An old favourite will make a long awaited return to the Glenguin Estate cellar door this weekend as we launch our 2017 ‘The Sticky’ Botrytised Semillon as part of our Spring Semillon Release weekend.
Highly sought-after in the Sydney and Melbourne restaurant scene, our previous vintage (2014) sold out at the cellar door back at Christmas so it has been a long wait to get this wine back in. But it was very much worth the wait.
Following a similar vein to the 2014, we’ve eased back on the residual sugar to make the wine much more cleansing than your standard dessert wine – indeed, pair it with something like a lemon sorbet and it will clean, not cloy, your palate.
In 2014 we added a touch of viognier to add complexity and lift the wine with a touch of apricot on the back of the palate. This year, we’ve changed things up a little – adding some barrel aged Marsanne (5%) to compliment the rich, citrus backbone from the semillon and slight spice from the botrytis. A lifted pineapple flavour is the result, working perfectly with the citrus and honeysuckle flavours and giving the wine a bit of a deeper complexity.
When looking to pair this wine with a dessert, we went through all the usual suspects – baked lemon cheesecake and even a simple cheese platter were the front-runners for a while, but in the end we couldn’t go past a rather decadent dish of honey-roasted pears with blue cheese and walnuts.
The sweet honey sauce works beautifully with the wine, flavours just complimenting each other and not one working to dominate. Add in the soft roasted pears, the rich creamy blue cheese and the crunch of the walnuts and you get simply the perfect dessert for the perfect wine. Sheer delight.
Enjoy.
Honey Roasted Pears with Blue Cheese and Walnuts
Ingredients
- 1 ripe Buerre Bosc pear per person
- Good knob of unsalted butter, melted
- 1/4 cup high quality honey
- 1/4 cup high quality raw sugar
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 1/2 cup crubmled good quality blue cheese (we used a Saint Agur for a creamier note)
Directions
Preheat the oven to 190 degrees.
Slice pears in half, scoping out the seeds and core.
Add the melted butter into an oven pan, whisk in the honey and sugar. Place pears chopped side down into the honey mixture and bake until tender (roughly 30 minutes).
Lightly toast the walnuts in a dry frying pan, tossing occaisionally, for 4 – 5 mintes. Set aside to cool.
Remove the pears from the oven and gently flip them so that they are now sliced side up. Baste the pears with the honey sauce and place back in the oven for a further 10 minutes.
Once the pears are cooked remove from the oven, transfer to a plate then drizzle the honey sauce over the pears and the plate. Sprinkle the toasted walnuts and dot with blue cheese – the cheese will start to melt into the honey sauce.
Serve immediately.
