Duck breast with cherry sauce
The fat of the skin and the cooked cherry want a light red: acidity that cuts, silky tannin that does not rasp, and red fruit that speaks to the sauce without turning it into syrup.
- Trepat style
- Young Trepat Red or a Short Ageing
- Temperature
- 14 - 16 °C
Duck breast, skin golden, is duck fat and pink meat. Cherry sauce is cooked red fruit: sweet, sharp, a little reduced. This is not a long roast. It is a pan dish where fat and fruit meet. A powerful red, with dry tannin, would dry the skin and cover the cherry. A wine without acidity would leave the sauce pasty.
Trepat sits with the light reds: fine body, high acidity, silky tannin, red fruit and pepper. The fruit in the wine — sour cherry, strawberry — speaks to the sauce without repeating it as syrup. Acidity cuts the fat of the skin between bites. Fine tannin does not rasp the meat. White pepper adds spice, not sweetness. Reds from the variety are described as delicate, fruity and fresh, with red fruit, pepper and bay.
The style is a young red, at 14°C, or a short ageing if the sauce is more reduced. Ageing belongs only if the vessel — used wood or a large foudre — does not cover the fruit: a little more body for the fat, the cherry still visible. Serve between 14 and 16°C, not at room temperature. Rosé would fall short of the skin.
Tip: the skin well dried, and the sauce not too thick. Sharp cherries, not a sugar compote. A Burgundy glass, and a quarter of an hour of air only if the wine has been aged.
