Recommendations

Duck breast and cherry sauce with Graham’s Six Grapes Reserve Port

On the plate is duck breast with a crisp layer of fat, thinly sliced, with a sauce of dried cherries and red wine. The Six Grapes sets ripe plum and cherry fruit and a light tannin against it.

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From the shelf

The bottle

Six Grapes is the reserve ruby of the house Graham’s from the Douro. The technical sheet names Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional, Tinta Roriz and Tinta Barroca as main grapes, supplemented with Tinta Amarela, Tinta Cão, Souzão and Tinta Francisca and with grapes from old mixed plots. The wine stands at 20 percent alcohol and usually matures for one to two years on seasoned wood or in wooden vats; the residual sugar is given on the sheet as Baumé 3.6. Reserve is, in the classification of the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto, a selection from the port of each year, blended into a young, powerful and fruity wine. The house serves it lightly chilled, between 12 and 16 degrees, and the bottle comes in 75 centilitres.

Graham’s Six Grapes Reserve Port

The combination

Why this works together

Duck breast brings two things that a young port reacts well to: a thick layer of fat under the skin and firm, dark muscle meat. Zanchi and colleagues describe how tannin binds to proline-rich salivary proteins and thereby gives the dry, astringent feeling; with protein and fat from the meat on the tongue, that tannin finds something else to bind to and the wine stays soft. The sauce of dried cherries and red wine brings acidity and a slightly sour fruit tone, and the residual sugar of the port catches that instead of going against it. The plate carries the same fruit as the glass: the house describes ripe plum and cherry, and that is precisely what is in the sauce. In terms of weight it is an equal fight, because a fatty duck breast calls for a glass with twenty percent alcohol and a clear core.

At the table

The dish

  • For 4 people
  • Ready in 1 hour and 15 minutes
  • Type main course

What you need

  • 4 duck breasts of about 170 g, skin scored diagonally
  • 2 shallots, finely chopped
  • 180 ml dry red wine
  • 40 g dried cherries
  • 240 ml chicken stock
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  • 30 g cold unsalted butter, diced
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper

How to make it

  1. Pat the duck breasts dry and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
  2. Heat a large frying pan without fat for three minutes over medium-high heat. Place the breasts skin-side down in the pan, turn the heat low and fry them for about five minutes until the fat starts to run out.
  3. Then fry them for another twenty to twenty-five minutes over a low heat, until the skin is deep golden brown and crisp and most of the fat has rendered. Keep the heat so that the fat keeps simmering gently.
  4. Turn the breasts over and fry them on the meat side until the core reads 52 degrees. Put them on a board, cover them loosely with aluminium foil and let them rest; the core temperature still rises to about 54 degrees during resting.
  5. Pour off the rendered fat except for one tablespoon and keep the rest. Fry the shallot for two to three minutes over medium heat until soft.
  6. Deglaze with the red wine, add the dried cherries and let reduce for about four minutes to a syrupy sauce.
  7. Add the stock and let it reduce for about five more minutes until you are left with a little under 250 millilitres of sauce. Whisk in the cold butter, take the pan off the heat and stir in the lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper.
  8. Cut the duck breasts into thin strips and spoon the sauce over them.

In the glass

Serving

Serve the Six Grapes lightly chilled, between 12 and 16 degrees, as both the house and the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto indicate. A normal-sized tulip-shaped wine glass, filled to a third, is fine here, because with food you also want to be able to smell the port. Decanting is not necessary. Advice on shelf life after opening varies: the house says six to eight weeks, the institute is more cautious and gives eight to ten days for ruby and ruby reserve. If you go by the shorter advice and store the bottle cool and dark, you are always on the safe side.

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