Barolo and Satay

The buffet at the Pan Pacific Hotel offers an East meets West experience.  The vast amount of food on offer is mind boggling and the variety available is more than one can cover in one visit.  The type of food ranges from Japanese sushi, Thai tom yam, Hongkong tim sum to 'western' staples such as pasta dishes and grilled meats.  In my view, the most desirable dishes are those that hail from the South East Asian countries.

The wine for the meal was a 2007 Marcarini La Serra Barolo. From the Piedmont region of Italy and made from the nebbiolo grape, this was expected to be a medium bodied red wine which should go well with the Asian food available.  The wine had a fruity and floral bouquet which was a pleasant  introduction to the taste to come.  Not very complex in taste but it has a very smooth velvety finish that makes you reach for the glass more quickly than one should.  Opened just before the meal, the soft tannins of the wine smoothened out quite quickly and the wine was drink-friendly in 30 minutes.  The cherry - raisin fruitiness of the wine was a good complement to the Thai pandan chicken and fried rice.  It was an excellent pairing with the mutton satay, with the acidity of the wine providing a good balance with the strong sweet/spicy taste of the peanut sauce.  

Barbera d'Alba and CKT

One of best things about living in Singapore is the wide range of dining options. Very high quality food is available throughout the day and night and for all sizes of wallets.

One of my all-time favourites is the humble char kway teow. In this instance, I preferred to have it as a take-away - not only for the option of eating it in the comfort of home, but also because the char kway teow was served in the traditional dried opeh leaf. Encased in such a leaf, the noodles will have a chance to absorb its fragrant leafy aroma on its way home.   Eaten at the stall, the opeh will hardly have any material effect on the taste, mainly providing some tactile and visual enhancement to the consumption process.

To go with this dish I decided to pull out a bottle of 2007 Luigi Pira Barbera d'Alba. One of the more affordable wines from this well regarded Italian wine producer, the Barbera d'Alba provided a good match for the simple but tasty Singapore dish.  Slightly earthly with a hint of cherry, it was a light-bodied and easy drinking wine that suited the casualness of today's lunch.  Although the taste did not last very long on the palate, it nevertheless provided sufficient weight to the strong tastes of the sweet sauce and lap cheong in the dish.  All in all, at about $35, it was good value for money and I would recommend this to go with a casual meal.

 Burgundy and Peking Duck

The challenge with selecting a bottle of wine to go with dinner for two at a Chinese restaurant lies in the wide variety of food available in the menu and the unknown food choices we might make when we get there. Ideally, one should bring along both a white and a red for full optionality.  However, for two moderate drinkers, turning up at the restaurant armed with two bottles for a casual dinner seemed a bit excessive.  In such circumstances a burgundy is often a good bet, being versatile enough to be compatible with a wide range of Chinese food including some types of seafood and meat dishes.

The wine I decided on was a 2011 Morey St Denis Clos Solon VV, Domaine Fourrier. At a youthful age of only three years, it was still very fresh and was bursting out with fruitiness. With soft silky tannins, it was very balanced, with the some sweetness of fruit.  The smell and taste of red cherries coming foremost to mind.  This was a very good bottle of wine that performed especially well in light of its humble village wine status, and at less than $90,  was also very good value.  

As you can see from the photo, one of the dishes ordered was Peking duck. The MSD was a superb pairing with the light and crispy duck skin.  The sweetness of the wine blended well with the sweet sauce in the pastry.  The acidity of the wine provided a refreshing contrast to the second preparation of the duck meat which was fried and served with fresh lettuce leaves.  

Lunch at Basilico

Lunch at Basilico in the Regent Hotel. This is arguably the best buffet lunch in Singapore.  While some other places can boast of a larger spread,  I think the quality of the food here, especially the antipasti, is one of the best.  The highlights were the many types of cured meats, olives and grilled vegetables in typical Italian style.  There is also a large selection of warm food, of which the smoked duck and lamb chops were my favourites.  The wine selected was a 1995 Chateau Boyd Cantenac, a rarely seen third-growth from the Margaux region of Bordeaux.

The bottle was opened just before lunch began.  The nose was very light with not much of a bouquet to speak of.   The taste was gentle, with a hint of berries, quite typical of a Margaux.  At 19 years, all the tannins have been softened and it was a very smooth and easy drinking wine.  The wine was probably at or just past its peak and will not improve further.  

It went very well with a majority of the dishes, especially with the antipasti such as the proscuitto and rock melon combination.  The soft fruitiness of the wine complemented the salty, sweet and slightly meaty taste of the antipasto. 

Last week I had a chance to taste a 2007 Pichon-Longueville Baron from a half bottle format (375 ml).

As many of you probably know,  Pichon Baron is a second-growth wine from the Paulliac region of Bordeaux and 2007 is generally thought of as a low year for Bordeaux wine.  

The bottle was opened half an hour before a casual take-out Italian meal of beef lasagna and grilled vegetables from Galbiati Gourmet Deli. So how did a "good" wine perform in a "bad" year?

I was pleasantly surprised by the 'strength' of the wine which still had the characteristic taste of a Pichon Baron.  Some Bordeaux wines from the 2007 which I had tasted were distinctively watered-down and had lost their unique flavours. Still by no means inexpensive, the 2007 Pichon Baron was sold at a lower price than those from the better vintages.  Maybe the satisfaction was even higher because of the lowered expectations, but overall I thought it was good value for money and would certainly recommend it.

What I liked about this wine was that it was medium-bodied and fragrant, which went well with the meal. Most importantly, it did not overpower the taste of the food, although with hindsight, the choice of this wine may not have been the best combination with this meal.  The gentle and rounded nature of the wine went well with grilled vegetables but a more robust wine like a Brunello would be more suitable to cut through the oiliness of the lasagna.  

Welcome to my blog. Here, I will share my encounters with wine and related topics.  Thank you for reading!