but disorderly in time, others orderly in time but disorderly in space.’ - James Gleick ‘Chaos’

A few years ago I bought this book for a little bit of light reading over summer. It turned out that it wasn’t, and isn’t, the type of ‘light reader’ you look for over summer. Though it was while reading this last night that I came across the above sentence that made this post seem all so necessary.

It is sort of getting warmer here in Melbourne, and with that the BBQ is going to get rather busy. There was a time in my life when a BBQ meant burnt sausages and greasy onions, but these days, with a little bit of culture under my belt, I am lending towards a more ‘anything goes approach’ – the Chaos Theory you might say, where chaos begins, classical science – or in this case classical BBQ – stops!

It is with this in mind that I have trolled through some of my more worn cookbooks, and Maeve’s DVDs of ‘Food Safari’, and put together a taste of what will be prepared for the 2009/2010 BBQ season here in Downtown Brunswick. Let the drooling begin!

Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook
A personal favourite of mine with many of the pages stained with sauces. I have chosen three very classic French dishes, with all of them needing the BBQ in one manner or another.

Salade Niçoise – this one will have two versions; no bonjovies for Erin and lots for me and Imogen.
· Salt for cooking and to taste
· 170 grams haricots verts or green beans
· four small red bliss potatoes, scrubbed
· One garlic clove, peeled and crushed
· Extra virgin olive oil
· About three tbsp red wine vinegar
· Black pepper
· Bibb lettuce
· One green bell pepper, cored and cut into thin slices
· Anchovy fillets, white preferred
· 100 grams Niçoise olives. Get these bad boys from a very good deli such as the French deli at the Queen Vic markets for all of you Melbournians
· Four ripe Roma tomatoes
· High quality canned tuna or seared fresh tunaFour hard boiled eggs, peeled and cut length wise in to quarters.

The ingredients follow very easily onto the plate, but a tip is do not leave the blanched vegetables sit too long; pat them dry when you remove them from water. I'd go for something like the Sorrenberg Beechworth Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2008.

Moules Marinières – this was a favourite when I was living in London all those years ago.

· About 150 grams of quality butter
· Two shallots, sliced thin
· 500 mL white wine, cooking – not drinking, yet
· 3 kg mussels, scrubbed and de-bearded just before cooking
· Flat parsley, finely chopped

Melt the butter off in a big pot over a medium flame and add shallots to cook for a couple of minutes. Pour in wine and bring to the boil and season. Throw the mussels in and pop the lid on to cook for about 10 minutes or until all mussels have opened – never force a mussel open; very, very bad for your tummy! Shake the pot as you go and keep the lid nice and secure so you don’t get any of the very hot juices scorching your private bits (always cook with your clothes on). Toss in parsley, stir some more and serve in a massive bowl is you have one. Open a Grosset Springvale Watervale Clare Valley Riesling 2009 with this one being a bit more flinty than the 2008.

Côte de Boeuf – this is the one from my Father’s Day post this year – super mucho fantastico!!!

· 1.5kg rib steaks, on the bone
· Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
· Olive oil, a couple of glugs

This is a big piece of meat, so it is going to be very cold when you pull it out of the fridge; get it out about 30-45 minutes before you put it on the BBQ so to bring it down to room temp.

I am not going to pontificate, but this is best cooked medium rare because it is so big. Only poke and slice until rested for about ten minutes or so. Eat with something like the Penfolds Bin 128 Coonawarra Shiraz 2007 - masses of rich dark fruit combined with chewy tannins make this one a Susan.

I think it wise at this point to break this post in to instalments, otherwise I will be writing this, and you will be reading, until tomorrow. So off you go, clean the BBQ, get your gas cylinder re-filled and cook, cook, cook!

Brave New World! Kharisma 'Isola dei Nuraghi' IGT Sardinia Vermentino 2007

A possible snapshot of future Australia written by guest blogger Aldous Huxley:

‘As the subtle hum of the biosphere’s dome rings in my ears, I step out in to the street where I am instantly coated with the perennial humid mist that is ever present in our lives. Heading down Chapel street I notice yet another ‘Oxybucks’ oxygen bar opening with dirt stained noses lining up for the morning ‘fresh’ hit. But it was another grand opening of a shop three doors down that got my attention. It was another MSA clinic – Marlborough Sauvignon Anonymous.
It had been 15 years since the planet exhausted its stocks of Marlborough Sauvignon, the drink that in the early years of the 21st century commanded 93% of wine consumption throughout the civilised world. In the years since the vine disappeared due to the rare disease, Catspissus necrosis, the 35 million Australians who were responsible for the majority of the demand were yet to get over the demise of the grape and had still not been able to stomach any other variety, with the Sauvignon stripping the nations palate completely.......’

Thanks Aldous.

Sounds scary doesn’t it! Bu there is hope out there people. There is life after Sauvignon Blanc, and it comes in the guise of many dry white wine varieties such as Gros and Petit Manseng, Semillon, Arneis, Pinot Grigio and my fave at the moment, Vermentino.

Grown primarily on Corsica and Sardinia, Vermentino as small plantings in and around the Murray Darling region, with Bruce Chalmers of Chalmers Nursery being the driving force behind its growth. But if you want a choice you will probably have to go to speciality wine shops who deal in imported wine, and one of those is the Enoteca Sileno on Lygon Street Carlton, an Italian providor dealing in all things culinary and alcohol, and it is here where I picked up the wonderful Kharisma ‘Isola dei Nuraghi’ IGT Sardinian Vermentino 2007. Yes the name ‘Kharisma’ is bit kitsch, but there is absolutely nothing kitsch about the wine.

On this day I needed a crisp white to go with my Carbonara. Chardonnay would have done the trick, but I’m always drinking Chardonnay, and I thought something Italian with my pasta sauce. Vermentino has naturally high acids which are perfect in cutting through the thick unctuous sauce that is Carbonara. And my Carbonara rocks – and there is no cream in this one people! So here is my recipe for my Carbonara:

· Four egg yolks
· 200 grams of good bacon
· One onion
· Two cloves of garlic, crushed
· Cooking white wine
· Good olive oil
· Parmesan cheese and good spaghetti – Martelli

Simply separate yolks from whites and place in a bowl with a splash of water and a good glug of oil and cracked pepper, mix. Reduce diced onion and garlic in white wine, add bacon and reduce again. Cook off pasta al dente, toss all ingredients together and top with biting parmesan. Yummo!

Now the wine. The Vermentino has a surprising yellow gold colour to it with quite a rich nose of flowers, preserved lemon and salt. The mouth is fantastic with layers of citrus, soft herbs, banana and melon. Fantastic complexity with this one and a definite ‘Susan’. On a side note, I would definitely decant this wine; there is plenty of SO2 in it so the air is necessary to blow off the burnt match smell.

Drink till 2012
Drink with my Carbonara recipe
92
Quality cork 13%v/v $42 at Enoteca Sileno 920 Lygon Street Carlton North

http://www.enoteca.com.au/

Spirituality and Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier

Spirituality is important in our busy modern world. With over 6 billion people crammed on to this rock, we all need to have our quiet time of peace and reflection. I take my lead from the Wino-sapien and share with you three items that are currently stabilising my inner peace.

How to see yourself as you really are – His Holiness, Dalai Lama; this is something I picked up last year when my career was heading south, with one passage having very real meaning:
‘A person whose mind is distracted dwells between the fangs of afflictive emotions.’

This is a nice segue for Hurry up and Meditate – David Michie; a very user friendly book to the art of blocking out all the shit and focusing on all that is good:
‘Once we accept that body and mind form a systemic whole, the idea of focusing all our attention on only one part of the system - the body – while excluding the other – the mind - seems more than just a little crazy.’

This leads us to my Clonakilla allocation that arrived yesterday – peace and harmony people!