Good food, good wine, great company

Anatomy of a dinner party

Take six charming people, let the table groan with food, ply with sublime wine and you have a deliciously memorable evening.

Aperitif

2009 Malvasia Rosa Rosato Frizzante, Donati
A gem, a pearl, a precious wine by any standards, this twinkling sparkler brings the fragrance of the meadow to your glass with its sweet freesia and oh-so-pretty stock-laden perfumes but retains its edge by being dry with crisp, refreshing bubbles. Unlike other Donati wines it begins translucent but by the end it reverts to murky type with all the oozy-gungy deposited goodness you will always find lurking at the bottom of an unfiltered vino veritas.

A Multitude of Crostini
If you are making lots of different types of crostini or mini toasts make sure that they are bite sized and that the topping doesn’t fall off them when you pick them up.

Chicken liver and crispy sage
Trim the chicken livers and cut into thumbnail sized pieces. Pat try on some kitchen paper.
Heat a little groundnut oil in a small pan and fry in small batches on a high heat so crispy and firm on the outside but pink on the inside. Put aside in a bowl.
Add some more oil to the pan and fry the sage leaves a few at a time until crisp. Pile the livers on the toasts and top with a single sage leaf.

Smoked goose, beetroot chutney, rocket
Toast some pain poilane or sourdough rye bread and put a slice of smoked goose, topped with a dollop of my mother-in-law’s organic spicy beetroot chutney and a peppery rocket leaf to finish

Tomato, garlic, basil and extra virgin oil
Make sure you have good ripe tomatoes.
Plunge into boiling water for a few seconds and then into cold water. Slide the skin off, pull out the seeds and core and roughly chop the flesh. Season with a pinch of sea salt and pepper and set aside.
Toast the bread. Make small cuts into the toast with a knife. Gently rub the garlic back and forth and drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil. Top with the diced tomatoes and roughly shredded basil leaves

Cannellini bean and rosemary
Drain a can of cannellini beans. Warm some thinly sliced garlic and olive oil in a pan and add the beans. Stir the mixture and coat liberally with oil. Add some pounded fresh rosemary. Put the mixture in a bowl and fork through until it is the consistency of paste.

Fresh crab, parsley and lemon
Mix the crab with lemon zest, some lemon juice, parsley and a dollop of mayo or aioli. Spoon mixture over toasts

Black olive tapenade
Couple of large handfuls of marinated stoned olives (preferably the ones marinated in Provencale herbs, lemon and a touch of chilli). 3 anchovies, 3 tbs of salted capers washed. 2 cloves of garlic. Small handful of fresh herbs (basil, lemon thyme etc). Put all the ingredients into a food processor and whizz. Add a little bit of olive oil (or mix of olive and extra virgin) until it is the consistency you like. I prefer my tapenade slightly course in texture.

2007 Fiano Don Chisciotte, Il Tufiello
2003 Arbois Pupillin, Emmanuel Houillon – 50cl
The Fiano from high altitude vineyards had a beautifully restrained minerality, a definite saltiness characteristic of its volcanic soil and delicate drinkability (sporting a mere 12% abv).

The Savagnin from Houillon tastes like a surrogate sherry (think Amontillado) and as such is the perfect accompaniment to the various canapés. Light gold in colour, delightful savoury nose of churned salt butter, roast cumin, caraway and ginger beer, apple-skin and sherry-tone palate with lengthening acidity.

Bagna Cauda
Peel one bulb of garlic (about twelve cloves)
Put them in a saucepan, cover with milk and bring to a simmer
Rinse about 15 anchovies in cold running water and set aside.
Heat some olive oil in a pan and stir the anchovies in. Eventually they will start to break up and melt. Crush the softened garlic with a fork and add to the anchovy mixture and stir to incorporate. Add a little bit of butter at a time to emulsify. You can also add a spoonful of cream to make it richer.

Serve with

Peeled new potatoes
Quails’ eggs
French radishes
Raw peppers
Celery
Fennel
Apples
Carrots
Runner beans
2009 Uva Arbosiana, Evelyne & Pascal Clairet
Normally I would pair this classic northern Italian harvest dish with a rustic Barbera, a sour Gutturnio or a cheeky Freisa. Instead I chilled this carbo-Arbois cherry-juice red made from Ploussard and it made for good gulping fodder.

Osso Buco Milanese
4 osso buco
Sieve some flour and season. Dust the osso buco with the flour then tie them with some kitchen string so they don’t fall apart when cooking
Melt some butter in a large pan and brown the osso buco quickly on both sides. Remove to a warm dish.
Heat a little more butter and add a diced onion, some thinly-sliced carrots and celery. Cook until the onion is golden and the vegetables are soft.
Return the osso buco to the pan and pour over a cup of white wine. Add some seasoning and a bay leaf and some strands of saffron
Ladle in a couple of large spoons of meat stock, put a lid on the pan and simmer,
Every twenty minutes turn over the osso bucco and skim off any fat that has formed on the surface. Add more stock as necessary
After a couple of hours remove the osso buco and reduce the sauce a little. At the last minutes beat some butter into it to give it a glossier texture and add the gremolata (lemon zest, aromatic parsley – chopped, finely diced garlic)

Serve with…
Risotto Milanese
Grilled trevisseA bitter red leaf with fantastic flavour. Slice lengthways and then again so you have four pieces. Sprinkle with sea salt, plenty of black pepper and douse with olive oil. Grill for 5 minutes turning a couple of times. Just before serving drizzle with top quality balsamic vinegar

Yellow and green courgettes
Slice and put on a tray in a medium oven with salt, pepper, fresh rosemary and garlic cloves and drizzle with plenty of good olive oil

Sauteed wild mushrooms, garlic and parsley

2000 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva, Il Paradiso di Manfredi
2007 Montevertine Rosso, Montevertine
I decanted the Brunello a couple of hours before serving. This a wine that elicits Mamma Mias and Thank You for the Sangiovese. Dried, dark fruit on the nose verging on prune and date and notes of meat gravy. Full-bodied with a dense palate of ripe fruit and super silky tannins. This is a deep and beautiful red, delivering lots of subtle character, as harmonious as a self-conducting orchestra and yet as earthy as a walk through the woods in the middle of autumn. Mid red colour, eloquent nose of sanguine red fruits, perfumed fruit flavours in the mouth revealing fresh and confit cherries, beautifully velvety texture finished by delicious acidity and secondary notes of menthol, dark tea and cinnamon spice.

Montevertine is cut from the same Tuscan cloth. If Paradiso di Manfredi’s Brunello is the Harris tweed of fabrics, the smooth Montevertine has a silken countenance. Made from a native grape alliance of Sangiovese, Canaiolo, Colorino this medium ruby-red soon opens up in the glass revealing an ethereal, mid-weight wine possessing striking inner perfume of sweet red fruit, flowers and liquorice. Were it not for the tell-tale Sangiovese acidity, the 2007 Montevertine might easily be mistaken for Pinot Noir. There is remarkably purity and integrity to the wine, not to mention stunning clarity and finessed yet firm tannins that hold everything together all the way through to the long, finessed finish.

Cheese, walnuts, pears and chutney

2008 Girotondo Rosso, AA Panevino, Gianfranco Manca
A coup de foudre in every sense. A red that is not red (perhaps pinkish-amber?), a rich wine that manages to be exquisitely perfumed, a sweet wine that finishes dry. How to describe it – a pink Ripasso? Turkish delight, orange blossom, crystallised pink grapefruit, a delicate purity, incisive fruit, a sense of something reborn. If ever a wine encapsulated Ralph Waldo Emerson’s definition of beauty: “We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of many extremes.”

This is a wine where poetry and philosophy meet in one enchanting liquid. As its author describes:“ It is a wine of circles:  friends sitting around a hearth, telling stories to each other, this name picks up the circular theme of the traditional and quite formal Sardinian circular dance: ballu tundu ( round dance)”.