A seat at the table: a taste of Poland

As the month long food festival, Wellington on a Plate, comes to an end, we headed over to one of our favourite venues in the city, Noble Rot Wine Bar, for their Wines of Poland event. Neither of us had ever had Polish wine, and although thanks to a cousin I had seen pictures of vineyards near Zielona Góra, the concept of wine from Poland was something new. The wines all came from one vineyard, Winnica Turnau, further north than Zielona Góra but still in the west of the country. It is also close to where one of the owners of Noble Rot, Maciej Zimny comes from. The theme was of course also of great interest to me since my father was Polish, though I do wonder what he would have thought of such an evening.

Anyway, below you can see the menu, what you might call ‘Polish with a twist’. Some very good bread, pickles and sausage from The Polish Sausage Company was lying on the table when we arrived, and we started with a classic brut sparkling wine that was actually very good. We were then served an amuse bouche of a little mushroom and sauerkraut croquette. Maciej gave us an introduction to the wine, the vineyard and the evening, before we were served with a white wine made with solaris grapes (which Karl told me are also the variety used in vineyards in Sweden as they are quite hardy and do fine in cold weather). We were served with a barszcz (beetroot soup) with little uszka, and we both thought the wine – and soup – were very good.

Next up was probably my favourite dish, a slow baked hāpuka with a ‘pickled herring emulsion, butter-confit celeriac, dill, vodka & sauerkraut beurre blanc’ which was just amazing, with so many contrasting flavours that made for a near perfect combination. I liked the chardonnay that came with it, quite oaky and smooth.

This was followed by braised pork shoulder gołąbki served with a parsnip purée. Those of you who are familiar with gołąbki will wonder at the shape – the name comes from ‘little pigeon’ as the usual shape is round and plump like like pigeons, not square. Swedish readers will be familiar with kåldolmar, which is really the same dish of cabbage leaves stuffed with meat and rice. Anyway, it was very delicious, though the rosé it was served with was perhaps a little sweet.

Next up was seared duck breast with a red cabbage and prune purée and a cassis jus. This was also cooked beautifully, but the wine, a pinot noir, which for those of us living in New Zealand and who are used to Otago pinot noir it was perhaps not the best, but still, one has to try everything.

To end we had a cheesecake, served with candied peel, apple and sultana jam, honey crumble and orange gelato, a lovely mix of flavours, mixing traditional with the new. The dessert wine that came with it was also very good.

We were farewelled with the traditional mix of Żubrówka and apple juice, which set us nicely on our way. All in all a great evening of conversation, presentation of new wines and some fantastic food. Dziękuję Noble Rot!

Thistles and Kiwis is a Wellington, New Zealand based blog written by Barbara, who likes cats, summer and good food. Thistles and Kiwis can be found on Facebook and Instagram @thistlesandkiwis