An anonymous internet buyer purchased the “Vin Jaune” which hails from Arbois in the north of the Jura region in eastern France.

Sellers Christie’s said the wine had been stored for generations in a vaulted underground cellar by the Vercel family. The 1774 batch of vin jaune was made by the wine grower Anatoile Vercel, and a number of bottles were carefully passed down through eight generations of the Vercel family.

Christie’s said a bottle from the same batch was tasted by wine experts in 1994 who deemed the vintage, with notes of cinnamon, curry and vanilla, “excellent.”

So it seems if you can withstand the temptation to open a bottle and have eight generations of your family do the same, there is possibly a good return on your investment, though you won’t probably be around to reap the benefits.

An unusual feature of the Dromana Estate is the Hindu-Gothic Gate Lodge.

Ross Lewis of Chapter One sourced wild salmon from Dromana on the Blackwater to feature on the menu for the state dinner on the occasion of the recent visit of Queen Elizabeth. The evening begins with a conversation between Ross and Paul about Ross’s experience cooking at the banquet, followed by dinner  which will be cooked by Eunice Power.

Eunice has collaborated with local producers and fishermen from Helvick to compile a sumptuous menu.  Some of the ingredients and produce appearing on the menu include Comeragh mountain lamb, wonderful goat’s cheese from Anna Leveque, wild salmon from Dromana, local honey, local vegetables from Country Store, beer from the Dungarvan Brewing Company, wines from the Wine Buff, along with rhubarb and herbs from her own garden. A treat is truly instore for this events’ ticket holders. 

The event is sponsored by The Wine Buff, Dungarvan and tickets are now available to purchase from The Wine Buff, Grattan Square Dungarvan or online from The Waterford Festival of Food for €60 per person. Book early to avoid disappoimtment, these events sell out very quickly.

Go mbeidh an tadh leat.



So to celebrate the year let’s look at pairing wines with Chinese food, so instead of grabbing a bottle of beer with your next Chinese dish try one of our recommendations.

When selecting your wine for Chinese food you need to identify the dominant taste sensation of the dish. These are sour (rice vinegar), sweet (sugar, coconut milk) and salt (soy).

When it comes to sweet Riesling wines and Chinese food, sensory scientists have proved that the different taste qualities – sweet, sour, salty, bitter – balance or compliment one another.

For example, sour (acidity) and sweet suppress one another; adding sugar to lemon juice reduces the tartness; the level of acidity or sourness has not changed but the presence of sugar changes how we perceive it. It is the Riesling grape’s ability to develop high sugar levels while maintaining acidity that produces white wines that age very well and compliment Chinese food as well. Riesling wine is produced from dry to very sweet; the sweet wines counterbalances the Chinese food’s salt and sour.

So let’s look at some matching’s.

Delicate seafood flavours, typical of Cantonese cuisine as in steamed dim sum, scallops, steamed whole fish.
Try: Minerally Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadet , Morin Sancerre and Poeze Muscadet.

Spicy noodles.
Try: Cote du Rhone White, Beaubois Cotes de Nimes.

Sweet and sour dishes.
Try: Fruity rosé e.g. Merlot-based Bordeaux. Marquis Rose.

Duck dishes such as crispy duck with pancakes.
Try: New World Pinot Noir, Merlot and Merlot blends, Whaletail Pinot Noir.

Dishes in which ginger is a dominant.
Try: Gewurztraminer, Ginglinger Gerwurztraminer Alsace.

Black bean sauce:
Try: Rich, velvety but not too tannic reds e.g. Chilean Merlot, Rawen Merlot.

Barbecued dishes such as spare ribs:  
Try: Rich, but not too tannic reds e.g. Baccichetto Refosco, Italy.

Hot, fiery dishes typical of Szechuan cuisine:
Try: Wines with a touch of sweetness especially Alsace Gewurztraminer, Sweet New Zealand or German Riesling and Tokaji Furmint. Ginglinger Gerwurztraminer Alsace, Whaletail Riesling, Tokaji Furmint Classic.

The real key to the pleasure of wine and food is simply relaxing and enjoying with friends. Now that you know the best wine pairings, Chinese food anyone?

Ingredients

Roasted Cranberry Sauce
1 orange
1 lb. fresh or thawed cranberries
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp. salt
4 green cardamom pods, crushed
4 whole cloves
2 sticks cinnamon
1 small jalapeño, stemmed and thinly sliced
1 1/2 tbsp. port

Heat oven to 180°. Using a peeler, remove peel from the orange, taking off as little of the white pith as possible. Cut peel into very thin strips about 1 to 2″ long. Squeeze juice from the orange; strain and put aside one 1 tbsp. of juice.

In a bowl, combine peel, cranberries, sugar, olive oil, salt, cardamom pods, cloves, cinnamon, and jalapeños. Toss and transfer to a parchment paper–lined baking sheet. Roast in the oven until cranberries begin to burst and release their juices, about 15 minutes should be enough.

Transfer the cranberry mixture to a bowl; stir in put aside orange juice and port. Let sit for at least 1 hour so that the flavours are infused. Remove and discard cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon before serving.

While some still prefer home cooked puddings, ready-made and cooked puddings are now available. Higher quality shops such as Nash 19 in Cork offer Christmas puddings comparable to homemade, without the hours of your work and preparation.

For a nation that love our sweet chocs after dinner, we surprisingly don’t make much of dessert wines, we often stick with whatever we were sipping with our main course, despite the fact that a thick-set red isn’t remotely the right partner for pudding or the sweet tasting delights.

Clear the decks, and away with your red… The sweet wines are coming!

We did a wee taste preview last night of a Christmas pudding from Nash 19 in Cork, the recipe was handed down to Clare from her grandmother, which we matched to four of our favourite Wine Buff dessert tipples.

Up first, was the 2005 Loupiac-Gaudiet a sweet wine from Bordeaux, best to add fresh cream to the pudding this brought out the best in the Loupiac, great taste of honey and caramel.

Second was the 2004 Tokaj Classic 3 puttonyos from Hungary, a concentrated wine with apricot and pineapple flavours, an excellent balance between sweetness and acidity and a perfect match for the rich pudding.

Next up was the Reserve Port from Van Zeller, young ports really cope where other dessert wine falter, try it lightly chilled, it was rich and robust with the pudding and if you have overdone the Christmas dinner its great with a couple of mince pies.

And finally we drank the Dios Baco Pedro Ximenez sherry, this is sweet syrup, liquid raisins and figs, in a glass, almost two sweet for the pudding, amazing with vanilla ice-cream and a huge favourite for those with a sweet sweet tooth.

Clare is keeping the original recipe a family secret.

Ingredients  

Peter Ward Fruits, Sugar, Eggs, Nuts, Spices, Salt, Brandy, Rum, Flour.

I can now officially say I have been in business for myself as a wine merchant, for over one month. Although that’s such a small period of time for any business, I would like to pass on some nuggets of information I’ve learned so far.

I had thought that opening a wine shop in the teeth of a recession would mean my real worries would be overheads and insane professional fees (and insane professionals) but no. It’s my poor achin’ legs and feet! Don’t get me wrong, overheads costs and insane professionals and their fees have all taken their toll on my previously unfurrowed brow but what keeps me awake at night, mainly with cramps, is the oul’ calves and feet. In my previous life I might have walked forty minutes to the office, another thirty ambling at lunchtime and again forty coming home. Now I spend most of my day on my feet, talking to customers and walking around the shop showing them the finest wines available to humanity. This is over an eight hour day. Not the less than two hours spent casually strolling which once passed for exercise.

I’ve tried runners, I tried Sketchers and Doc Marten’s. I’ve tried soft soles, hard soles and I would have worn sandals if there weren’t obvious Health & Safety concerns over my exposed blue throbbing feet. I’ve tried boots that were previously more comfortable than a T.D.’s lifestyle and shoes more supportive than an amateur boxer’s mother. None helped. The stylish pointy Italian shoes were no worse nor no better than the barge shaped Hush Puppies. There would be nothing for it but to persevere and build up calves that would do a senior county hurler proud.  My daughter, who works in the hotel industry, tells me that my legs and feet will adjust after two or three weeks but then again she comes from a long line of liars.

It does mean that I’ve shelved my plans to visit the gym in the mornings as all this footwork has the added benefit of weight loss. Slowly but surely the pounds I put on while getting the shop together are falling off again. Result! Of course my increased consumption of wine (research don’t ya know) might take the gloss off that but, on balance, I’m a happy wine merchant as I hobble home in the evening.

To celebrate the new arrival date we had a special tasting in the Wine Buff Cork on Thursday night, with a group of ten French wine drinkers (no pressure)  and two of the wines tasted on the night were the Beuajolais Nouveau 2011 from George Duboeuf and Chateau de Vaux Beaujolais Villages 2009, these wines are made from the same grape but that’s where the similarity ends, lets just say it was a resounding 10 to nil for the villages.

So what’s it all about? Beaujolais Nouveau is a funny thing, people get worked up about it, wine connoisseurs  turn their noses up at it. For reasons not entirely clear, in the 1990s the Japanese went completely gaga for the wine and became the world’s largest consumer of Beaujolais Nouveau and, increasingly, Germans and Americans—flash cash to get their hands on it.

Anyone within a wheelbarrow’s journey of the Beaujolais wine-growing region is either planning festivities, maximizing their profit margin, or both.  By the time it is over, over 65 million bottles, nearly half of the region’s total annual production, will be distributed and drunk around the world.

It is a triumph of marketing and promotion, mostly due to the efforts of local negociant George Duboeuf.

Basically, the guys in the cartoon are more in touch with Beaujolais Nouveau than the so called wine connoisseurs.

Without going  into unnecessary detail, let’s just say that most years it’s not very good. Beaujolais Nouveau is as about as close to white  wine as a red wine can get, due to the way it is made, no dryness, leaving an easy to drink, fruity wine.

It tastes better when chilled, this makes for a festive wine to be gulped rather than sipped, enjoyed in high spirits rather than critiqued…… in any case, a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau is a fun way to mark the calendar, a yearly wine ritual that you can share with wine drinkers all over the world.

Asun, a pharmacist by profession, sold her pharmacy in 2009 and was searching for a rewarding business opportunity when she encountered The Wine Buff. Asun is confident The Wine Buff’s concept of extraordinary wines @ ordinary prices, suits the Spanish market, especially in the current economic climate. So confident in fact, she has plans for two further boutiques in Salamanca and Caceres.

The opening of the new Wine Buff shop was attended by over 250 visitors to the shop and the selection of French wine is proving a winner with the Spanish customers.