After months of planning and an initial paper-judging round, the final cook-off for the 2010 UK Wines of Roussillon Dessert Trophy took place last Monday, at Lâatelier des Chefs on Wigmore Street, London. Â
The winning pairing
The competition challenges a sommelier and pastry chef team to create a dessert that perfectly complements a Roussillon Vin Doux Naturel. This year the base ingredient for the dessert was citrus fruit, providing outstanding flavour combinations when paired with a fruity AOC Muscat de Rivesaltes, Rivesaltes, Banyuls, or Maury from Roussillon.Â
The competitors â teams from 1 Lombard Street, Summer Lodge Hotel, Greenâs Restaurant and Oyster Bar and Galvin La Chapelle â began by preparing their desserts and wines in a staggered format. One by one each team presented their dessert creation and wine choice to the jury (comprising an extraordinarily talented, experienced panel with different areas of expertise across food and drink), including Tim Marson MW from Bibendum Wines, writer and broadcaster Sarah Jane Evans MW, Le Manoir aux Quatâ Saisons head pastry chef Benoit Blin, and Sara Jayne Stanes OBE, chief executive of the Academy of Culinary Arts and chairman of the Academy of Chocolate.
The winning team with judge Benoit Blin
After much tasting and deliberation the jury agreed on a winner, placing sommelier Andrea Briccarello and pastry chef Daniel Fancett of Galvin La Chapelle in the number one spot, for their lemon bavarois with citrus fruit salad, accompanied by a 2009 Muscat de Rivesaltes, Domaine Pouderoux. The result was a spectacular explosion of sharp, citrusy flavours in the dessert matched with the sweet taste of the wine, described by Andrea Briccarello as âcitrus on steroidsâ. Simply beautiful.Â
Benoit Blin announced the winners and presented them with their award at the drinks reception held immediately after the competition, with sommelier Matthew Mawtus and pastry chef Arnaud Viatte from 1 Lombard Street named as runners-up.Â
The Galvin La Chapelle team will now begin preparations for their trip to Perpignan in January, where they will compete against teams from across the continent for the European Wines of Roussillon Dessert Trophy title. Best of luck to the UK team!
