Tasting Menu

davidfromoz wrote in news:pgATc.42303 $Oi.5744@fed1read04:

go with a marlbourough SB Nebilo (?)

I like Oregon for this Adelsheim is nice but a bit more like $25 keep your fruits to raspberries or cherries to make the wines work easier. (or skip the fruit entirely)

Tapinade is the essential appetizer food of Provence, Cotes du Rhone, Cotes du Ventoux, Better yet Vacqueyras, Gigondas, or Chateauneuf du Pape

Tapinade) DO NOT DO CAB WITH TAPENADE!!! please it just isn't seemly. see above, please!

depending on the fruit. Nilvolo Muscat d'ASti by Chiarlo (Italian) nice little wine with pear notes

>

"jcoulter" commented

David, I have no idea if you can locate any, but the Palliser Estate Sauvignon Blanc, from Martinborough has just a few more tropical nuances which would perfectly match this dish.

In 99% of cases, Marlborough SB is a great match for seafood, but in this instance, the North Island Sauvignon would be a better choice.

Good luck - good hunting.

Hi David,

Sounds challeging. Interesting. Lucky guests you'll have.

I'd give just a small idea for desert:

Surprise your audience and give them something most of them has probalby never met. I'd say a portuguese Moscastel

From the grape variety with the same name. And quite reasonable priced. (

Thanks all for your advice. We had our first trial today.

We couldn'd find the Palliser Estate, but we will try again. But we have always rather liked the Villa Maria SB from Marlborough (2003). It went very well. Decided to use fresh pineapple next time to cut down on the sweetness.

We tried Acacia 2002 Pinot Noir. It was a very good fit. We had the sweet sauce on the side and dumped it very quickly. Tossing up between a not too sweet plum sauce (a la Beijing Duck) or none at all.

We found a Gigondas; Domaine Du Gour De Chaule. But we couldnt bring ourselves to open a third bottle for a lunchtime testing for 2. We'll open that some time this week and have it with the remainder of the tapenade. The tapenade was very strong (decided a garnish of sun dried tomato might make it more universally appealing). The Pinot did not work though :-(

BTW this is a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Cheers,

David

davidfromoz wrote in news:qXQTc.46334 $Oi.13088@fed1read04:

Sounds like hard work, but hey someone has to do it. The Gigondas is going to be much better than the Pinot. Be sure to let it breathe a bit Gigondas can get a little tight.

Mike T- would Bandol be better?

davidfromoz wrote in news:qXQTc.46334 $Oi.13088@fed1read04:

Those sauces are often a bit much, duck is so nice on its own.

The Villa Maria is a good SB, but the Palliser is like a fruit basket (it also costs double what the Villa Maria sells for).

I wondered if you wouldn't come to that conclusion: sweet sauces with duck (and venison) are usually not a great idea. How about a red wine reduction sauce? It's got a touch of sweetness and is *very* wine friendly.

Frankly, I'm not sure that the Gigondas would have either. Tapenade, especially your version, is intensely salty -- not always the easiest thing to pair wines with. Sherry might work better.

Mark Lipton

I just bought a couple of bottles of that at Costco for ~$11 US. Lovely stuff - especially at that price. It almost tastes sweet, but I'm sure it's dry.

AFAIC, Marlborough has Sancerre, California and anyone else in the game beat all hollow when it comes to Sauvignon Blanc - especially on a QPR basis. It ain't Chardonnay, but it's pretty darn good!

Tom S

Salut/Hi davidfromoz,

le/on Sun, 15 Aug 2004 14:53:26 -0700, tu disais/you said:-

I find sweet sauces with duck add very little, honestly. If you'll forgive the lecture, the original idea of fruit sauces with meat was to compensate the fattiness of fatty meats with a sauce containing significant acidity. That's why apple sauce in the UK was made with sharp apples, unsweetened, and the classic french dishes of duck with orange and duck with cherries were made with sevilles oranges and morello cherries respectively. So when making fruit sauces for duck, err on the side of meanness with the sugar. You'll find the marrtiage with wine much better too.

Salut/Hi Ian,

Would the same hold true for foie gras? Both my wife and I seem to favor a dry red, especially Bordeaux, over the classic match of Sauternes (which we enjoy more as a dessert wine), and I'm not a big fan of too sweet fruits -- which are often used -- but to me distract more than complement. What would be your favorite fruits and wine to accompany foie gras? We've only had this in restaurants before, but would like to attempt to prepare it at home one day. Any suggestions?

Thank you

"Vincent" wrote in news:8%8Uc.2564$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com:

having just had foie gras with a dry Rhone wine I can attest that it is not a good match. I like a Loire white such as Montlouis or Vouvray myself finding the apple notes add a nice touch to the foie gras. (But a crisp Chard has caught my fnacy with this a time or two)

Foie gras wine matches - the following are two events we did on just that question. Those who are easily bored should look the other way.

Four of us decided that as we all liked foie gras an awful lot, and being in a particularly liverish mood, we should get some and experiment with various wines to see if there were any that particularly complemented the foie gras.

Even we fans couldn''t take nothing but foie gras, so we also decided to experiment with different foods as an accompaniment to seared foie gras.

Thus was born the first, and possibly last, meeting of the Foie Fools.

1997 Trimbach Muscat - we had to have a wine to wet our collective whistles while contemplating the array of foie gras. We had a pound or so of duck foie gras from each of the production centres in North America, Sonoma and Quebec, so we could compare flavour and texture with each other, and we also had a large jar (another 10 ounces or so) of goose foie gras from France.

The wine? It was possessed of a very nice varietal nose, was quite dry, and if anything, lacked a bit of acidity. I have a few bottles and decided to keep them and drink them over the summer as patio house wine.

The first presentation was the French goose liver, served very simply on slices of baguette. With that we drank:

1983 Ch. Suduiraut - I am a very big fan of this vintage in Sauternes. I don''t recall ever having a poor wine. This wine has darkened a fair bit since I last tasted it - it is now a medium amber colour. It has a toasted sweet honey nose, but only middling sweet in the mouth, with a fairly long finish and just a hint of a slightly bitter note at the end that actually offset the sweetness nicely. Oddly enough, there was only a sliver of foie gras left over after we finished this wine.

1999 Craggy Range Old Renwick Vd. Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc - a failed experiment. The wine had no varietal characteristics in the nose, and in the mouth was dilute, short, and with a slight pettilance that normally indicates a secondary fermentation due to poor stabilisation before bottling. Can''t win them all.

Served with brioche slices with heaped smoked tuna and smoked salmon with capers

1997 Pierre Sparr Gewurztraminer Mambourg - always a pleasant wine, this showed as quite spicy in the nose, with a full mouth feel and good length. Always a decent value too! (Half bottle - we had another, but not by nature being given to excess, saved it for another day).

Served with simple seared foie gras, with some coarse salt. Although not a salt user normally, the addition really allows the flavour of the slices (nay, slabs) of foie gras to blossom in the mouth.

BTW, you have to get the pan very hot - put a little olive oil in as an indicator - and when the oil is smoking, sear the slices of foie gras for 15 seconds per side. This produces vast amounts of smoke, so with smoke detectors turned off, each course heralded a soon very practised routine of opening strategic doors and windows and either giving the appearance of helping things along by ineffectually waving a dishcloth, or vacating the field altogether and standing on the porch in the cool but fresh air.

1976 Hattenheimer Wisslbrunnen Riesling Auslese (Hanz Lang) - hope I got the name right, it was hard to read through the haze of foie gras smoke. I swear that if you left the liver in the pan, it wouldn''t burn, it would just all melt away. And the only form of cardiopulmonary resuscitation available to us was looking at the bill for the foie gras! I like old Auslesen, and this one was no exception. Light amber colour showed it''s age, but it was a viscous, mouth-filling wine, only now beginning to dry out. To show what self control I can sometimes claim, the fellow that brought this wine also had a 1976 Beerenauslese which I told him to save for another day!

1991 Veuve Clicquot Rich Reserve Champagne - now also showing some colour, this slightly off dry bubbly (we wanted a full experimental range here), had a nice yeasty nose, full in the mouth, with soft slightly sweet finish.

Served with scallops, halibut cheeks and seared FG (I''m tired of typing it out) on toasted brioche and Saskatoon berry coulis.

1994 Armand Rousseau Gevrey Chambertain - wanting to touch all bases, and having tasted the 1992 Clos St. Jacques from the same producer, I felt this might fare well with the main course. It had a bright cherry nose with no trace of funk, still showed some light tannins, and had good balanced acidity. Pleasant rather than conversation stopping.

Served with slices of rare lamb tenderloin with asparagus and ......wait for it.......more foie gras. By this point, all but the truly pure of heart were flagging in their zeal for foie gras, but yours truly ate his portion with pleasure, if not with the ravenous appetite experienced at the beginning of the meal. I must admit, to my disgrace, that I did not ask my neighbours who were less stalwart, if I could also finish their portion. Nor did I eat breakfast the next day!

We may try this again someday, if we can all pass the qualifying physical! A truly interesting dinner - as one devotee said - "I think that I have eaten more foie gras tonight than in the entire rest of my life!" He won''t be able to say that next time!

And then:

Well, the Foie Fools have done it again.

I got up this morning and put my glasses on, only to realize that I had to steam clean the droplets of goose liver from them before I could see. My clothes (I am told) smell like I spent the previous evening in a smokehouse (this part we remembered from the last time, and it accounted for the alacrity with which we accepted someone else's house a s a venue). My wife asked me about the menu and I told her I couldn't bring myself to talk about it just yet………I have been well and truly foied!

Reprising an event we held in March of 2001, we obtained a whole duck liver and a whole goose liver from Quebec (our last event had compared Quebec duck with Sonoma duck - this time we were able to get goose, which is only produced in the winter), did our research, created a menu and chose wines to go with it. We assembled at 5:30 and stated heating the pans!

Of course we needed something to start us off, so we had a couple of different patés with a bottle of champers.

1995 Pol Roger Brut - this Champagne was showing very little on the nose as yet, though I expect this will change with some age. Lots of mousse, abundant acidity, clean and perfect with the two patés.

We then unpacked the 2 kilos of foie gras and set to work.

The next course were large scallops wrapped in smoked goose breast with a Champagne/ shallot reduction topped with a slice of seared duck FG.

With it we served:

1997 Pierre Sparr Gewurztraminer Mambourg - quite a ripe nose, with some typical Gewurz lychee, but the wine was full, smooth and fairly dry and went well with the food.

You have to be careful with foie gras as you cook it very hot, and if you do it too long, it disappears up in smoke (oh yes - removing the batteries from any smoke alarms is de rigeur for this sort of event), or too short and you fail to get the flavourful crust on the outside while leaving the rare smooth inside rare. We got lots of practice last night in just how much and how long.

Next up was angel hair pasta with slices of smoked goose breast and cubed foie gras (it pretty much dissolves in the hot pasta and melds into the sauce, which was butter and cognac.

The results looked wonderful, and we served it with :

1996 Schloss Vollrads Riesling Kabinett - typical clean petrol nose, and the wine showed an unexpected richness in the middle and good terminal acidity. Good food match.

The next course was a short respite from foie gras - rare duck breast thinly sliced with a dried cherry, port and shallot reduction, and only a little foie gras on top…..with:

1993 Dom. Trapet (Pere et Fils)Gevry Chambertin - this Burgundy was serious stuff - quite dark, with a luscious sweet raspberry and cherry nose. It showed as still being somewhat tannic and with quite a bit of acidity, and we opined that it needed more time - until we tried it with the duck, when it instantly became perfection as the food mellowed both acidity and tannin. Yum!

Having had the 'main' course we felt we could head into sweeter realms with the next wines. To accompany 5 spice roasted with poached figs and sautéed FG:

1983 Guntrum Oppenheimer Sacktrager Gewurztraminer Auslese - fruit rather than the usual oily Riesling nose on this wine, and it really opened up with a bit of time in the glass as it warmed up (the wines were kept outside - around 2-3 deg. C.) Fairly neutral in the middle, and then some interesting flavours kicked in toward the end. The longer we held it the better it got. Needs drinking.

1990 Robert Weill Kiedricher Grafenberg Auslese - this wine was impressive, with quite a honeyed nose with a little spice, the same spice presenting on palate, with a richness and length that had me wondering why I hadn't bought more of this wine. Probably a toss-up as to which wine worked best with the food - both were very good.

Now we got right down to it and compared the two livers, duck and goose, side by side, mano a mano, to see which one would quack up and go home second best. Yes, the goose was the unanimous winner!

1992 Sichel Kircheimer Kreuz Beerenauslese - great flavour intensity, rich with sufficient acidity to have it come off clean at the end.

1988 Ch. Suduiraut - this wine always shows a bit hot at the end - 14.5% alcohol will do that! This wine has improved from the last time I had it a couple of years ago - it seems to be clicking into focus. Quite sweet, but nicely balanced and it went well with the slabs….er, portions of FG, served simply with coarse ground salt on top.

We finished up with a (thankfully) small filet mignon with, you guessed it, a final slice of FG on top.

1975 Ch. Brane Cantenac - this is not one of the 'strong' 75s, nor is it one of the thin tannic wines either. It was probably a bit better a few years ago, but the formerly high levels of tannin have now mellowed. Fading a bit since the last time I tasted it, it is nevertheless very pleasant, with a simple fruit nose showing little of the complexity that age often brings, reasonable depth and no detectable tannins.

We unanimously opted to skip the cheese course and crawl home to bed, 6 hours after we had begun the journey. Two of us finished every scrap of FG, while the other two showed signs of flagging in the final course. I am going out for dinner tomorrow night, and for the first time I can remember, I must admit that I would greet the announcement that they were serving foie gras with something other than utter delight……

And finally from a couple of weeks ago:

Miscellaneous notes from the last week:

With the consumption of a pound or so of foie gras (no, I wasn’t the only one there):

2002 Louis Jadot Pouilly Fuisse – crisp and flinty with a slight bit of oakiness on palate, but a nice feel and length.

1990 Dom. Hippolyte Thevenot Corton Bressandes – light in colour, stinky nose, fair balance up front and medium length with a slightly assertive acidity at the end. OK but not especially good.

2001 Balthasar Ress Hattenheimer Nussbrunnen Rheingau Auslese – typical petrol nose with some exotic elements, quite rich in the mouth, with only just enough acidity to balance. Better with foie gras than the next wine.

1898 Ch. Bastor Lamontagne – quite dark in colour now, and with a very slight oxidation in the nose, but not on palate. Rich, sweet and with counterbalancing acidity. Better on its own than with the seared foie gras.

Salut/Hi Vincent,

le/on Mon, 16 Aug 2004 20:42:44 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

I've had several different fruit with foie gras (both hot and cold) since living here. However, I couldn't even begin to match Bill S's experience (or appetite) for it. In general I think that a completely sugar free fruit would be a little austere with FG and I think the fruit matches I've found best were slightly sharp cherries and apples (when lightly fried in butter or FG fat). I tend to agree with you that FG and sweet wine at the start of a meal (a normal meal, not the kind of Lucullan fantasies described by a certain Vancouver shyster) are testing. What I did find interesting in his notes was that he used quite a number of germanic wines, not all of which were very high in sugar, and most of which had good balancing acidity. And I think that's probably the clue. When you look to fruit/sweet wines for FG, you need something with loads of flavour and good acidity.

I think it's also fair to say that in the "good old days" the marriage of FG and Sauternes was made with a very old Sauternes that was drying out and that the FG was often served AFTER the main course. With the increasing simplification of menus and the tendancy to drink wines younger in the last

40-50 years, I think we've rather lost sight of this and I'm not entirely convinced that modern menu practice is right.

I've had FG a number of times at the beginning of a meal with dry whites with some (but not too much) acidity and plenty of fruit, and found the marriage perfectly adequate. But just as a freshly grilled piece of beef rump is a completely different beast from some cold rare roast beef, so it is that freshly flash fried fg is entirely different in flavour profile from cold canned fg and goes with different wines.

Figs seem to work well, plus if you do try the not so easy Sauternes match, you get extra insurance of a good match... ;-)

And by extension a Pinot gris VT of Alsace will do well. How about a Pinot Gris BA by Dr. Heger in the Vulkanfelsen area?

Very interesting, I had always suspected that the current practice is a perversion of an older (good) match.

As you know Ian, here in France all kinds of bad practices are considered tradition. The stereotyped popular fancy French meal starts with bad Port for aperitif, Sauternes and FG, and after the main dish, a big red Bordeaux with a huge platter of mostly creamy fat and/or smelly cheeses from Normandy, and ends with dry Champagne with a gooey dessert. As someone said earlier : "The horror, the horror".

Mike

Mike Tommasi, Six Fours, France email link

No, no - that is a term more properly applied to American lawyers, not those of us in the Commonwealth that seek to uphold the finest traditions of Rumpole.......well except for the Chateau Thames Embankment.

Well, certainly IMHO the best matches would have been with the less sweet Sauternes, i.e. the ones that were drying out a bit, but I'm not sure I agree with the service late in the meal. I have seen quite a few menus that placed the foie gras and Sauternes early, and in my experience this isn't a problem.

In fact, even weighty Sauternes work passably well - I've posted notes on a remarkable all - Yquem dinner - a couple of vintages with each course, one of which was the 1980 and 1987 with foie gras terrine, and it worked well.

Bill Spohn wrote: shyster

Hey Bill, You struck a note. There are some of us folks in the USA who love "Rumpole", as well as many other British shows. "Are you being served", Monty, and many others. Shyster, you may be correct.

Dick in the USA

"Dick R." wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@visi.com:

Ahh but there is a strict no soliciting policy! There is not as far as I can tell a no shysting policy.

] davidfromoz wrote: ] ] > We couldn'd find the Palliser Estate, but we will try again. But we ] > have always rather liked the Villa Maria SB from Marlborough (2003). It ] > went very well. Decided to use fresh pineapple next time to cut down on ] > the sweetness. ] ] The Villa Maria is a good SB, but the Palliser is like a fruit basket ] (it also costs double what the Villa Maria sells for). ]

Well, I like those just fine, and I'd add Isabel to the list too.

What about a Menetou-Salon? That's a good source for wines in the Sancerre tradition, before it got more or less spoiled.

] > ] >> Roast Duck ] >> with a sweet fruit sauce ] >> Pinot Noir ] > ] > ] > We tried Acacia 2002 Pinot Noir. It was a very good fit. We had the ] > sweet sauce on the side and dumped it very quickly. Tossing up between ] > a not too sweet plum sauce (a la Beijing Duck) or none at all. ] ] I wondered if you wouldn't come to that conclusion: sweet sauces with ] duck (and venison) are usually not a great idea. How about a red wine ] reduction sauce? It's got a touch of sweetness and is *very* wine friendly. ]

Hard to argue with that! :) ] ] > We found a Gigondas; Domaine Du Gour De Chaule. But we couldnt bring ] > ourselves to open a third bottle for a lunchtime testing for 2. We'll ] > open that some time this week and have it with the remainder of the ] > tapenade. The tapenade was very strong (decided a garnish of sun dried ] > tomato might make it more universally appealing). The Pinot did not ] > work though :-( ] ] Frankly, I'm not sure that the Gigondas would have either. Tapenade, ] especially your version, is intensely salty -- not always the easiest ] thing to pair wines with. Sherry might work better. ]

I agree, Gigondas seems like a stretch. I'd try a syrah here. Specifically, Vin de Pays de Principaute d'Orange, from Courinne Couturier.

Bah! Humbug! :-)

Dick