Traveling Paddocks

Proprietor into the Heart of Darkness

Sometimes it’s hell to be the boss.

A little dip in the Andaman Sea, one way to sharpen up before presenting your wine.

While staff are taking it easy , harvesting pinot at Alex Paddocks, the Proprietor is working his butt off on the first leg of his South East Asia odyssey here on Langkawai Island in Malaysia. At the completely fabulous Datai Langkawi resort (longtime Two Paddocks supporters), we had a Two Paddocks dinner last night in the Pavilion Restaurant.

This was the brain-child of the dementedly brilliant Curtis Marsh (aka The Wandering Palate) and was an adventure into the unknown.

The idea was to pair Two Paddocks wine, particularly Pinot, with Thai food, and see if it works.

First of all, the food (courtesy of exec chef Conny Andersonn) was sublime. With it we drank TP Picnic Riesling 2009, TP Picnic Pinot 2008, TP Pinot 2008, TP First Paddock 2006 and 2007.

We had a reasonable suspicion the Riesling would work well, and it did:  the "steely fresh palate showing tangerine skin, spice and lime zest flavours with a lingering soft finish" (Dean Shaw), sounds, after all, just the ticket for Thai cuisine.

More surprising was how well the Pinots fared. Curtis is something of an advocate of this — he is a pioneer really in that he has been pushing the idea for some time that Pinot matches Asian foods in general — something about Pinot’s warmth and ease, as opposed to the bracing, "cold"  tannics of other varieties. He can explain this much better, but in short, we were all pleasantly surprised. Delighted even.

This was underlined at a superb lunch pairing today of Malay food and Josh Jensen’s wonderful aged Pinots from his great Calera Vineyard in California.

Not only the first TP tropical tasting, but actually in the treetops in an ancient rainforest. Full on Conrad exoticism.

The Pavilion Restaurant at the Datai