Ratatouille – a taste of perfection?
We have just finished a bottle of Ormer Bay Chenin Blanc 2005 – a fair-trade wine donated by our excellent Bishop Mark of Jarrow. Mark came to dinner recently, raising the question of what you serve to a friendly new bishop, but that’s for a later article.
We had to drink the wine with ratatouille, having seen the animated film of the same name last week. The two went well together, the wine’s citrus and melon flavours and good acidity complementing the bite and flourish of the vegetables. Nearly, but not quite, as good as our usual favourite New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from Forrest Estate!
Ratatouille, the film that is, is special, and for surprising reasons. The unlikely tale of an animal version of Heston Blumenthal carries the viewer, not least where the animal concerned (Remy) is a rat. The inner workings of a fine French restaurant (Gusteau’s) are playfully defined, and all within the construct that food really does matter.
Wine gets a look in, but only just. Remy is the ‘brains’ behind the cooking of young Linguini, the kitchen porter turned chef extraordinaire. The dodgy new restaurant owner Skinner (played by Ian Holm) seeks to get Linguini drunk on Latour 61 (who wouldn’t succumb, and the bottle looked correct). Later, the wonderfully titled restaurant critic Anton Ego (Peter O’Toole) asks for Cheval Blanc 1947 to keep him amused. Labels of bottles later left on his table look much more like ... Lafite! (Having tasted the marvellous 49 Cheval Blanc, I can see why the 47 might be long gone).
The glory of the film is its ending, both for the tour de force of its imagination and for the unexpected lyricism of its final moments, truly leaving one with a truly wonderful finish.
We have just finished a bottle of Ormer Bay Chenin Blanc 2005 – a fair-trade wine donated by our excellent Bishop Mark of Jarrow. Mark came to dinner recently, raising the question of what you serve to a friendly new bishop, but that’s for a later article.
We had to drink the wine with ratatouille, having seen the animated film of the same name last week. The two went well together, the wine’s citrus and melon flavours and good acidity complementing the bite and flourish of the vegetables. Nearly, but not quite, as good as our usual favourite New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from Forrest Estate!
Ratatouille, the film that is, is special, and for surprising reasons. The unlikely tale of an animal version of Heston Blumenthal carries the viewer, not least where the animal concerned (Remy) is a rat. The inner workings of a fine French restaurant (Gusteau’s) are playfully defined, and all within the construct that food really does matter.
Wine gets a look in, but only just. Remy is the ‘brains’ behind the cooking of young Linguini, the kitchen porter turned chef extraordinaire. The dodgy new restaurant owner Skinner (played by Ian Holm) seeks to get Linguini drunk on Latour 61 (who wouldn’t succumb, and the bottle looked correct). Later, the wonderfully titled restaurant critic Anton Ego (Peter O’Toole) asks for Cheval Blanc 1947 to keep him amused. Labels of bottles later left on his table look much more like ... Lafite! (Having tasted the marvellous 49 Cheval Blanc, I can see why the 47 might be long gone).
The glory of the film is its ending, both for the tour de force of its imagination and for the unexpected lyricism of its final moments, truly leaving one with a truly wonderful finish.