Richmond Grove Barossa Riesling 1999
Showing some age as hoped, with a dried lime-pith, dusty-hay and tar-like nose. It’s like the fruit has dried up but it hasn’t quite developed much honey/kerosene/diesel. The palate is light, fresh and a tad limey on the finish. Maybe it’s in a “shut down” phase, or maybe the fruit has all dried up and there’s not much more to come. Nice enough in any case.

Clam and mussel soup, curry drizzle

Bacon wrapped roast pheasant, chestnut-potato rösti, red wine sauce
I just wanted simple barded pheasant, but with a slightly different incorporation of chestnuts. The dish divided us (it wasn’t my fav) and that perhaps swayed the opinion on the wine matching. I would say the Barolo did work well with it – not fantastic, but good.

Fontana Fredda Barolo 2000
Just a hint of brown in the pinky red colour. The nose shows very bright fruit with some spice (plum in vanilla for me, cinnamon apple for others). It has great purity and maybe a touch of leafy forest floor underneath. The palate has moderate fine sandy tannins, stewed plum and maybe some stewed fig flavours. Not quite what I’d expect of “traditional” Barolo, but it’s not really “modern” either.

Bacon wrapped roast pheasant, chestnut-potato rösti, red wine sauce

Camembert, rosemary poached apple, cider vinegar, croutons
The Camembert is the one previously posted about. It was cut at just-before a fully-runny ripeness stage (in the photo it is still cold), so the result was a creamy, salty, and ripe Camembert-style cheese which I felt would make for a good combo with a sweet wine. Indeed, it did – this course went with the Taminga fantastically. The rosemary flavour also added to the effect, bringing another dimension to the wine.

Trentham Estate Noble Taminga 2002
IMO, this is a great little sweetie at a good price. “Sunshine yellow”, full-on sweet tropical fruit (like guava) nose, and a well balanced sweet palate of caramelised honey and fresh pineapple.

Camembert-style cheese, rosemary poached apple, cider vinegar, croutons

Camembert-style cheese, rosemary poached apple, cider vinegar, croutons

Edible gin and tonic
Provided some fun palate refreshment.

Edible gin and tonic

Roast pear, white chocolate and yoghurt icecream, caramel
The pear was roasted with sugar syrup, vanilla, star anise and black pepper, so it had some more complexity to it. This actually went fine with the Taminga, well the pear did anyway.

Roast pear, white chocolate and yoghurt icecream, caramel

Panna cotta, coffee gelée
The “coffee” course, so no wine here.

Panna cotta, coffee gelée

I was rethinking this magnificent drink and, just for fun, went with an egg form.