Friend's pre-60th birthday dinner@Pauillac

Hugo with the guacamole & king prawn

23 August 2009

Menu cooked by Hugo Naon

Hugo used to be at Cordeillan-Bages and Café Lavinal. He is now planning to open a restaurant in central Bordeaux. He agreed to cook this special dinner at our friend's house in Pauillac. Much of the preparation was done beforehand with Hugo cooking and assembling the dishes on the night. It was a great treat to watch Hugo at work and also to see how much could be prepared in advance.

Les mises en bouches

Foccacia & Grisini with dips:

Anchoiade

Caponata

Cebiche

Guacamole & king prawn
All good but the guacamole and the king prawn along with the cebiche, made from maigre – a local fish – were standouts.

Entrée

Tomatoes, rocket, peppers

Marinated tomatoes and a pungent rocket salad from Derek’s garden
The tomatoes were roasted in an oven for 12 hours at a low heat and this was a simple but delicious dish

Pasta

Spaghetti & clams
A great Italian classic – again apparently simple but wonderfully flavoursome.

Main course

Hugo salting the lamb

Hugo was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where kids are taught to barbecue almost before they can walk. Hugo has revolutionised our Pauillac friends' barbecueing technique by showing how to build up a pile of hot coals on one side of the bbq and to regulate the heat by moving coals across as they are required. Also a lot of the cooking is done at a much higher height than most people customarily use, so avoiding the charred and blackened offerings that are typical of many bbqs.

Herb scented & grilled rack of lamb on a crusty polenta with 'petites legumes'
Just as delicious and succulent as the photo suggests.

Cheese

Dessert
The British-Italian connection: a trifle of summer pudding, vanilla ice cream & zabaglione Jean-Pierre's
Assorted berries from the Marche des Capucins in Bordeaux and a team effort in whipping up the zabaglione.

The wines:

We started with some Champagne from Eric Léger.

2001 Les Cormiers, Saumur Blanc Château de Villeneuve

The quality of Jean-Pierre Chevallier's top Saumur greatly impressed the eight of us, particularly two of our Pauillac friends' neighbours who said that there was nothing like this in Bordeaux. Initially the first bottle showed a little wood spice but this soon disappeared and the power, richness and complexity of Les Cormiers 2001 came through. The second bottle was a little more austere and mineral – clear bottle variation here. The 2001 Les Cormiers may well live longer than the 2001 Grand Clos that we drank the previous evening. If this wine wasn't appellation Saumur, it would be considered as one of France's Grand Vins.

2002 La Fleur Milon, Pauillac

The 2002 Fleur Milon drinking very well now with soft, supple black fruits underlaid by that typical Médoc tannin and austerity – good match with the lamb.

2007 Rémus, Montlouis, Domaine de la Taille aux Loups

2007 is the latest release of Rémus and it sold out within a couple of months.Served with the cheese, where despite being really too young its quite lean minerality worked well. 2007 is a vintage that should age well.

This 1990 Vouvray was a glorious finale from Bernard Fouquet. Mid-golden in colour with rich honeyed, 0apricot confit fruit and barley sugar flavours plus wonderful texture, this was a treat: a wine to sip slowly. Given its concentration it went well with our dessert. At the Vouvray Foire aux Vins one of the Vigneau-Chevreau brothers maintained that its is 1990 that is the greater vintage in comparison to 1989. I don't agree and I think both Noël Pinguet and Philppe Foreau believe that 1989 is superior to 1990, albeit that 1990 produced some very rich wines but 1989 has more complexity and finesse. Whatever Bernard's 1990 Selection des Grains Nobles is a reamrkable wine.

1990 Le Marigny SGN Vouvray Moelleux, Domaine des Aubuisières

The birthday boy – 'always worth practising before the event....'