Drinks advice

Oven-roasted roe deer leg with Cockburn’s 2002 Vintage

On the board lies a roe deer leg, pink from the oven and rested under foil for twenty minutes, with the onion, carrot and celery it was roasted on beneath it. Opposite it stands the port, a 2002 vintage, whose tannin is absorbed by the meat protein.

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Oven-roasted venison leg
Photo: Calgary Reviews from Calgary, Canada, CC BY 2.0

From the shelf

The bottle

Cockburn’s is a port house from 1815 with vineyards in the Douro. This is a 2002 vintage: port from the grapes of a single year. According to the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto, a vintage is bottled two to three years after the harvest and then matures in bottle, not in wood, for ten to fifty years. The bottle is 20 percent alcohol and comes in 75 centilitres. Because the maturation takes place in bottle, this style leaves sediment over the years, and the institute advises decanting old vintages.

Cockburn’s 2002 Vintage

The combination

Why this works together

Roe deer is dark game with very little fat of its own and a lot of protein, and that is what carries this combination. Tannin binds to proline-rich proteins in saliva and makes them clump together, so the saliva no longer lubricates and the mouth feels dry; Zanchi and colleagues described that mechanism. A vintage aged in the bottle still has that tannin firmly in it, and the protein of the meat binds part of it on the tongue, so the glass comes in round instead of astringent. At the same time venison is lean, and a twenty percent port with residual sugar helps there: the glass brings the moisture and roundness the plate lacks. The onion and carrot that roast along under the leg turn sweet and almost caramelised, and that sweetness runs along with the dark fruit in the glass.

At the table

The dish

  • For 4 people
  • Ready in 2 hours and 40 minutes
  • Type main course

What you need

  • 1 leg of roe deer of about 1.2 kg
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 3 onions, in rings
  • 2 stalks of celery, sliced
  • 750 g carrots, in coarse pieces
  • ground black pepper

How to make it

  1. Take the roe deer leg out of the packaging, pat it dry and let it come to room temperature for at least an hour.
  2. Preheat the oven to 240 degrees, or 220 degrees fan.
  3. Sprinkle the leg with the sea salt and pepper.
  4. Put the onion, the carrot and the celery in a deep roasting tin.
  5. Place the leg on top and roast it for 25 minutes.
  6. Turn the oven back to 180 degrees, or 160 degrees fan, and roast the leg for another 55 to 60 minutes.
  7. Take the meat out of the oven as soon as the core temperature is 53 degrees and place it on a cutting board.
  8. Cover the roast with foil and let it rest for at least 20 minutes; the core temperature will then still rise to about 58 degrees. Cut it into thin slices and serve the vegetables with the cooking juices alongside.

In the glass

Serving

Serve this vintage at 12 to 16 degrees. Stand the bottle upright for a day so that the sediment settles to the bottom, and then pour it into a decanter in a calm, steady stream until you see the sediment reach the neck. Use a tulip-shaped glass and fill it no more than a third. According to the institute, an opened bottle of vintage keeps for only one to two days, so open it on the day you serve it.

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