Venison Bourguignon Pairing

Chris, As Ian H mentioned recently re coq au vin, the dish was concocted to make tender tough chunks of beef. As such, I'd think that it would work well with venison, which can dry out easily if cooked other ways. Personally, I prefer my venison quickly seared, but your preparation should produce tender meat.

As for the wine pairing, venison to me calls for Syrah, preferably a gamy N Rhone version thereof.

Mark Lipton

I eat a ton of venison harvested from my rural property in Ohio. Our farm country deer are very fat and tender since in the fall they eat a lot of soybeans, corn and wheat. Theyre really fat but have great depth of flavor. I tend to use more assertive wines in my braised venison so I tend to use Syrah. IMHO, the assertive nature of wild venison can overwhelm Burgundy and the dish requires a bigger wine. I also found that the smokey bacon in the braise works better with the smoke inherent in some French syrahs like Hermitage.

"Chris Sprague" wrote ............. in message

Like Bill and Mark, I would go for a Rhone - for me, Southern Rhone - in a single word Gigondas!

I'm with Bill and Mark - Northern Rhone is my thought (I just tend to prefer North to South in Rhone)

There's an age old custom with Boeuf Bourguignon that you're supposed to make it with the wine you drunk with it at the table. My strong advice would be "Don't"!!! Decent bottles of burgundy these days costs $30 and up. Pinot Noirs are much too expensive these days, and local pinot noirs don't have enough good fruit. Use any assertive very low priced red wine with a fruity taste that appeals to you. I've used Zinfandels, Cabernets, and others. For our last braised beef dish we used "two buck Chuck" cabernet. It was great.

Ed Theron

I'm a bit late joining the party. After driving 8 hours up to Finisterre in Britanny, I'm visiting friends who have lent me their Wifi.

Well, as Mark nearly said, the thing about using a PN based wine to make these burgundian dishes is that they are particularly successful partly because these wines are they way they are. Low tannins generally and relatively high acidity. I therefore can't agree with Ed's comments, sorry! I'll go along with him that it's not necessary to use a Grand Cru burgundy either to cook or to accompany, but I did use one once when for reasons too silly and complicated to go into, the only red wine I had available was Le Corton '69 I know lots of people say you can't tell. You can, and it was one of the best stews I've ever made.

The concept will certainly work - I made a burgundian style stew with Kangaroo tail once! So if you CAN find a wine with that low tannin high acid profile that doesn't cost the earth, then i do recommend it. If it's a random Pinot Noir, so much the better.

As for what's the perfect wine to accompany the dish. In part that will depend upon what wine you used to cook it and in part exactly how you make it - marinating or not, whether or not you're using strongly smoky bacon or not and so on.

If all your food flavours are full of oomph, then I like the idea of a Syrah based wine though I'm not absolutely convinced about the Northern Rhone. If you can get a really mouthfilling Chateauneuf, then fine, but otherwise I would suggest a really good Australian or even a top Stellenbosch Syrah. I think they'll be a little riper and a little fuller. If your dish is going to be lighter, then I wonder if it woldn't be better to look to Vacqueras or round there. Just an idea any way.

lard the venison

If you marinatethe meat, don't worry about it lacking fat. the wine will tenderise it. I don't thing that there's any advantage in frying in duck fat - much as I love it. It won't do anything to compensate for dryness. I feel the best way to deal with the leanness of venison is either to lard as you say, or better, to use a marinade with some vinegar - not too much - and then to cook VERY gently over two or three days.

Hope that helps a bit

I will probably be using a northern climate PN for this. I have a bottle of 06 Oyster Bay, which according to the reviews on Cellar Tracker, has quite a bit of acidity.

I'm using somewhat smoky bacon, but I'll probably boil it a bit first. Thanks for all of the suggestions, I'm leaning heavily towards a southern Rhone or Aussie syrah, perhaps one of each to have on the table.

Marinating sounds like a good idea. How much vineger should I use in addition to the 1 bottle of Pinot? A tablespoon or so?

Furthermore, as much as I'd like to very gently simmer this over two to three days, I live alone and have to work during the day, so I won't be afforded this luxury, and I don't dare to leave the oven on unattended :) I will simmer it for a few hours tomorrow evening, and then I could simmer it some more on Friday afternoon probably, as I have the afternoon off. Unfortunately, I'll have to chill it in between. Would this hurt it?

Yes, very much so, thanks!

Chris

"Chris Sprague" skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@r38g2000vbi.googlegroups.com...

You could do like me, leave it simmering through the night! This way you'll get at least 10 hours and that should be plenty enough given that you are not using a tough old c*ck. hth Anders

Sounds perfect.

near a couple to 1/4 cup. Not a lot.

Not at all, it will be even better for it.

As Anders says, it's not a tough old c*ck, or even kangaroo tail, so

Chris

I've just realised my posts were horribly ambiguous when talking about the marinating.

what i MEANT to say was that you add some vinegar to the wine in which you'll be cooking the meat and marinate in that mixture. whew... I'm SO sorry I wasn't clearer. Actually I'd be tempted to slice an onion and half a carrot and a stalk of celery and add them too as well as a bouquet garni (bundle of herbs - parsley, thyme and bay).

On re-reading a second time I think you were bright enough to read between the lines of what I posted, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

So, I figured I owed the group a follow-up.

I basically made the version of the recipe that was found in the January 2001 issue of Cook's Illustrated. It can be found on the web if you search a little.

Using Ian's advice, I did do a very basic tenderizing marinade, using the aforementioned bottle of 06 Oyster Bay Pinot Noir, and a couple tablespoons of red wine vinegar with some bay leaves.

Braising time was 4 hours at 275F. Meat was certainly tender enough, in fact when mixing in the garniture at the end, I had to be very careful stirring as the meat was falling apart, and I wanted to serve chunks, not shreds. I managed to pull it off.

The sauce was fantastic, and the meat perhaps a tad over-tender, but the flavor did not suffer for it. The only critique I had is that this preparation managed to remove almost all of the distinctive venison flavor. I tried to downplay the gaminess a bit, as this was several guests' first experience with venison, but I was too successful. Next time, I'll make it some other way, but wouldn't hesitate to make the beef version of this again, as it was incredibly good. I served it over buttered and parsleyed egg noodles, with a simple green salad on the side, and crusty bread.

Wine(s): 2000 Domaine de Bonserine Cote Rotie. I went with a Northern Rhone after all, and I think it worked well. Definitely mature, more on the medium-bodied side for the region, but rather elegant with a long finish just the same. When that ran out, I opened a 2004 Chateau Pesquie Quintessence Cotes de Ventoux (80% syrah 20% grenache). Big blackberry nose, fuller bodied and jammy, with moderate tannins, but thankfully not made in the genereic over-oaked/ extracted international style, it still retained some actual varietal character. I'd give both wines a B+, but they were very different. I think the Bonserine was the better match, for what it's worth.

For dessert, I made Riesling gelatine in individual moulds with fresh (in February! - from Whole Foods) blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries. Gelatine was flavored with lime juice, sugar, and 2/3 of a bottle of Kung Fu Girl riesling. It went over fairly well, served with Quady Essencia.

Thanks for all of your help with this!

Chris

Chris, Thanks for the detailed report about the venison meal. I'm not terribly surprised that the venison character was lost in that preparation, as slow cooking of that sort was designed to make the inedible edible. Good to hear about the wine pairings, too. But... Kung Fu Girl Riesling???

Mark Lipton

Hey, I wanted something inexpensive to make the dessert with. The idea was to make the gelatine taste and smell like riesling! I had it at a "value wines" tasting recently and it wasn't awful.

Chris