Topic: TN: The Foie Fools Get Liverish
Author: Bill Spohn
Date: Sat Mar 31 13:32:04 2001
Four of us decided that as we all liked foie gras an awful lot, and being in a particularly liverish mood, we should get some and experiment with various wines to see if there were any that particularly complemented the foie gras.

Even we fans couldn''t take nothing but foie gras, so we also decided to experiment with different foods as an accompaniment to seared foie gras.

Thus was born the first, and possibly last, meeting of the Foie Fools.

1997 Trimbach Muscat - we had to have a wine to wet our collective whistles while contemplating the array of foie gras. We had a pound or so of duck foie gras from each of the production centres in North America, Sonoma and Quebec, so we could compare flavour and texture with each other, and we also had a large jar (another 10 ounces or so) of goose foie gras from France.

The wine? It was possessed of a very nice varietal nose, was quite dry, and if anything, lacked a bit of acidity. I have a few bottles and decided to keep them and drink them over the summer as patio house wine.

The first presentation was the French goose liver, served very simply on slices of baguette. With that we drank:

1983 Ch. Suduiraut - I am a very big fan of this vintage in Sauternes. I don''t recall ever having a poor wine. This wine has darkened a fair bit since I last tasted it - it is now a medium amber colour. It has a toasted sweet honey nose, but only middling sweet in the mouth, with a fairly long finish and just a hint of a slightly bitter note at the end that actually offset the sweetness nicely. Oddly enough, there was only a sliver of foie gras left over after we finished this wine.

1999 Craggy Range Old Renwick Vd. Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc - a failed experiment. The wine had no varietal characteristics in the nose, and in the mouth was dilute, short, and with a slight pettilance that normally indicates a secondary fermentation due to poor stabilisation before bottling. Can''t win them all.

Served with brioche slices with heaped smoked tuna and smoked salmon with capers

1997 Pierre Sparr Gewurztraminer Mambourg - always a pleasant wine, this showed as quite spicy in the nose, with a full mouth feel and good length. Always a decent value too! (Half bottle - we had another, but not by nature being given to excess, saved it for another day).

Served with simple seared foie gras, with some coarse salt. Although not a salt user normally, the addition really allows the flavour of the slices (nay, slabs) of foie gras to blossom in the mouth.

BTW, you have to get the pan very hot - put a little olive oil in as an indicator - and when the oil is smoking, sear the slices of foie gras for 15 seconds per side. This produces vast amounts of smoke, so with smoke detectors turned off, each course heralded a soon very practised routine of opening strategic doors and windows and either giving the appearance of helping things along by ineffectually waving a dishcloth, or vacating the field altogether and standing on the porch in the cool but fresh air.

1976 Hattenheimer Wisslbrunnen Riesling Auslese (Hanz Lang) - hope I got the name right, it was hard to read through the haze of foie gras smoke. I swear that if you left the liver in the pan, it wouldn''t burn, it would just all melt away. And the only form of cardiopulmonary resuscitation available to us was looking at the bill for the foie gras! I like old Auslesen, and this one was no exception. Light amber colour showed it''s age, but it was a viscous, mouth-filling wine, only now beginning to dry out. To show what self control I can sometimes claim, the fellow that brought this wine also had a 1976 Beerenauslese which I told him to save for another day!

1991 Veuve Clicquot Rich Reserve Champagne - now also showing some colour, this slightly off dry bubbly (we wanted a full experimental range here), had a nice yeasty nose, full in the mouth, with soft slightly sweet finish.

Served with scallops, halibut cheeks and seared FG (I''m tired of typing it out) on toasted brioche and Saskatoon berry coulis.

1994 Armand Rousseau Gevrey Chambertain - wanting to touch all bases, and having tasted the 1992 Clos St. Jacques from the same producer, I felt this might fare well with the main course. It had a bright cherry nose with no trace of funk, still showed some light tannins, and had good balanced acidity. Pleasant rather than conversation stopping.

Served with slices of rare lamb tenderloin with asparagus and ......wait for it.......more foie gras. By this point, all but the truly pure of heart were flagging in their zeal for foie gras, but yours truly ate his portion with pleasure, if not with the ravenous appetite experienced at the beginning of the meal. I must admit, to my disgrace, that I did not ask my neighbours who were less stalwart, if I could also finish their portion. Nor did I eat breakfast the next day!

We may try this again someday, if we can all pass the qualifying physical! A truly interesting dinner - as one devotee said - "I think that I have eaten more foie gras tonight than in the entire rest of my life!" He won''t be able to say that next time!