The Rockford Stonewall Table Krondorf Road
Tanunda South Australia 5352 wwww.rockfordwines.com.au e info@rockfordwines.com.au t +61 8 85632720 f +61 8 8563 3787 open Thursday and Fridays for Stone Wall Society members and their lucky friends
FOOD
If you ask a lot of chefs what their dream restaurant would be many would first talk about the glassware, the stoves, the equipment, the plates, the room, the view, but very few would start with a garden. So many chefs have become ’telephone chefs’ they have no idea what might be in season or where it comes from. They don’t know their suppliers, what their meat and poultry is fed how it is killed or how their seafood is caught. There might be constant chatter about food miles and buying local, but in fact their menus and their cooking frequently show no such commitment. I first met Michael Voumard in 1983 at the old Adelaide Rundle Street, East End Markets. A skinny little kid he was already possessed with a passion for seasonal produce and luckily, when some years later he met his partner, chef Ali Cribb she shared his passion for cooking and gardening. It is not easy to be co–chefs and life partners but Ali Cribb and Michael Voumard are Australia’s most formidable kitchen duo and to be a guest at the Rockford Stonewall Table is one of Australia’s greatest culinary privileges. The Krondorf Garden is a restored Hüffendörf farm with some quite eccentric embellishments that equate as magic on the dining table. Most of these self–sufficient small farms have vanished, but funded by Rockford Wines CEO Robert O’Callaghan and driven by Michael Voumard the Krondorf Garden delivers magnificent produce. The garden is biodynamic and many of the almost dead (and extinct) fruit trees have been saved. Michael Voumard manages the garden and full time gardener Simon Traeger is supplemented by young locals when the need arises. As a result, many of these young helpers have gone on to start have started their own gardens. What this magic garden grows is well beyond what an original Hüffendörffarm might have grown and much of what is grown is the sum of Michael Voumard’s employment and travels. Blue corn, other types of maize, fenugreek, coriander, dozens of different types of chillies, white and green asparagus, cardoons, artichokes and so much more. It is a garden of endless bounty. During daylight hours the garden is busy with dozens of chickens and ducks whose job it is to eat the garden pests and at night they go into their little houses to stay safe from nasty Mr Fox. No surprise to find out that many of the species are all but extinct and being carefully bred into flocks that can be divided out into the community. A recent visit close to the winter solstice, it was the first time we had been to a winter table and we knew just how different the menu would be from our last visit in January this year.
Lunch traditionally starts with a glass of Rockford Black Shiraz in the Stonewall tasting room. A tiny stone room with low slung beams and an imposing bar, the room was made cosy with a roaring wood fire. The Shiraz glasses were especially commissioned from South Australian glass artist Nick Mount and add to the already enormous pleasure of the exquisite 1993 Black Shiraz. Black Shiraz is the Dom or Krug of the sparkling Shiraz world. Tiny soft tongue sticking bead, balanced delicate palate and a long, long finish this is a wine that like the best of Italian sparkling reds (that don’t come close) adores a little fat, dances across mild spice and blesses citrus combinations. The truth is if Voumard and Cribb can’t get these matches right no one will because they have had more opportunity than most to match food to Black Shiraz. The canapés, Fenugreek Thelpas are Indian in their origin and wheat and yoghurt based they were more like a soft tortilla, topped with a multifaceted vegetarian mix of red Indian carrot cooked with curry leaf, broccoli cooked with asafetida and a dab of eggplant pickle. There would be thouasands , if not millions of vegetarians who would wish they could find such wonderful vegetarian options. Complex but delicately flavoured with fenugreek they were exquisite and went brilliantly with the Black Shiraz. Here is it important to discuss the way the food and wine matching works. The garden delivers produce on a weekly basis; add to that the dried and preserved stores, which can be drawn on. What is available governs what can be cooked, the menu is researched mainly by Ali Cribb who links the ingredients to recipes and cultures where they would confidently cook. Once agreed upon and a final draft written the chefs and front of house manager Sarah Chipman choose the wines, mainly drawing on the impressive Rockford wine museum. A rare format that the available ingredients govern both the food and the wine and that the wines are mostly not available to the general public.
A short walk through the marvelous rusted wrought iron gazebo through the walled garden to the dining room heightens the anticipation. The garden walls are covered with espaliered fruit trees dripping with huge bright red apples. The apples immediately strike a conversation from the group (most of whom have never met before) about gardening and fruit trees and we already know we have much in common. The guests are about 50% local, with a couple from the Margaret River, another from Melbourne, three young people, one from Coober Pedy, one from Adelaide and another from France. A range of ages from about 20 to 65 whilst it is a diverse group the passion for food and wine and sustainability is the common thread.
At each lunch the mantel is decorated with a brilliant still life on this occasion a massive Savoy cabbage, a bunch of perfect turnips, radicchio, some dried chillies and a vase of soft drooping wild pink roses. The table is perfectly laid, utterly without decoration and there is salt and pepper on the table (not that anyone ever seems to need it).
The first course is a salad dish from Chinese Moon Festivals and stems back to the days when Voumard cooked for Cedric Yu at the former Adelaide restaurant, the Mandarin Duck. Mizuna, tatsoi, spring onion, crispy shallots, roasted sesame seeds, petals and raw snapper that had been marinated for about five minutes in a mix of sesame oil, shallot oil, and rice vinegar and rice wine. A very restrained use of sesame oil and the roasted sesame seeds, the dish was structured and refined and it was just amazing when paired with the 2000 Rockford Eden Valley Riesling. The journey with this subtle and balanced and exotic dish ended all to quickly and the next course listed simply as lamb and haricot was a luscious sticky winter dish with subtle flavours with the barest hint of old world spice. A Semillon is an unconventional match but the length of the 2001 Rockford Local Growers Semillon just danced around the balance of this dish, which was wonderful. By this time the table is behaving like they have known each other for a lifetime. Guests are getting up to serve and the wine and food and service is doing its magic.
There is an unfamiliar aroma wafting into the dining room, nothing I can immediately identify and to the table comes deep terracotta dishes filled with parcels wrapped in cornhusks …… Shrimp Tamales. I have often looked at the recipes and realised without someone showing me exactly what to do it would be very difficult to get a tamale just right. We open the parcels like Christmas presents, excited like little children wondering what their contents might be. They give off a perfume that is as mysterious as it is exotic, but it holds no memory for anyone at the table so the anticipation of the taste heightens the excitement at the table. The taste and texture is like nothing I have ever eaten before. An outer layer, later identified as the mauve corn is aromatic and has a soft texture that is almost like dense cake but very moist, then there is a second rim of flavour that is infused into the corn layer and spicy but not hot, and right in the centre is a big prawn. The flavours are mild and sweet, without chilli heat, but with lapping layers; it is remarkable. The crumpled wrapper is all that remains on my plate but the flavours and textures remain mysterious because I haven’t got a clue how to recreate this dish and can’t even identify any of the ingredients other than the cornhusk and the prawn. Stupendous! Voumard explained the process of the dish; they grow the blue corn at the Krondorf Farm but it has gone feral and now presents with a mix of ears that range from white to purple and pink “we have started to call it mauve corn“ Voumard goes on to explain, “because when it is ground and cooked it has a light mauve colour. The masa simply means dough, and it is made by grinding and boiling the corn and then mixing it with pork fat moistened with a little prawn stock.“ This immediately explains the spongy but silken texture of the dough. “The spice,“ he goes on to say “is a roasted chilli and onion paste made that is mild and sweet and made with roasted and charred Anaheim and Guajillo chillies that are then dropped into very hot water for 25 minutes and then peeled and pounded to a paste with the onion. The wrappers are the second and third layers of the husks that are dried and then soaked overnight in cold water to reconstitute them. In Mexico there are shops that sell nothing more than these bundles of dried corn leaves.“ This dish perhaps more than any other of the days sums up for me the magic of the Krondorf Garden because it is a dish that I would be unlikely to find so well executed anywhere else in Australia. Whilst I appreciate the popularity of Rockford Alicante Bouche and was happy to taste the newly released 2010 vintage, of all the Rockford wines this is the only one of their wines that I never buy. To be fair, any Rosé I might buy would be for tasting purposes only because it is not a wine I enjoy.
The next course is plainly written as Duck and Beets and of course gives nothing away about the complexity of the dish. Slow cooked duck, caramelised onions the flavours intensified with crushed walnut roasted with the onions and the whole dish is moistened with pomegranate juice. The secret elusive ingredients a restrained amount of Tahina, lemon juice and honey and the finished dish finally doused with masses of ruby coloured pomegranate seeds that provided crunch and colour. The beets, three types, the Chioggia which is striped white and pink, white beets and the more common golden and red beets, they had been steamed and peeled and were served with nothing more than crème fraiche and a smattering of dill. The beets were a wonderful example of less being more with the dill and crème fraiche being more like seasoning than components of the dish. The 1999 Rockford Rod and Spur is one of my favourite wines a superb blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz and a fabulous match for complex intense food flavours. Although eleven years old this wine still showed brilliant youthful exuberance that embraced the sweet and sour of the duck didn’t falter at the sour cream and kissed the beetroot with a big smooch on the way through; it was an amazing match!
The last savoury course was the sum of a winter garden. A delicately dressed radicchio and frise salad, another bowl of rappe leaves and turnip dressed with EV olive oil in which finely chopped garlic had been quickly fried. The pigeon had been slow cooked with celeriac stems, onion a bay leaf or two and the Rockford Cordon Cut Semillon. To the equation were added roasted pine nuts, a sweet spike of raisins and blanched red kale. The grand finale, massed perfect fine hand garganelli, perfectly made, rolled to the finest notch they were sublime. Individual ingredient flavours layer upon layer the sweetness of the sun–dried raisins offering the perfect spike against savouryness of the dish. Served with a brilliantly cellared 1989 Rockford Basket Press Shiraz this course reduced the table to a momentary stunned silence at the wonder of it all.
Dessert and old–fashioned baked pear pie, the pear flavour was intense, unembellished and the top of the crust gritty with a smattering sugar. The lime ice cream was complex and intense, silken and sour and sweet …….oh heaven! Served with the 1989 Rockford SWF Frontignac it was a fabulous match with the autumn flavours of the pear pie but less so with the ice cream which rather fought against the long palate of the Frontignac. Wonderful coffee and stunning sun–dried figs the entire package of the Stonewall Table is a class act.
What apart from the obvious garden proximity, freshness of food and skill of cooking makes the Rockford Stonewall Table so exceptional? There are many great restaurants in Australia, but in my experience thus far this is the only table of this type. Ali and Michael have not succumbed to sous–vide or molecular fads, they treat their produce with excitement and enthusiasm and most importantly respect and each new wave opens a different facet of their cooking. They are never tempted to work produce so hard that it no longer resembles the original ingredient. Add to that very few Australian chefs have the same vast culinary knowledge to draw on. Travel is the greatest educator when it comes to cooking and Michael and Ali have both travelled extensively in South America, Mexico, Butan, Thailand and other parts of Asia, Europe and in particular Spain. Having now eaten at the Rockford Stonewall table several times we have never been served the same dish and never left feeling event the tiniest bit disappointed. The conversation in the car on the way home is always about the food, the wine, wonderment about the taste and the cooking skills of Ali Cribb and Michael Voumard. The table will not be to everyone’s liking, there is no choice and you will never be able to get a well–done steak (sucker!!!!), but then this table is not intended for people with limited ability to take on the unusual, the complex or the simple. It would be remiss not to mention the service staff Sarah Chipman and Christian Watkins and the role they play in the enjoyment of the table. Sarah has more authority and knowledge in the wine side and Christian, because he also works in the kitchen is able to explain the intricate nuances of the food without any hesitation, then you can add to that the well pitched hosting of the single Rockford staff member that attends each table.
Although there are still dozens of famous Australian restaurants I want to enjoy I am doubtful that I will find anything that delivers the same seasonality, cooking skill and consistent wine quality as the Rockford Stonewall Table.
Don’t send me emails telling me the table is elitist they will go straight into my trash because I know for absolutely certain that anyone obsessed with food and wine is bound to know a Stonewaller and enjoy the reward of being their guest at a Rockford Stonewall Table. AO July 3, 2010
The Krondorf Garden
Many people have expressed their disappointment at not being able to visit the garden however the garden also happens to surround the home of CEO Robert O’Callaghan and there are understandable security issues involved and why we have put together a little movie for your enjoyment.
obsessed The Krondorf Garden and Stonewall table is a huge financial commitment that achieves many things for CEO Robert O’Callaghan personally and Rockford Wines. Thankfully O’Callaghan, and several other historic Barossa wine companies, are obsessive about preserving the Barossa Valley and defending it from developer. If you want to see the worth of this obsession visit the Margaret River where developers are being allowed to destroy the very reason that people originally went there and continue to go their as tourists. We need wise custodians of the future of our regions. O’Callaghan and his business partner have often dug deep to buy the land and the heritage on it, rather than let it fall into the hands of developers who will destroy the very reason that most people go to the Barossa Valley; it’s wine and history.
There are of course some excellent side benefits for O’Callaghan for his philanthropic enterprises. O’Callaghan can choose to be the host the table at any time and enjoy the end result of his massive financial support. Add to that he can pick from the Krondorf Garden for his personal use any time he likes. He doesn’t own a Porsche but he does hold in his hand something far more precious and satisfying the cultural heritage of that strip of land.
the PS Marion is another initiative of Rockford wines and ably organised by O’Callaghan’s partner Pam O’Donnell. Between them they have restored the last remaining ship of its kind, won multitudinous awards for the Steam Powered Cruises included a coveted Australian Gourmet Traveller Jaguar award CLICK HERE to read more.
Hüffendörf farms
Germans intent on escaping religious persecution settled the Barossa Valley. Frugal and mainly Lutheran they brought to the region much more than wine, the bought a self–sufficiency and a culinary heritage that was quite unique. They sought land that back onto creeks where they hoped they would have water. They planted gardens that included fruit trees and vegetable gardens and vineyards. The build small houses that they added to as their wealth grew and most of those houses had massive wood ovens where most of the cooking was done. The culinary traditions of the Barossa Valley remain strong in the domestic sector but sadly there are no restaurants in the region that cook the traditional German food of their settlement. A fabulous way of seeing the best of Barossa heritage it to attend their Annual Tanunda show CLICK HERE and scroll to the bottom for a sneak preview and watch out for our news for 2011 because it is just fabulous!
