For one night only in November Teddington Wine Society enjoyed an evening of fortified wines matched with food. A great opportunity to try wines we normally reserve for the start of the end of an evening, which revealed how beautifully gastronomic they are!
With our tapas of olives, tortilla, jamón and almonds we had a single vineyard Fino Sherry, a 10 Year Old Sercial Madeira and a Moscatel de Setúbal from Portugal. The bone dry sherry and high acidity madeira were particularly good food matches, setting us up nicely for main course.
Chicken Forestière (from M&S) went beautifully with a slightly sweet VOS Oloroso sherry – VOS is only used for sherries whose solera has wines with an average age of at least 20 years, and in this case Valdespino had been maintaining their solera since 1842, with a blend of 90% Palomino grapes and 10% Pedro Ximénez grapes (which had been dried in the sun so added the sweetness). The Marsala 10 year old Superiore Riserva (very much a step up from the Marsalas we may remember from the 70s which were only suitable for cooking or if it rocked your boat egg nog) was perhaps a little too sweet to go with a savoury dish, but still lovely.
A couple of tawny ports and a 10 Year Old Malvasia Madeira (aka Malmsey) accompanied some cake, 70% dark chocolate and blue cheese – definitely a match in there somewhere that suited everyone.
A super evening!
For details of the wines please go to the Wines we have tasted page.
