The Blog

A few of us lucky members of the CUBE team were fortunate enough to join the winners of the latest Diablo SupperClub competition at the brand new Waitrose cookery school in North London at the weekend.

The Diablo SupperClub is a movement for foodies all across the UK to learn more about food and wine matching, read cooking tips and share recipes. A seasonal competition offers the chance to match one of your own favourite recipes with a Casillero del Diablo wine in order to be in with a chance to win an amazing cookery experience.

On Saturday the six winners of the Winter 2010/11 competition brought along a partner to take part in a cookery class led by the fantastic team of experienced chefs at the Waitrose Cookery School. Firstly, wine expert Ray O’Connor led us through a basic course in wine tasting – guiding us through the different wine regions of Chile, and the portfolio of Casillero del Diablo wines.

Then on to the cooking! Fortunately we had paced ourselves throughout the wine tasting to ensure our concentration levels were up to scratch as we learned how to prepare our meal in the fantastic cookery demonstration theatre.

First up was the delicious warm salad of seared monkfish and tiger prawns with fennel butter vinaigrette. We tried this matched with both the Casillero del Diablo Pinot Grigio and Limari Chardonnay to see which paired the best. For this dish, I think the former worked perfectly – the citrus flavours complementing the shellfish, and balancing out the spices in the vinaigrette.

Next up was the perfect steak and chips. It might sound easy but the béarnaise sauce proved challenging! However, the final result was well worth the sweat and tears – and we matched this with the Casillero del Diablo Shiraz and Chile’s famous Carmenere, both a great match. To complete our decadent meal, we enjoyed the guilty pleasure of a chocolate fondant paired with the Reserve Privada – a rich blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah, aged for 14 months in French oak barrels.

All in all it was a great afternoon learning about wine tasting, developing some new cooking skills, and getting to meet all the winners of our recent competition – budding chefs who are recreating their own supper clubs within their homes. Keep an eye out on supperclub.chileanlegend.com for the next competition and your chance to win a ‘money can’t buy’ experience.

Victoria, Emily and Pip