On Burgundies and Soup

Unfortunately most of life’s luxuries cost money. One of these luxuries that I love is Burgundy wine and personally I normally buy premier Cru Burgundies as I can’t afford the Grand Cru and the lower levels of burgundy are so often a disappointment. I normally buy my premier Cru Burgundies in France but locally in Farnham we are lucky enough to have an excellent wine shop selling those expensive wines for special occasions – Imbibros.  I have tried some of their wines - excellent!  Their web site is

http://www.imbibros.co.uk/.

One my food loves is soup and the kitchen gadget that is expensive but indispensable for making Michelin Star quality smooth soups is the Thermomix. Want to learn more, go tohttp://www.whyisthereair.com/

The other weekend I combined these two loves. We were having a gorgeous rib of beef cooked French style like a steak and I decided that a Nuits St Georges would be the perfect accompaniment. Cheese would obviously make a perfect third course but what would make a perfect first course to go with a Premier Cru red Burgundy? I didn’t want to go for an obvious choice such as something Burgundian and eventually hit on the idea of a White Bean Soup. It was a marriage made in heaven. The ingredients were a small tin of cannellini beans, 4 cloves of garlic, a large potato, a small onion and some fresh herbs from the garden (at this time of the year just sage, rosemary and a little thyme). All of this was put in the Thermomix, sautéed in a little olive oil plus some oil from a jar of Anchovies (my special secret ingredient but don't use too much!), and then water added, cooked for fifteen minutes and then blitzed for 30 seconds. Smooth, delicious and a great food pairing for the Nuits St Georges.

By the way, the reason I love burgundies are that they are probably the most versatile food wines and also great for drinking on their own. So many people pick a Bordeaux to go with their steak but for me it would be Burgundy every time. Luckily, I am a lamb lover too and this is where Bordeauxs reign supreme and those special Graves or Medocs come into play..... but for so much food from fish to chicken to beef, Pinot Noir is the winner.

By the way, the Nuits St Georges was purchased in Auchan in France in 2009 for a very reasonable €23.   It was from the excellent Les Vaucrains vineyard and was made by the grower Domaine Christian Confurons & fils.  A 2006, I scored it a 16/20 as it had a lovely spicy cherry flavour.