Christmas Dinner Roast Venison and John Duval Eligo 2008

This year I cooked the Christmas Dinner. I did roast venison and it was mighty good. First I prepared a sauce in a large frying pan:

I chopped up an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic,
I fried the onions with some sunflower oil,
I added 200 ml of good port,
I added the garlic,
I added about 500 ml of water,
I added several blackberries,
A good dash of lemon juice,
I added some chicken stock,
A teaspoon of honey,
Some sea salt to taste,

I added a few juniper berries, some crushed cloves, pepper corns and a stick of cinnamon to taste.

I cooked the sauce whilst stirring it occasionally. I saved some of the juice to make a sauce later. I reduced the remaining sauce until it was thick.

I fried the joint of venison both sides until it was just becoming brown making sure that the juices of the sauce were well incorporated around the joint.

I warmed the oven to about 180 degrees C.

I greased an oven dish with some vegetable oil.  I coated the venison joint with the onions, garlic and berries remaining from the sauce on both sides. I added the remaining liquid to the joint.

I cooked the joint until it was cooked on the outside but rare in the middle.

I left the joint to rest in its dish before serving but covered the baking dish with foil.

After removing the joint to carve it. I poured out the juices and made the sauce.

My joint weighed about 1 kg so I cooked it for about 45 minutes at 180 degrees. I basted the joint and checked that it was not overcooked by piercing the flesh to ensure that the juices were running rare.

The joint was cooked perfectly and was full of game flavour. The seasoning , port and berry flavour went perfectly.

I kept the remaining sauce for the next day.

You may be asking, what is the best wine to go with this? Well you need a top red wine which has a full flavour to match and which has a good structure with sufficient tannin to cleanse the palate between mouthfuls of succulent meat.

I choose a fabulous candidate: John Duval Eligo 2008 Shiraz from the Barossa Valley. This wine will cost you a few bob; mine was a present from some Australian friends. I am a lucky man. This wine was lovely. It had the perfect balance of tannin, acidity and dryness. It was of full body. It was concentrated and complex. It had a strong taste of red fruits with a hint of oak, vanilla and cloves. It had long length on the palate. It had all of the attributes of an excellent wine, so it was good value for money. At six years old ready for drinking but this wine could have been kept longer.

It holds its own well with the top red wines from France, Italy, Spain and the US and, certainly, other top wines from Australia. Of course, this is wine to be savoured with the best food and should not be sloshed down at a barbecue. It went down well with some strong French cheeses after the main course.

It made a memorable day, with me cooking the Christmas day meal, even more memorable. My French wife was duly impressed and the wine won her over too.

https://www.masterofmalt.com/wine/john-duval/john-duval-eligo-reserve-shiraz-2008-wine/