Season of Soup - Broccoli soup with Torrent Bay Nelson Sauvignon Blanc 2008

This soup has caused quite a stir; Imogen and I like it but Erin cannot stand it. And why? Cos’ it’s broccoli and green and tastes like broccoli!! This is a simple one that does not take much time to prepare, and eat at that matter, where all you need is broccoli, water, salt and that’s it!

I saw the 'enfant terrible' Gordon Ramsey dish this up in one of his restaurant re-vamps a couple of years ago (this was when Gordon was popular on the box), and really, like I said previous, it is so simple to cook.

· Broccoli, about three bunches – florets only
· Water
· Salt
· Glass of wine - to drink, not for cooking

All you need to do is boil the broccoli, strain out to another pot. Add the water the broccoli was cooked in while blitzing. Make sure you don’t have it too thick – you don’t want to be chewing it now do you! Add salt to taste. Simple hey?

Now the wine. A lot of people say that you cannot match wine to food that is high in sulphur. These are probably the same people who also say you cannot match food with Sauvignon Blanc. These two points may hold merit, but I am going to rock the boat and say that two wrongs make a right with this one! Broccoli soup with Torrent Bay Nelson Sauvignon Blanc 2008.

Located on the northern tip of the south island just west of the capital of Sauvignon, Marlborough. This wine has a very light colour to it, bone straw will do. The nose has very definite hay aromas followed by stone fruits – nectarine. The mouth is similar with grassy flavours, big acid then more stone fruit to follow. After about ten minutes a sweeter feel of passionfruit coming through.

This match is a no-brainer, but not a Susan people!

Torrent Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2008
Drink now
86
Screwcap $18 12% v/v

Season of Soup - French Onion and Pichot Domaine Coteau de la Biche Vouvray Moelleux 2002

With each new day dawning to blue sky in cosmopolitan Brunswick, my daughter Imogen asks me if spring is now over and is summer coming sooo quickly. Well my dear, I am sorry to say this is Melbourne, home of the ‘G’, the upside down river and those glorious four seasons in one day....

‘.... lying in the depths of your imagination, Worlds above
and worlds below, the sunshine’s on the black clouds hanging
over the domain.
Even when you’re feeling warm, the temperature could drop away
Like four seasons in one day......’

'Four Seasons In One Day' Crowded House

So with one eye on a beach towel and the other on an umbrella, we in Melbourne are still in the throes of winter, which brings me to soup. But this is no ordinary ‘Season of Soup’ entry. Today is not only our favourite soup (Erin and me), but a Susan match that I reckon is one of the best!

French Onion Soup with Pichot Domaine Coteau de la Biche Vouvray Moelleux 2002 – a big mouthful, but a good one.

French onion soup is pretty much that, onions and lots of them!!!! This is sort of like risotto; lots of looking and lots of stirring. The key element to a good French Onion soup is making sure the pot and onions brown. So here is my French Onion soup.

· brown onions, plenty of them (14 serves four)
· olive oil
· flour, just a pinch
· Gruyere cheese
· butter, optional though
· salt to taste
· crusty bread
· water
· swimming goggles

After cutting up the multitude of onions, add a good glug of oil to the pot and heat. Add onions and add another glug of oil over the onions. Let it sit for a while on heat with the occasional stir. Once there is an obvious reduction in volume or the pot, add butter and season to taste. Keep stirring!! After a while the pot will start to brown over in the hot spots – this is good. Keep stirring.

Once you have the contents a good brown, add flour and stir for another five minutes. This thickens the contents of the pot so it is easier to reduce evenly. Add water to cover entire volume and add a few small cubes of Gruyere for a creamy edge. Reduce to a good ratio of onion and water. Grate some Gruyere over some bread and grill to your liking.

It is important to let the soup sit for a while so you don’t burn your tongue – this bugger is super hot just out of the pot.

Now the wine. Just to let you know that Vouvray is Chenin Blanc. Now Chenin Blanc in Australia gets a bad rap I reckon. Why you ask? Because we don’t get it; that’s at both levels – producing and drinking.

The very best Chenin Blanc’s come out of the Loire Valley in France. Now before you start thinking that I am banging on about French wines and how they are superior to ours (well yes), I’ll just remind everyone that in France they can only grow certain fruit in certain areas, unlike here where we can bloody grow anything any-bloody-where.

So back to the Loire Valley, and in particular to a little town called Vouvray. You punters out there may know this name from a couple of years ago when a nag by the same name was favourite in a couple of group 1 races. If you are like me and put a few bucks on it and are cursing the sound of the name ‘Vouvray’ (cos’ the mongrel didn’t salute once), I am sorry for bringing back bad memories.

Vouvray is situated on the Loire River just west of Tours in central France where Chenin Blanc is King. Here there are three styles, sec, demi-sec and Moelleux; dry, semi dry and Moelleux which is the sweetest of the three and by far the most sought after.

Moelleux wines can have up to 500 grams/litre of residual sugar in them, making them syrupy sweet and perfect with rich food such as Foire Gras.

This Pichot Moelleux has only 94 grams/litre of residual sugar, but this by no means makes it a light weight in this style. The colour is a beautiful light golden/straw with a yellowish hue coming through. The nose is super sweet with candied orange and saffron. Decanting this wine will benefit. After a while in the glass and decanter, this wine develops richness similar to Sauternes that produces a very warming mouth feel with glycerol, honey and marmalade coming through.

The reason I have given this combo the ‘Susan’ is that I reckon this pairing has got equal measure of richness – both develop a natural viscosity with time – and natural sweetness from the caramelised onions and candied orange in the wine. Ohh I do love it!!

Drink till 2032

94

Quality cork (blackened at tip is an indication that it spent time in underground cave)

$55 12.5% a/v

Season of Soup - Chilli Chickpea soup with De Iuliis Hunter Valley Aged Semillon 2002

I was down at ‘Blackhearts and Sparrows’ in Brunswick last week in need of a wine that would match up to my chickpea and onion soup. The wine needed to have plenty of mouth-feel and weight to go up against a very viscous and nutty soup.

I could have gone the easy option with an Alsacean Riesling or Australian Pinot Gris, but instead went for something that I hoped would be both a great drink and an inspired choice for the soup; should have gone the safe bet. But first the soup.

My chilli chickpea and onion soup sounds simple and it is. This soup can be prepared in quick time which is good for the corporate high flyers out there who also have to juggle a couple of kids. A real straightforward flavour about this one – chickpeas gives that lovely nutty flavour with the chilli adding that extra factor to the palate

· 2 x 400g cans of chickpea’s or 500g cold soaked chickpea’s
· 4 x onions, chopped
· ½ red chilli
· 2 x cloves of garlic
· 1 litre of water
· Salt and pepper to taste
· Good olive oil
· Crusty bread
· Swimming goggles – for chopping the onions

Method
Heat oil in saucepan on low heat and glaze the chilli for about five minutes and discard. Sauté onions and garlic until soft. One big mistake us humans make with cooking is having the pan or pot too hot. All you need is a low flame which means the heat in the pan/pot is going to be more consistent.

Once onions are done, add the water and chickpeas, set to boil and then simmer for 20 minutes. Once there is a real chickpea smell coming from the pot, blitz and serve with bread.

It’s probably a good idea to let the soup cool for about 15 minutes, otherwise you risk burning your tongue like this amateur chef did.

The Wine:
As I said before, I was looking for something with a bit of weight and structure, so on paper the De Iuliis Hunter Valley 2002 Aged Semillon looked the goods. Me shooting 6 under in the final round of the US Masters looks good on paper also; seems like I’ve found a good use for paper then.

The wine has quite a pale look to it, so the aging has got a long way to go I reckon. The nose is very fresh with a little bit of wax there and citrus at the end. In the mouth there is more citrus – lemon, honey, toast and a little bit of spice, but it was just a little, not the lot that I thought there would be.

You know what, it’s a nice wine, but not with my chickpea and onion soup. Go with a Pinot Gris I reckon.

Drink till 2014
16/20

Season of Soup - Minestrone with Foster e Rocco 2008 Heathcote Sangiovese

Minestrone soup – this one I used to think was the hardest of the lot. Actually, I used to think soup in general was difficult and messy to make. It just turns out soup is mess, not difficult in its preparation.

The classic Minestrone from Lombardy includes pancetta for the salt kick. In Milan the recipe varies according to what is on hand, which is handy I guess. My recipe is pretty basic, and like the Milanese, variations come and go with what is in the pantry.

It’s hearty and filling and really is a few meals in one. And this is a great meal to have in the fridge or freezer when it comes to leftovers.

Tim’s Minestrone
· A good couple of glugs of olive oil
· Bacon or pancetta or cacciatore sausage or salami or cooked spicy lamb sausage
· 1-2 onions finely chopped*
· 2 garlic cloves; crushed
· 2 celery stalks; peeled and chopped
· 1-2 carrots; chopped
· 1 zucchini; chopped
· 1 litre of stock; chicken or veg
· 2x400g cans crushed tomato
· 2 cups of water
· 1x420g can cannellini beans; rinsed and drained
· 2 cups of finely shredded cabbage
· ½ cup of pasta shells
· 1 handful of chopped parsley
· Crusty bread

*when cutting onions I find wearing swimming goggles helps avoid the tears. It may look funny, but it works!

Heat oil in a large pot and cook of meat. Try and burn the bottom of the pan; this leaves crusty bits which add heaps to the flavour. Once cooked set and leave aside. Sauté onions and garlic for a couple of minutes and add carrot (I always add carrot about 3 minutes before other veg just to cook through a bit more), zucchini and celery and cook until tender.

Return meat to pot with stock, tomatoes and water and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for ½ an hour. Stir in beans, cabbage and pasta and cook for about 10 minutes or until pasta is cooked. Add parsley and serve with bread.

The wine:
This is a fairly rustic dish so I thought of a rustic wine. White I believe would be no good with this because of the heavy flavours from the meat. We had a Sangiovese from Heathcote, Foster e Rocco, a wine made by Adam Foster and Lincoln Riley.

Both guys are sommeliers like me, with Adam just having started at The Lake House in Daylesford and Riley having been at Taxi for a few years. These guys have constructed a very nice little wine here, and they haven’t over worked it like a lot of Australian Sangioveses. This wine has got a good lot of earth and acid to keep it grounded and food friendly.

The colour is deep red with a pink hue, telling me it spent a bit of time on skins. The nose starts out as morello cherry, which is typical with Sangiovese, and then longer in the glass shows a good hit of dark chocolate. The mouth is very true with the nose; morello cherry followed by chocolate. All in all, a very nice wine.

Drink till 2013
17/20

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