What a brouhaha has blown up over Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy's now infamous mobster and lobster meal with Melbourne identity Tony Madafferi. Everyone is up in arms over the appropriateness of an aspirant premier breaking bread with a man whom Victorian police have accused of having links to Calabrian mafia.
It even reared its head in Federal Parliament question time on Wednesday with the PM acknowledging the scandal and suggesting federal authorities were investigating.
But – along with much of the social media-sphere – we're far less concerned about who Guy dined with than why in god's name he paired lobster with Grange. And for the record, we're more outraged on behalf of the Grange than the lobster. What a desecration!
And the AFR's resident wine expert, Max Allen agrees: "Washing down sweet crayfish meat with a big, dry, tannic red wine? Talk about a flavour-clash disaster. He should have opted instead for one of the many superb chardonnays on the Lobster Cave's list: the Penfolds Yattarna at $259; the 2010 Giaconda at $229; even the 2011 Bonneau du Martray Corton Charlemagne at $410 – all much better matches with seafood and a fraction of the price of the Grange. He certainly won't be getting my vote. Philistine."
We also asked a couple of the country's top sommeliers, from a pair of our favourite eating and watering holes, what they would propose as an accompaniment to the iconic crustacean.
Rockpool Group sommelier Richard Healy said Grange "wouldn't be my first choice", suggesting instead a white burgundy or a Sicilian white.
"A Mersault would be a classic choice," he opined. "I am in love with white wines from Sicily right now. Something like a Marco di Bartoli Catarratto."
Up north at Otto, Brisbane's very own Global HQ, head sommelier Alan Hunter was in furious agreement. "A lot of our food has a Sicilian flavour, and we're regularly recommending wines propagated in the Mount Etna region. The carricantes are drinking really well at the moment – a fresh, mineral style of white wine." Umm. Yes.
Mind you, we're not sufficiently steeped in Italian lore to know whether its kosher to drink Sicilian wine at a Calabrian mafia dinner. Probs not.
