When fine food is just fine 1 July 2008

Good food and good wine are a treat – but Melvyn Minnaar, enjoying Buitenverwachting, thinks that overzealous matching can get in the way of pleasure

The parlour game of imagined culinary perfection - matching wine with food - seem to be truly getting out of hand these days. Dish by dish, ingredient by ingredient, temperature by temperature, slice and sip, soupcon and swallow, such hard work can really strip the fun from old-fashioned pleasure.

And ever since the PR and marketing people caught on and also started playing, those of us with a taste for wine have had to suffer the slings and arrows of sometime outrage and silliness in the match/mismatch derby. When chocolate became the ultimate mate of red wine, and, well, biltong partnered merlot or whatever, I, for one, call mindlessly for a simple beer with my ordinary curry - and a reality check.              

Pleasure is pleasure. Sometimes it is in the food, and sometimes it is in the wine. And, well, if they slot in beautifully with each other, so much the better. It could be a match made in heaven, but please, let it not be a test match.

On a great wintry day in the rain-soaked Constantia Valley, Edgar Osojnik (a star chef whose inventive imagination with perfect ingredients sometimes run away with him, but more often than not prompts the most amazing dishes to be put on the table at Buitenverwachting) restructured the food-and-wine match into something more suitably gentlemanly when he introduced new items on his menu.

A chef’s table is a big-deal event. This is when the new stars, conceived and cooked up in the chef’s mind and his fabulous kitchen (hopefully) come out to shine in front of (hopefully) discerning foodies and other freebee-inclined invitees. And, of course, under such circumstances the good glass of wine nearby needs to act its part too.

With esteemed Buitenverwachting’s neat range being the house wines at the restaurant on the farm, there was, of course, only one way to go with a 12-course tasting menu over lunch. But instead of punting the marathon of trying and testing chef Osojnik’s imaginative delicacies against a showy set-piece of wines, each glass chosen came out as subtle support for the main players, the dishes. Instead of having to cry ‘brilliantly matched!’, we willing participants in the lovely, delicious long haul more often just had a sip of the great white or red Buitenverwachting and nodded pleasurable agreement.

What I’m trying to say, is that good, well-chosen wine can play a beautiful supporting role, not necessarily always share the spotlight.

Okay, as this report seems to have somewhat of a didactic slant, let me supply the entire menu run-down with the wines Buitenverwachting’ s affable Lars Maack and winemaker-philosopher Hermann Kirschsbaum chose to cheer Edgar Osojnik’s coup de table along (and enjoy too the delicious language in which chefs describe what they make):

1. Vegetable tian with micro rucola, olive vinaigrette & goat’s feta crostini (matched with the nutty Chardonnay 2005).

2. Iced crayfish & melons (you’ll have to go and find out what this is) (Buitenverwachting Natural Sweet – made from sauvignon blanc).

3. Trio of Norwegian salmon with cos lettuce and sauce remoulade (Blanc de Noir 2008, a fruity, delicious pairing).

4. Pan-fried prawns set on avocado and laksa vegetables (Hussey’s Vlei Sauvignon Blanc 2007 enhanced the sweetness).

5. Pan-fried scallop with its own springroll and roasted sweet-corn sauce (brilliant) (fresh with Chardonnay 2006).

6. Spinach, tomato and garlic-confit soups with an assortment of lamb ( a mature Christine 1998).

7. Seared tuna set on wasabi risotto with kassler sauce ( a remarkable dish! and perfect with the fine Gewürztraminer 2005).

8. Guinea fowl crepinette with its own sauce and almond risotto (great with the top wine of the day, the Cabernet Sauvignon 2003).

9. Pan-fried beef fillet in a bone-marrow crust with red wine shallot jus and potato-porcini rosette (the in-house classic) (Christine 2003, which seemed a little shy).

10. Grilled and pan-fried springbok with Christine sauce and parsnip puree (Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 - yippee!).

11. Trio of naartjies (Buiten Brut, what else?)

12. Chocolate variation ‘Buitenverwachting’ (the famous one for ten years) (Natural Sweet 2005 -Muscat).