The South West comes to SW London

The following menu was devised by chef Jacky Lelievre of the excellent Butcher’s Hook restaurant

Rabbit, foie gras & hazelnut terrine
Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh Doux, Symphonie d’Automne
The sinewy meat of the rabbit melded into the smooth buttery sweetness of the foie gras served with a fig cooked in sweet wine. The Pacherenc, an amber-gold Gascon blend of 90% Petit Manseng and 10% Courbu, displayed a nose of confit and dried fruits and marzipan with a hint of white peach and an elegant palate with notes of pain perdu and a lovely final touch of “fresh sweetness”. The food and wine marriage is a celebration of harvest plenty; it is a decadent combination.

Salt cod, piquillos & piment d’espelette
Jurancon sec, Clos Lapeyre
The brandade was particularly velvety and creamy given a piquant peppery jolt by the piment. The Jurancon was ideal. Lovely nose of white flower and marzipan, sharp attack on the palate with dancing acidity bringing out the pure crystalline citrus fruit flavours: lemon and pink grapefruit, zesty cleansing finish. It is a wine that does not so much complement as refreshes the palate allowing the interplay of flavours and textures in the dish. 
Wild ceps, duck egg, scrambled egg, Ossau Irraty
Marcillac Cuvee Lairis, Jean-Luc Matha
Characteristic south west fusion of the produce of the farm with the pasture and the forest. The ceps were rightly the dominant flavour with their bosky warmth; the egg was sweet and rich, whilst the shavings of Ossau Iraty, a ewe’s cheese from the Basque country, provided salty-nutty tones. Marcillac from Matha always takes me through the farmyard, through the fields into the deep dark woods. Booming rustic nose of smoked ham, pepper (paprika), heather and wild herbs, vibrant palate of plum-skins, morello cherries and currants with a haunting earthiness and jagged uncertainly. A totally individual wine.

Monkfish, leeks & red wine
Chateau Plaisance Classique, Cotes du Frontonnais
The plump Monkfish noisettes were wrapped in duck caul and roasted to retain their firmness but with enough give to soak up a truly intense red wine reduction wherein the caramelised leeks and shallots had conferred an almost balsamic sweetness. This powerfully flavoured dish demanded a red wine. The Plaisance is at the lighter end of the structural spectrum, but with its ripe morello cherry and red plum flavours and notes of bitter almond and white pepper finishing on pomegranate juice freshness it served to gently accompany rather than battle the food on its own level.

Cassoulet
Cahors, Clos de Gamot
Religious tracts, and doubtless, sonnets, have been written about le vrai cassoulet. This was a fluid affair rather than one of the densely rich, fatty, meaty versions one often sees. Some duck stock added at the end loosened the mixture and gave it a nice freshness. Clos de Gamot make a traditionally styled, marvellously aromatic, sinuous sluicer of a Cahors with subtle scents of fennel, menthol, tea-chest, wild roses and peppercorn, joyously fresh with the merest drag of tannin but plenty of lingering acidity. As you might expect it was an effortless partnership; not only does the nature of the food make you thirsty for some cleansing red wine, the wine equally seeks out something gutsy to play against. The wine with its herbal/savoury notes provides a kind of delicate seasoning for the dish.

Canneles Bordelais, prunes & roast pear
Jurancon Magendia de Lapeyre
The cannel, a type of small cake with grooves running down the side, is of Bordelais origin. A good cannele should be lightly crunchy and a very dark brown on the outside with a creamy crepe-like consistency on the inside. As an accompaniment one would be looking for that balance of sweetness and freshness and here the late-harvest Magendia from Clos Lapeyre comes into its own, for it is the sublime expression of sweet fruit: mangoes, coconut, grapefruit and banana bound by crystal-pure acidity. It is a tropical fruit explosion, sunny flavours with the barest whiff of honey, but for all its apparent sweetness there is an energetic (ripe) citrus edge that keeps the wine delightfully clean in the mouth.