The arrival of 2010 was celebrated in our usual style - old friends; good food and fine wine.
Thank you for everyone who contributed to my plea for help in respect to a food match for Clos Ste Hune - in the end, as a tribute to the world-wide response, I decided to produce a seafood "medley", combining several of the suggestions.
As New Years Eve was a gorgeous sunny day (temperature 25°C at 6pm) - a cold dish was certainly the only option I could consider - ruling out the more "classic" accompaniments to Alsatian riesling.
Bi!! Suggested ceviche - I am a great fan of the South Pacific version; poisson cru; while Mark Lipton thought caviar, crème fraiche on blini.
Ian Hoare displayed his first hand knowledge of NZ by submitting a couple of recipes for mussels.
I combined these suggestions with my own preference for freshly cooked (and cooled) prawns.
Ian, I also took to heart your suggestion that I avoid should vinegar - putting my own spin on things.
Live green-lipped mussels are readily available in virtually every supermarket here - I steamed them in a couple cups of Marlborough sauvignon blanc, with some crushed garlic and grated ginger (thanks DaleW) - for no longer than it took for the shells to open.
Instead of wine, I heated some verjuice (to reduce a little and semi-cook some shallots) and added to the shelled mussels, and put them in the refrigerator to cool (dinner was still 12 hours and 200 km away!)
I marinated fresh fish in lemon and lime juice - but only for a half hour - and after draining off the juice, combined the fish with coconut cream (with a ½ teaspoon of Thai red curry paste) and finely chopped onion and tomato.
The third component was the cooked, peeled and chilled prawns, upon which I placed a teaspoon of avocado mousse (actually fresh avocado, a little crème fraiche with just a smidgeon of wasabi paste.)
A search for true caviar as fruitless, but a local Salmon "caviar!" was available - I served this on some mini "pikelets" with crème fraiche.
The wine was the 2001 Clos Ste Hune - and despite observations that serving this would be akin to infanticide (DaleW "had to say it!) I preferred the advice from others which stated that the wine was just entering its drinking window.
It proved not nearly as backward as I anticipated - in fact, imho, while it is youthful, it is more than approachable now.
I found that the wine was neither "bone dry" nor too highly acidic. The colour was a pale gold (beautiful!) - ethereal "petrol" notes on the nose; there was a just hint of exotic sweetness, wonderful combination of citrus and nectarine and stony minerality. Very long finish - harmonious - and by no means austere.
The food match(es) were excellent. The poisson cru and prawns were very good; Mark the "caviar" treat - albeit salmon - was excellent - but the star and best match was the mussels - thank you Ian.
To everyone - thank you for your input - wishing the entire afw family the very best for 2010.