A quiet night at La Luna

Taking the very, long way home last night, I found myself walking down Rathdowne Street in Carlton where I spotted a couple of shady looking blokes drinking Moo Brew down a side street. Although there about 4 million people in Melbourne, I knew it was highly likely one of them would be Dan Clarke. Sure [...]

Melbourne Food and Wine Festival Spanish Masterclass

was lucky enough to get a seat at a couple of very good master classes last week. Put on by the Australian Sommeliers Association and the Spanish Trade Commission, there were two sessions complete with a panel of local and imported personalities and lots of goodies in between the sessions. A lot of work had obviously gone into setting up these tastings, the very nice upstairs room at Comme was the location and a number of hard to get wines where flown in from Spain. A lot of support from all the major importers as well.

Apart from the wine there were a number of good Spanish things to munch on, cheese, olives, bread etc. But the real standout was the Jamon Iberico from Broadway Gourmet. I think I ate about half a kilo of the stuff, so I feel qualified to say that this particular Jamon is the best I have had in Australia, really well flavored and textured, impossible to pass up. It not avilable at retail in Melbourne yet, so you’ll have to go to Movida to try some.

On to the tastings. The first session was titled “The New Spain” and was intended to show modern styles of white and red wines from a number of regions in Spain, as well as some classic sherries. The second tasting was all about Tempranillo from three regions: Rioja, Ribera del Duero and Toro. I’ll write that up separately. Each tastings had a panel of 5 up the front, including Jose Ramon Calvo from the renowned Mugaritz restaurant in San Sabasitan. Each section started with a bit of background and history from Jose Ramon and Raúl Moreno Yagüe from SOS (now moving on to Vue de Monde), then a few comments from the rest of the panel.

Vega Sicilia Dinner

I went to a great event hosted by Randalls and Negociants on Thursday the 27th with almost the entire Vega Sicilia team. The guys had been ensconced in the big private room out the back of the Botanical on Domain Rd, South Melbourne. To start with, the food was outstanding, a fantastic egg and truffle dish and a glorious beef cheek dish where the highlights for me. The service was also excellent, professional and friendly.

But really the main focus here was the almost complete range of wines produced by Vega Sicilia, Pintia, Alion, Valbuena and Uncio. Plus two Tokaji wines form their estate in Hungry. The only wine missing was Unico Reserva Especial.