The recent dining out restrictions meant we had to give more thought to dining at home and Bistro in the Burbs was born! Delicious home cooked meals with fabulous matching wines – what could be better? Sometimes modest, other times grand and not always perfect. But perfect fun.
This month it’s pork ribs with John Duval Plexus GSM 2017
Ingredients and method:
Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius, bake. Combine marinade ingredients in a small saucepan over a low heat – 1 cup of orange juice, half a cup of soy sauce, half a cup of marmalade, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 2 tbsp brown sugar. Remove from heat when combined and pour over 1-2 racks of pork ribs in ovenproof dish. Cover tightly with foil. Bake for two hours, turning the ribs occasionally so both sides get a good covering of marinade. Remove foil for last 15 minutes of cooking time. For the coleslaw, peel and grate 3 carrots. Combine in a bowl with a quarter red cabbage, thinly sliced, and a handful of crumbled walnuts. For the dressing, combine 1 cup of mayonnaise with 1-2 tsp of maple syrup and 1-2 tbsp of cider vinegar.
Serve with John Duval Plexus GSM 2017.
And the match? This recipe for pork ribs is very strongly flavoured, requiring a wine with enough heft and presence to match. The marinade and sauce is only slightly sweet and once cooked has a slight charry quality, which works well with a wine where some sweet/charry oak influences are at play. The 2017 John Duval GSM is lavish and plush, with a loose knit quality working so well with the strong flavours and mouth-coating texture of the pork. The wine is fruit driven and not savoury, with buoyant acidity, helping to cleanse the flavour racked palate. The sweet Grenache, smoky Mourvedre and firm brooding quality of the Shiraz works perfectly.
