Well, it came and went like Christmas and it was so much fun that I’m already thinking about the next one! That’s the Wine Tasting and Food Pairing Seminar we have at Smith’s School of English in Kotoen, usually three or four times a year depending on the number of students involved and who’s driving.
This time around there was a full house of six and the participants brought something to the table making for a kind-of-pot-luck-wine-and-cheese english lesson! It was wonderful and completely unplanned and unexpected!
Wines were centered on French Bordeaux and included three different vintages, all low-priced and very, very delicious. The message here for all would-be wine lovers out there is that any perceived relationship between taste and price is pure myth. There are countless vintages from all over the world offering world-class for less than 800-yen a bottle!
Food included at least five kinds of cheese. Two of the most popular were the Old Dutch Master which is truly wonderful, and Mimolette which is truly expensive. One is left to wonder whether the wine doesn’t in fact exist to complement the cheese rather than any notion of the other way around! Another person brought gorgonzola which is interesting but not really suitable in this kind of situation, at least not for most people.
The most interesting food by far was the roast pork tenderloin baked in a red wine demi glace sauce after thorough cooking to produce a perfectly tender and complementary dish to the Bordeaux vintages. The pork was made by my darling wife Yoko and ended up being everyone’s favorite dish at the seminar! Obviously there were no vegetarians around! Ha ha!
Martin Werner Zander, Smith’s Partner
マーティン・ワーナー・ザンダー
Owner, Smith’s School of English in Kotoen
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