Winemaker Erique Tirado (right) brought celebrity chef Bruno Menard to Chile to plan a menu around his Don Melchor wines. (Photo provided To China Daily)
Menard, who joined the Lifetime channel's MasterChef Asia show as one of three judges in 2015, finds that kind of challenge very stimulating.
"A traditional wine dinner starts with a sparking wine, then maybe goes to a sauvignon blanc, then a more full-bodied white like a chardonnay, before finally getting to the reds," he says. "This dinner is all about cabernet sauvignon - it's very different to be drinking red wines from start to finish."
The opening vintage was the youngest of the night, the 2013. It's the most recent arrival on the market, 91 percent cabernet sauvignon and 9 percent cabernet franc. "That was the coolest year in the history of Don Melchor," says Tirado, and the wine is smooth with a lot of red fruit and a long finish." For that, Menard created a geranium-essence scented beetroot tartare with cacao vinegar and seasonal herbs.
Next came the oldest wine on the table, Don Melchor 1988. Menard married that richness with a combination of smoked eel and pan-fried foie gras, served on a French black-truffle flavored risotto made with buckwheat and a bit of perilla.
The third course was built around the 2005 vintage, a warm year that produced a softer wine and the first year the winemakers included cabernet franc in the cabernet sauvignon blend (3 percent). "The first aroma is sweet," says Tirado, "and then comes freshness, energy, and a long finish with refined tannins." Menard responded with duck, roasted at 39 C for one hour with a white miso and orange-marmalade glaze.
The final wine, from 2010, was ranked No 9 on Wine Spectator's Top 100 list that year. Also with 3 percent cabernet franc, it is a wine of many layers, and it was served with Menard's similarly layered made-for-the-occasion dessert: griotte and cabernet sauvignon "granite", griotte confit, chocolate biscuit with licorice and five-spice Chantilly.
"For me, wine-drinking is about experience as well as taste," says Rodrigo Jackson, Concha y Toro's managing director for China. "When I drink a particular vintage, I like to think back about that time, and what I was doing then.
"In 1988, for example," he says, "I was watching the Seoul Olympics, completely fascinated. And in Chile - we still had Pinochet then. Incredible times."
Eyes on China
Like every other wine producer, Chile pays a lot of attention to the Chinese market these days. While the government's 2012 crackdown on extravagance put a big dent in luxury purchases like ultra-premium wines, the team at Don Melchor sees a silver lining.
"People now are more likely to be buying wines that they like to drink themselves, instead of wines that will impress clients or make fancy gifts," says Jackson. "That means the market is becoming younger but more discerning, and much more sustainable long-term."
Globally, there is a rising trend in white wine sales, but that movement is more muted in China.
"In this country, grape wine means red wine," says Tirado, who has seen Don Melchor appear in more and more five-star hotels and top restaurants in China on his visits during the past two years.
"Making great red wine is what we're all about."
