You Either Love Them or You Don’t

I have given up including Vin Jaune on the wine list at the restaurant as so many people send it back as oxidised or ‘off’. Its extraordinary sherry-like flavour is not to everybody’s taste. This somewhat misunderstood wine from the Jura is also famous as an ingredient in the classic combination of chicken with morels.

I happen to have a couple of bottles of Chateau Chalon – perhaps the benchmark Vin Jaune – in my meagre cellar. It is a fabulous wine and probably an excellent addition to the dish. I toyed with the idea of using one of my precious bottles thus, how good it would look in the picture, a glass of the deep gold liquid (mine is 2005, just peaking in 2012) beside the dish. I toyed and then, I am sorry to say, recoiled at the idea: I just never have the heart to pour fine wine into a frying pan.