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What to do about wine when truffles are on the menu? Chris Shanahan chooses wines that just might stand their ground.

Chris Shanahan

Truffles.
Truffles.Karleen Minney

I love wine. But I've never felt a wine moment as profound as my very first encounter with truffle.

In winter 2009, local truffle grower Wayne Haslam arrived at Chateau Shanahan, beaming with a secret knowledge. He knew the effect it would have on me - and a day later, on the Food & Wine team - of the knobbly black nugget inside the clip-lock bag he held.

I can't describe that first sniff better than Elisabeth Luard did in Truffles (London, 2006): "I breathe deeply. The fragrance almost overpowers me, filling my nostrils with a scent so exciting, so overwhelming, so astonishingly familiar that my head swims and I have to sit down on a tree-stump …

Centenary of Canberra Chardonnay Pinot Noir Cuvee.
Centenary of Canberra Chardonnay Pinot Noir Cuvee.Supplied
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''What exactly is it that makes the scent of a truffle so thrilling? Well, the chemists tell us it's the pheromones, the stuff that tells Noireau [her companion's truffle-sniffing dog] that the neighbour's bitch is on heat. There's no other way to explain the effect. It reminds some of us - not all, no doubt - of those nights when we held our first lover in our arms and learnt, once and for all, what this thing they talked about in books was all about. Sex, actually - but all new-minted and carrying with it none of the baggage of later years.

''I breathe deeply again. These words spring to mind: sweet almonds, ripe grapes, thyme, rosemary, juniper, the scent of heather-roots, bonfire embers after rain."

That sweet, pungent, earthy, sometimes cloying, sexy, power of the raw, fresh black truffle subsides to greater or lesser degree in food. But wherever the black truffle appears, it's too exotic and expensive to be anything but centrestage. The wines we've chosen for our truffle dinner at 10 Yards on August 13 won't compete with the food. Pairs of wines with each course offer comparisons of ''alternative'' Australian and imported styles that should sit comfortably with the food. We chose local wines from the list at 10 Yards, added Bryan Martin's Ravensworth sangiovese, then brought in an imported equivalent to accompany each.

Sangiovese from Canberra and Tuscany: Ravensworth Le Querce Canberra Sangiovese 2012 and Chianti Classico Peppoli (Antinori) 2009.
Sangiovese from Canberra and Tuscany: Ravensworth Le Querce Canberra Sangiovese 2012 and Chianti Classico Peppoli (Antinori) 2009.Supplied

The wine pairings place a local wine, in two cases made from ''alternative'' varieties, against wines from the homes of those varieties - sangiovese from the Chianti Classico zone in Tuscany, Italy; a viognier-roussanne-marsanne blend from the southern Rhone Valley, France; and a sweet riesling from the impossibly steep slopes of the Goldtropfchen vineyard, opposite the town of Piesport on Germany's Mosel river.

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Sparkling start

Centenary of Canberra Chardonnay Pinot Noir Cuvee Centenary

Rhone-inspired blends: Collector Lamp Lit Canberra District Marsanne 2011, Guigal Cotes du Rhone Blanc 209.
Rhone-inspired blends: Collector Lamp Lit Canberra District Marsanne 2011, Guigal Cotes du Rhone Blanc 209.Supplied

In 2008, a group of local winemakers produced a shiraz and a riesling for release in Canberra's centenary year, 2013. Then, in 2011, the group decided to add a sparkler to the list. Our local bubbly specialist, Greg Gallagher, made and blended the wine with Jeir Creek's Rob Howell. It's an excellent wine, getting better with age and makes a good starter for the truffle dinner.

Rhone-inspired blends

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Collector Lamp Lit Canberra District Marsanne 2011

Alex McKay's marsanne is a pleasing and sophisticated wine - savoury, richly textured (but not fat) and underpinned by a gentle, citrusy varietal flavour, subtly meshed with a pleasing character derived from barrel ageing on yeast lees. The slightly fuller and rounder (but now sold out) 2010 indicates benefits from bottle ageing - and that this could be a slow and graceful evolution. McKay says both wines received full malolactic fermentation, adding texture, and the 2011 contains a splash each of viognier and roussanne.

Guigal Cotes du Rhone Blanc 2009

Leading wine producer Guigal makes a fresh and fruity style by fermenting this blend at a low temperature in stainless-steel tanks. While Guigal, like McKay, also uses viognier, roussanne and marsanne, it is the viognier, rather than the marsanne, that leads the blend. And, of course, there's no oak influence.

Sangiovese from Canberra and Tuscany

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Ravensworth Le Querce Canberra Sangiovese 2012

Le Querce is packed with the black-cherry wholesomeness of Italy's ubiquitous red grape variety, sangiovese. The vibrant cherry-like varietal flavour comes with attractive herbal, spicy, savoury notes. A combination of acid and fine, persistent tannins provide vibrancy and structure to the medium body.

Chianti Classico Peppoli (Antinori) 2009

Here the 600-year-old Antinori producer presents a modern face of Chianti Classico. The fruit is bright and fresh and the inclusion of merlot and shiraz with the local sangiovese adds flesh and ameliorates Chianti's savoury-to-firm tannins. A couple of years bottle age adds to the contrast between Peppoli and the fresh, young, screwcap-sealed Ravensworth.

A sticky end

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Barton Estate Elva Late Picked Riesling 2008

In the cool, moist mornings of a Canberra autumn, Barton Estate's riesling developed noble rot. Ultimately, the uber-ripe, shrivelled berries made the estate's first luscious dessert wine.

Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt Piesporter Goldtropfchen Riesling Auslese 2005

Compare a Canberra ''auslese'' style with the original from Germany's Mosel River. This is probably as close as we'll get to a truffle-like experience with wine. The south and south-east facing Goldtropfchen vineyard slopes steeply away from the Mosel on one of its extreme bends, near the ancient town of Piesport. Former US president John F. Kennedy reportedly enjoyed the 1959 vintage at a 1963 breakfast in Berlin. And in June this year, Berliners presented US President Barack Obama with a bottle of Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt estate's 2011 spatlese riesling from the same vineyard.

Chris Shanahan is a wine and beer judge, former liquor retailer and freelance wine writer, chrisshanahan.com

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