Local wine distributors Harbour Wines and Spirits (HWS), in collaboration with the award-winning Argentinian winery Familia Zuccardi, hosted a wine and food pairing Saturday last, under the theme ‘Celebrate A Legend’.

A fitting tribute, really, since Zuccardi wine family patriarch Jose Alberto Zuccardi was declared a wine legend earlier this year and Zuccardi Valle De Uco secured its place in the Hall of Fame after copping its third-straight hold last year of the Wine Enthusiast Wine Star award for New World Winery of the Year.

Harbour Wines & Spirits pulled out all the stops, complete with beautiful décor touches, to transform the Goddard Catering Group Kitchen at Sangster International Airport into a luxe lounge. Select clients were treated to a seven-course meal paired with wines from the portfolio and the chance to interact with principals from HWS and Zuccardi.

HWS Brand Manager Kaydene Senior spoke with Thursday Food about the opportunity that the dinner presented.

“Harbour Wines & Spirits is a distributor of premium wines and that includes Zuccardi and Santa Julia collections. We have the principals of the brands visiting and thought it opportune to host a wine dinner to entertain our customers and give them the opportunity to connect with the principals,” Senior explained.

Goddard Catering Group Executive Chef Daniel Schweizer spoke on the planning and pairing process for the evening. “We checked the flavour profiles of all the wines through taste testing and the region where the wines are from. From that we were able to design the menu around them. When we were discussing the wines, the Zuccardi Q, the Cabernet Sauvignon, stood out due to its weight. We thought this would pair well with oxtail. However, we had to go beyond the usual presentation of oxtail. We decided on an Oxtail Schnitzel, where the oxtail is breaded and we added a broad bean and pumpkin purée. For the soup we had a white wine and the pairing goes from soft to heavy, giving you the lighter wines first, progressively getting heavier. Normally Argentinians are more into [red] meats but as we’re in the Caribbean we added a seafood dish paired nicely with a Malbec,” Schweizer said.