Match of the week

Langoustines and caviar with Faiveley’s Puligny Montrachet 1er cru La Garenne 2009

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on November 26 2012 at 09:16

A celestial combination I enjoyed at a burgundy dinner at the Grand Hotel de Bordeaux last week. Burgundy in Bordeaux? Yup - I guess they want to ring the changes from time to time but it does seem heretical.

It also seems on the face of it an unlikely combination particularly with red burgundy but the way the chef Pascal Nibaudeau got round it was to incorporate caviar (Caviar d’Aquitaine from Sturia) into other burgundy-friendly dishes.

This dish, for instance, owed as much to the accompanying sweet, fat langoustine, risotto and creamy, delicately saffron-flavoured sauce as it did to the caviar although the caviar certainly accented the beautifully pure, crisp Puligny perfectly.

Incidentally I found this interesting description of the background to the wine from Haynes, Hanson Clark who sell it for £48.90 a bottle.

"This is only the second vintage since this vineyard was acquired by the Domaine. It covers less than one fifth of a hectare, producing just five barrels in 2009, the wine being vinified and aged in one third new barrels. La Garenne's situation high on the hillside has allowed admirable acidity and minerality to be retained, giving the wine outstanding balance and potential (for drinking 2012-2020+)".

A classic combination in the great tradition of French haute cuisine but none the worse for that.

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