During the 60 percent of her lifetime that she has spent on our Island our Household Manager has mastered local dishes such as the best fish cakes for Good Friday kite flying and her occasional fish chowder would warm the heart of any St David’s islander, but at Christmas she goes back to her roots and always prepares a dish that is traditional in her family. She just calls it “meat pie”, but each year she manages to find venison and buffalo and each year we honour it with careful wine matching.

Duck a l’Orange accompanied the pie along with many fresh vegetables from our farmer’s market and so wines that well represented the Earth and of considerable power were needed. Firstly, we opened Luca Syrah Laborde Double Selection 2010 from the Uco Valley in Argentina, and here a little explanation is needed. Luis Laborde, an inspired viticulturist, created over half a century ago, the world’s only “double massal selection” vineyard. In the Rhone Valley of France he selected individual Syrah vines, as opposed to clones with matching DNA which is the norm. Leading viticulturists understand that this “massal selection” method gives more identity and individuality to each vine. Once Laborde replanted these vines in Argentina he tracked their quality for a period of time and again took the best to plant, on their own root stocks without grafting, in his ten acre vineyard. Luca, named after a son of winery owner Laura Catena, produce a very special range of small lot wines and as you think of venison and buffalo let me share with you what Robert Parker had to say about the Luca 2010 Syrah: “From 48 year old ungrafted vines and aged in 50 percent new French barriques before bottling without fining or filtration. It sports an expressive perfume of smoke, bacon, game, leather, pepper and blueberry. Smooth textured and elegant on the palate, this savoury ripe Syrah offers a drinking window from 2013 to 2022. It is an outstanding value”. The winemaker talks of a nose “like walking into a gentlemen’s poker parlour; aromas of cigar, leather and smoked meat” and finishes by saying that “it is lush, long and lovable”. $28.10

For the second red I have memories of a charming Italian restaurant in downtown Mendoza and a wine list being presented to my wife and I with 375 selections, all from Argentina. We ask the sommelier to choose for us and he pours Fabre Montmayou Grand Vin 2007 from Lujan de Cuyo. I was so impressed by this 85 percent Malbec (planted in 1908), 10 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and five percent Melot that I managed to track down Diane Fabre and somehow convince her that our country deserved 12 percent of her total production from that year. I confess to a possible overreaction but the good news is that we still have pretty good stocks of this nicely mature wine from 2007, which of course is age-wise like a 2006 from our hemisphere. The grapes from Malbec vines that are over 100 years old are first handpicked by the bunch and then a second selection is done grape by grape. The wine itself is pure velvet as it caresses the tongue and maturity mixes with an explosion of red fruits like cherries and plums. French oak adds hints of vanilla, coffee and intriguing complexity. This is just such a wonderful wine to have with your favourite red meats (maybe not costing $60 a pound!) and flavourful aged cheeses. Fabre Montmayou Grand Vin 2007 sells for $35.55.

Michael Robinson is Director of Wine at Burrows, Lightbourn Ltd. He can be contacted at mrobinson@bll.bm or on 295-0176. Burrows, Lightbourn have stores in Hamilton (Front Street East, 295-1554), Paget (Harbour Road, 236-0355) and St George’s (York Street, 297-0409). A selection of their wines, beers and spirits are available online at www.wineonline.bm.