"Both the soup and the wine have their own personalities, and when they combine together it's very tasty," Ma says.
The highlight of the dinner is, of course, the Da Dong roast duck. Dong offers the 4.0 version to the diners.
"The 1.0 version is regular roast duck, and the 2.0 version is our subuni duck-which means that it's crisp but not greasy. We have created smaller subuni roast duck which uses 22-day-old birds," Dong explains.
"As for today's 4.0 version, we don't need any sauce to pair with it, as the duck was roasted with lemon-grass. It's more suitable for wine pairing than any other previous version," he says.
Lyv selected Spanish vintner Alvaro Palacios's work, a large bottle of L'Ermita 2015 to accompany the featured fowl. To reach its optimal state, the wine was decanted an hour and a half prior to service. The fruity aroma and rich tannin of the red wine adds a silky elegance to the duck.
Dong finishes the dinner with a beautifully presented chocolate dessert, aptly named "frost", which pays homage to the "heavy snow" solar term. To accompany the icy-looking tableau of chocolate and berries, Lyv deploys a 52-year wine with refined and complicated aroma to match.
"It was the first time we have tried to pair our special solar term menu with Spanish wines, and it has shown that there is more possibility for combining Chinese cuisine with wine from overseas. We are looking forward to trying this again in the future," Dong says.
