Sweet and savoury 22 February 2007

An array of fine food matched with Vin de Constance made for a great gourmet
experience for Tim James

The other guests must, of course, speak for themselves – but I was painstakingly following the stern line of duty: how well did this great sweet wine go with fine food, both sweet and savoury? The winewriter’s task is sometimes particularly hard.

Much of the afternoon had been spent tasting new releases for Grape (well, some of that was genuinely quite hard work, no silly irony involved). Later, driving through a beautiful Cape summer evening towards the darkening mountains of the Constantia valley was already food for the soul. The body’s turn would come.

For Klein Constantia had organised a modest welcome for Michel Roux Jr of London’s Le Gavroche restaurant – Roux had provided recipes for a book published last year, Vin de Constance with Michel Roux (see our review). This night, the food was also designed to accompany the famous wine, but most of the recipes and all of the execution were by a galaxy of the Cape’s culinary stars (that’s how the handout put it, and even though it’s a cliché, and nine makes for a pretty small galaxy, it’s a good characterisation).

I’m not a great believer in the more finicky realms of food and wine matching, but there was, for example, an amazingly convincing marriage arranged by Peter Goffe-Wood, between smoked duck breast, tomato, chili and cumin chutney with the nicely mature 1989 Vin de Constance: the food rendered the wine positively and deliciously smoky.

George Jardine of the sublime Jardine restaurant in Cape Town was there with subtle crayfish, as was David Grier with his version, and Mike Bassett of Ginga (he had distilled a broth of foie gras, believe it or not, and served this amazing liquid with ‘faux chili apricot caviar and gorgonzola’). In such company, it seems absurd to say that I found my favourites elsewhere. Did I? Well, there was pigeon pastilla from Franck Dangereux (of the Long Barn, formerly of La Colombe) with honey and saffron dip, and Peter Goffe-Wood had presented a realisation of Michel Roux's recipe for spice-crusted foie gras with onion marmalade; Margot Janse (Le Quartier Francais) offered bacon-roasted organic pork loin with apricot and hazelnut. Then there were desserts from Edgar Osojnik (Buitenverwachting) and Bruce Robertson (The Showroom), and, from Reuben Riffel of Reuben’s in Franschhoek, a brilliant citrus soufflé with crème fraîche sherbet, passionfruit, vanilla and tequila syrup, both cutting and sweet: a great accompaniment to the wine.

Trailing its centuries of history, the wine was not embarrassed by the elaborate, intricately flavoured food – and consorted remarkably well with the more savoury dishes. It was the current 2001 that was served with most (though the 1995 made an appearance as well as the 1989, and Dangereux’s pigeon was matched with the 1997). A fascinating lesson in creatively pairing food and wine – with each contributing, as it should, to a total experience. Or, in this case, to a number of fine little experiences.

The opportunity of tasting Vin de Constance in this interesting company was invaluable. But so too was the chance to see the exuberant perfectionism of these chefs de cuisine, their creativity freed to respond to the invitation and the challenge, without the economic pressures of restaurant catering: many of these dishes were simply too luxurious in terms of time and effort and ingredients to be menu items at prices sustainable in local restaurants.

From what I could see, Michel Roux (a lean, healthy-looking man, far slimmer than were most of Klein Constantia’s guests that evening, even at its start) seemed to be relishing the food. I dare say he’ll be seen in at least a few of these chefs’ restaurants during the next few weeks.