MontGras in Chile’s Colchagua Valley produces some lovely wines (try the hot-cross-bun spiciness of its Ninquén 2006 cabernet sauvignon, £17.20, slurp.co.uk), but, to be brutal, Pink Sin Zinfandel Rosé isn’t one of them. Particularly with beet cream.
This fantastic beetroot soup, served with the Sin at a spirited lunch in a pretty courtyard when I visited MontGras, set me on a quest for a wine that would do it justice. I’m afraid I ended up with something huge and velvety from South Africa, and a kitchen disaster.
Cheese is the under-theme of this tale. Chileans make good cheese, but eat it all. Santiago Margozzini, MontGras’s impish winemaker, was biting on a slice when we shook hands; and what made the beet cream jump was the light sprinkling of crumbled blue cheese and toasted hazelnuts.
I’ve long thought of growing beetroot on my allotment (champagne grapes is my other ambition), but haven’t done so, because I knew my children would balk. It’s been vaguely trendy in restaurants, but that cuts no mustard at home. Beet cream gave me confidence. My tasting notes at MontGras contained nothing about Pink Sin, but plenty about the soup. Was that yoghurt swirled through it?
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I hurried to M&S as soon as I was back. Goodness, cooked minibeets were on special offer: three for two, in packs of eight. Oh dear, when I paid, they weren’t on special offer. Shopping without my glasses again. And then I wimped out. Why make soup — we’re not really a soupy family — when I could deconstruct the ingredients into something friendlier? And we’re not really blue-cheesy, either.
Some hours later the Tyrers sat down to roast beef (the bribe) with a dish of 24 bleeding blobs, dressed in balsamic vinegar, under an increasingly gory sprinkle of probiotic yoghurt and overtoasted hazelnuts. Despite courageous family solidarity, we didn’t get through many that evening. I was haunted by them for days as I sought desperately for a wine to make them palatable. At last, late one Friday, I found my South African saviour and ate the remaining 18 in one sitting. I once knew a man who lived on carrots and turned orange. I won’t describe what an overdose of beetroot does.
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Liquid hunches
Boschendal 1685 Shiraz 2009 (£8.69) Too young for beet, but peppery and true if you let it breathe (Spar).
Kleine Zalze Family Reserve Shiraz 2007 (£19.99) Sleekly comforting in the face of disaster (www.sawinesonline.co.uk).
The Raptor Post 2007 (£9.50) South Africa-upon-Rhône, more beef than beetroot (thewinesociety.com).