Meat & potatoes & Shiraz-Cabernet: Domaine du Lys 2004

I decanted and served this $10 bargain bottle with brazenly rustic "comfort food" -- a densely flavoured mash of potatoes, garlic cloves, herbes de provence and cream (enough to get the mashed potatoes to a glue-like stiff but smooth texture.

The whole dinner shebang, including the wine can work out to less $15. That works out to about $7 per person, which is awesome. Here's how I did it:

• picked up the cheapest pork chops I could find: sprawled under the oven broiler in a thrown-together mixture of soy sauce, sliced garlic and cracked peppercorns. Three minutes a side. Then let the chops rest in some lemon juice, speckled with its own lemon rind and chopped fresh sage (this is a simple Jacques Pépin recipe).


• grabbed some broccoli, chopped it into florets, tossed them in boiling water for two minutes, drained and then momentarily reintroduced them back into the same pan -- this time laced with a thin layer of olive oil, ground savoury and garlic, yes more garlic.


• mashed up the taters with dry herbs, some more of that garlic and a little cream for cooking

Domaine du Lys Syrah-Cabernet 2004 is not fine wine, but it is good wine. Goes great with what I made: not fine cuisine but damn good cooking. Shazam! Or however that thing goes.

If you are meat and potatoes eater, I think that little beats a Syrah/Shiraz-Cabernet to drink with dinner. I suggest opening Domaine du Lys as soon as you enter the kitchen so it can stand in a wide-bottomed carafe while you prepare, cook and present the food you are making for dinner.

Not as opulent or complex as my other favourite Syrah-Cabernet blends, Domaine du Lys certainly gets the job done. And in 2004, its youthful juices benefit from recorking/reserving so you've got ideas in the bag already for the next night, providing you have leftovers.

Blauzac, France. 13%