Food & Wine

Bandol Wine in Black and White

I received a surprise text at 4:30 yesterday -

"Mike are you free? Can you join me at Ed's at 6 for a Bandol dinner? Joey"

Once in a great while my local wine purveyor & restaranteur opens his personal cellar and "sells off" a few bottles when he feels he has "too much". That was the case last night. Ed is a big fan of Domaine Tempier Bandol wine, and has been collecting cases of it for 20 years. For some reason he felt he was overstocked in Bandol, and together with Importer Kermit Lynch put together a special dinner featuring A LOT of this fine wine from the south of France.

Here's the menu card:

Rosé for starters. I'd say right away that it's the best Rose I've ever tasted. I immediately called the wine buyer over and asked for 6 bottles. Sadly, Kermit Lynch received only one case this year. But they brought it along and the crowd drank 5 during the reception, which left 7 to sell, and I got 3 of those. Alright, I'm okay with that.

White was poured for the starter. This is the bottle you will almost never see. Which is fine, as far as my taste buds are concerned. It was curious, unique and I didn't like it very much.

It did wash down the scallops nicely though. Not too much color tonight on the plates (I hope this won't offend, but I must add this was a virtually salad-free dinner planned by men, cooked by men, attended 3/4 by men). Definitely not vegan, vegetarian, or gluten-free.

Reds took over for the rest of the evening. Bandol is the only appellation wine in which Mourvèdre is the dominant grape variety. Some are up to 95% with tiny blending percentages. Most of the old bottles came from Ed's celllar (or so he implied).

Bandol doesn't exactly blow their budget on bottle labels, as you can see. One of our two servers was quite proud of her newly-painted nails which matched the Bandol red wine perfectly, so I asked her to show them to you.

My watch for the night.

The quail were deboned except for the tiny drumsticks, and they were the best I've ever had. The stuffing contained brioche, golden raisins, garlic & parsley and the little guys were sleeping on a bed of farro (an ancient grain).

To accompany the next course we had another vertical comparison of Bandol Reds. The 2004 La Migoua is a single vineyard bottle where the 2008 is their regular blend.

I've only had roast goose a few times and this was by far the best. WOW! what a great taste and texture. This was served on a egg-potato pancake (or omelet?) with cabbage and spiced carrots. The Bandols were perfect (and I admit by this time I was slightly unable to tell them apart).

Next came two more single-vineyard special bottlings, from about a decade ago. They were pulling out all the stops to tackle the lamb chops on polenta!

The nails lady again

This is the only bit that fell short of fantastic. My 4 little lamb chops could have used another minute or two on the grille. There must have been 50% corn, 50% cheese in the polenta. It was great.

Finally they brought out the last bottle of Bandol. It was very rich and complemented the "cheese course" perfectly.

Chef Juan has been working with Ed for 36 years. I have to admit that I have been eating their food for at least 30 of those years, if not more. This cheese plate is a simplified version of Chef Juan's heart-clogging Stilton cheese loaf. He shared the recipe with me in the mid-1990's and I've made it a half-dozen times.

Take 2 pounds (1 Kilo) of fine Stilton at room temperature and mix with 1 stick of butter. Blend together until creamy and green throughout. Then mix in about 4 oz. (100g) of dried fruit and pistachios. Line a loaf pan (as for pate) with plastic wrap and pack in half the cheese mixture. Place two logs of chevre cheese into the loaf pan, as a "core" through the loaf, then fill the rest of the pan with the remaining green cheese mixture. Chill for a day at least to let the flavors meld. In the meantime, make a zucchini (or carrot) bread using molasses to sweeten instead of sugar.

Slice the bread and toast under a broiler until carmelized and crispy. Serve with a slice of the cheese loaf, a few pieces of dried fruits and nuts. In this case we had apricots, dates, and spicy carmelized pecans. Chef Juan did the spreading of the green/chevre cheese mixture on the toasts (saving himself the trouble of making the loaf).