Wagyu, Pommery and Pommes Frites
Wagyu, Pommery and Pommes Frites
Meridian Wine Merchants MD Gavin Dittmar started at the top. As a 21-year old waiter at Blues in Camps Bay, drafted to pour '86 vintage Moët at Sol Kerzner's New Year bash at the Sun King's Leeukoppie Estate above Hout and Sandy Bays, Gavin remembers: "I'd never seen so many crayfish and prawns in my life. By 3am, the party was starting to wind down and a couple of us waiters sneaked a glass of Moët. The caterer saw us and hit the roof."
Two decades later, Gavin is still drinking the stuff although he's gone slightly up-market, to Pommery, which likes to think of itself somewhere between Moët and Veuve Clicquot on the Champagne family tree. As usually happens when you get older, his tastes have gone drier too, as Pommery Brut Royal NV (R479) at 11g/l residual sugar is slightly drier than SA market leader Moët at 14g/l, house bubbly for Julius Malema and his ANC Youth League.
But this time around, it's his fizz getting filched in the shape of Butcher's Shop & Grill proprietor Alan Pick pouring Gavin's elegantly etiolated Pommery Summertime Blanc de Blanc (R599) for two gorgeous young Black Diamantés at the next table. The best kind of light and refreshing tipple to lubricate a late summer afternoon.
"She's the administrative manager of the Gauteng Legislature," whispered Alan in his outrageous pink shirt as billionaire Black Diamond Mzi Khumalo at the next table on licked his lips.
Lunch was with Vranken-Pommery- Monopole Africa and Indian Ocean manager, the dashing David Rieu, who must have one of the most sought-after jobs on the planet. All of 34 years old, unmarried, a graduate of philosophy and language tasked with selling French fizz to fashionistas. He was slumming it at the Michelangelo with weekend plans to take in Singita before doing a Mohammed to the Mountain (to coin a most inappropriate phrase). But then Morocco is his number one export destination after Réunion. Which is not really an export at all, as the Indian Ocean island doubles as a Department of France.
You must call your story ‘Wagyu, Pommery and Pommes Frites'," laughed David after we ordered three Kobe beef rumps from Alan who showed off the raw ingredients on a tray, just like the late, great Frank Swainston used to do at Trattoria Fiorentina in Braamfontein. "These come with one Lipitor each," continued Alan. "The marbling in these cuts from a four-yearold Wagyu is a six - it can go up to nine and then you get two free Lipitor."
Alan sells his Wagyu steaks imported from Australia for R600 a kilo ("I'm the victim of a falling rand") across the counter and has plans to launch an up-market Prego Roll - 150g Kobe beef steak in a Ciabatta roll for R150.
The price of the steaks, cooked rare with some shoestring onion rings (well, Gavin does hail from Pietermaritzburg, boet) and fries, was not revealed as I was a guest, the dish is not listed on the menu and I'd forgotten my specs. But the Wagyu and Pommery Rosé Brut worked like a charm with the bubbly coaxing spicy nuances of flavour from the bloody flesh.
"For each bottle of Rosé sold (any dosage), we make a donation to a breast cancer charity," chipped in Gavin, rounding off the most indulgent lunch on a soberingly altruistic note.
Pendock's Plonk: Pommery Summertime Blanc de Blanc - awesome elegance and finesse like a chalk sculpture of Catherine Deneuve.
