the showroom vs Aubergine

The contrasting styles of the showroom's Bruce Robertson and Aubergine's Harald Bresselschmidt made for a fascinating chef shootout with the focal point the winner of the FNB WINE magazine Chenin Blanc Challenge. Jean-Pierre Rossouw reports.

THE CONTESTANTS
Bruce Robertson, owner/chef at the showroom,10 Hospital Street, Harbour Edge, Green Point, Cape Town.
Tel 021 421 4682

Harald Bresselschmidt, owner/chef at Aubergine, 39 Barnet Street, Gardens, Cape Town.
Tel 021 465 4909

THE JUDGES
Pete Goffe-Wood: Chef and restaurant consultant Jean-Pierre Rossouw: Wine writer and author of Rossouw's Restaurants.

THE MYSTERY WINE
KWV Val du Chêne 2004, the 2007 FNB WINE Magazine Chenin Blanc Challenge winner

In the 19th century, impressionism was born out of a desire to capture the subtle "here and now", to suspend the moment with its vagrant heart but at the same time be true to its ephemeral character. Instead of painting idealised, frozen versions of scenes or people, the impressionists wanted to capture the temporary instant, to suggest the transient energies of a fixed point in the flow of light and colour. Think Monet's water lilies, Degas' ballerinas and Renoir's waterside picnic scenes, all a little fuzzy with the knowledge of no absolute. One of the novel techniques that they used to achieve this aim in painting was the short, broken brush stroke which did not define a line or enforce boundaries - instead these merely suggested lines with their quick, imprecise stabs. The effect was an image that looked far more fluid, far less formal and definite, effectively communicating the constantly changing nature of the world.

As an approach to pairing wine and food, the spirit of impressionism holds great promise. Like so much else - but even more acutely - wine and food are either tragically or thankfully transient. When the two of them meet in a happily agreeable fashion this rendezvous is even more fleeting, since both are undergoing constant change, and responding to one another. Part of the beauty, part of the allure - part of the chef's challenge.

Harald Bresselschmidt's response to the mystery Chenin Blanc was a dish that had a distinctly impressionistic appearance, and the likeness did not end there. Kingklip poached in a green tea broth and topped with rough-chopped prawn, accompanied by sautéed strips of yellow pepper, all with saffron tones. The plate looked light and textured: the natural flakiness of kingklip and the loose blockish appearance of the prawn haché, the monochromatic whites and variations of yellow all conspiring to mimic the look of the broken brush stroke.

There was an immediate synergy with the golden colour of the wine, and Harald's description of the wine, as he saw it, explained the particular ingredients and the ultimate style of the dish. "This wine wasn't showing typical Chenin fruit and could easily have been overwhelmed, therefore all the flavours needed to be subtle, the peppers sautéed, for example, and not roasted. I tasted a distinct mid-palate of green tea, and the saffron was added to complement the fine-texture of the wine's nose, rather Chablis-like. I liked the firmness of the wine, therefore I thought of kingklip, and I like pairing prawn with kingklip. I thought the food needed to carry the wine."

But to take a few steps back in time. Chef-judge Pete Goffe-Wood and I had tasted the wine before we saw the dish and before Bresselschmidt later explained his pairing. The fine nose with its hints of mineral and spice under quiet golden delicious apple tones was followed by a briefly rich palate, then a dry finish that did not impress either of us with great staying power. In order to maintain absolute secrecy, the wine had been bottled under screwcap and in an inexpensive green bottle, but this belied the clearly greater presumptions the wine had for its future.

Interestingly, when Bresselschmidt described the wine to us, we were in complete agreement with his assessment, which admittedly creates the feeling of imminent success that comes out of confirmation bias. "He's got an instinctive palate and he's obviously tasted the stuff," was Goffe-Wood's typically direct-and-enthusiastic comment, "and an instinctive palate is a good palate whether its whisky, wine or food - you can't teach it, just like you couldn't train Carl Lewis to be fast."

"Are you punting the idea of genius?" I asked Goffe-Wood, and he replied: "Look, there are consistent journeymen out there in every walk of life, but the next level is frequented by people that have a gift." As he warmed to his subject (and quickly cleared the plate), Goffe-Wood even admitted that he was not a fan of either kingklip or yellow peppers, but that the ensemble had worked extremely well with the wine. We both agreed that Bresselschmidt had succeeded in balancing the retiring palate of the wine with subtle flavours that supported and enhanced it, never overshadowing it. When Bresselschmidt described his creation, he said that it was important to remember that this dish was a match for the here and now of the wine, at this point in its development, and was a flexible mirror of its changing moods. Impressionistic.

Bruce Robertson's response to this mystery Chenin Blanc was, on the other hand, pure pop art. The name of the dish would have been ample enough clue even if we hadn't had this name - "The Crayfish Magnum" - printed on acetate and literally wrapped around a golden-fried block on the plate. Yes, it was a play on a "Magnum" ice-cream. The acetate further explained: "Deep-fried in roasted pine nuts with a warm pineapple and foie gras cannelloni, and served with 'oodles of noodles' on a stick."

One of the tenets of pop art is that its themes are drawn from popular culture. These have been famous icons (Warhol's Marilyn Monroe) or advertising symbols (his Campbell's soup cans), and now we have Robertson's Magnum ice cream as a crayfish dish. And it was a proper ice cream too, sweet and wet inside the crust of roasted nuts. The cannelloni on the side (somewhat more classical…but pineapple and foie gras?) was in fact skewered by a chopstick which had the noodles wrapped around it like granny's knitting wool.

When Robertson later elaborated on the dish, we were told that there were 11 different noodles in the bundle at the end of the "knitting needle". He also announced that he had "gone for broke" on a dish to suit the mystery Chenin that he found to be "quite a big wine, big for a Chenin, with lots of texture". He immediately thought that his direction would be seafood with expressive flavour, and then, as his creative energies obviously gathered momentum, he thought: what about making crayfish as cold as possible? A little later he admitted that he had "shot from the hip" (is this fair in a shootout?) when he explained the pineapple marinated in chilli that was prepared with the foie gras. To our further questions on this element's very bold flavour, he defended it by stating "the wine offered an opportunity to do something quirky". Now in his stride, he began to compare the style of this Chenin to a Viognier with a surfeit of tropical fruit flavours.

Was this the same wine that we were drinking? Earlier, while Robertson and his team were scampering to assemble this arresting plate of visual delight, Goffe-Wood and I had re-tasted the wine, which seemed to be showing more honeyed richness, with an oxidative element creeping in. Still, it remained dry and firm-textured, with fine flavours. Neither of us ever found it particularly fruit-effusive.

When we then paired it to the dish, the wine bobbed about like a dinghy on a heavy sea - now you see it, now you don't. The Chenin was well suited to the nutty crust of the "Magnum," but less well to the too-instantly melted crayfish interior with its sweet flavour. It was again alluring with the creamy foie gras, but then the very spicy pineapple overpowered it. In Goffe-Wood's opinion, the highlight of the dish was this pineapple and foie gras cannelloni ("it could be a brilliant dish on its own") but this element was obscured by the wig of noodles. "Why have noodles when you already have a 'starch' in the crust?" was Goffe-Wood's (rather formal) question.

At the same time, the excitement level in anticipation of eating this plate was very high, and if we ate with our eyes Robertson would be a clear winner. But the expectation was greater than the experience - a quality that was, we felt, shared by the wine. So perhaps this was the perfect match after all? Perhaps Robertson had philosophically seen to the heart of the matter?

But no, the nub is: is this mystery Chenin Blanc an impressionist wine, or a pop art wine? The chef's two approaches were diametrically opposed, but the wine remained the same. It was, to complete the art allegory, the one frame that we had to set the two plates in. To Goffe-Wood and me, this Chenin Blanc was clearly a better frame for impressionism than pop art. The subtlety of Bressel-schmidt's dish and its deft ability to coax the shy wine out was more successful than Robertson's plate, which seemed to be led by concept before it was informed by the character of this particular wine, at this point in its life.

Then again, both chefs were "merely" being true to their signature styles and it so happens that, this time, the wine favoured Bresselschmidt's more classic approach. And then there is the element of personal taste buds, where Robertson found the wine to be much more out-going and expressive than the rest of us had, and responded to that. But with both us/ judges agreeing with Bresselschmidt's interpretation of the wine, it was the turn of the taciturn maestro of Dunkley Square.