Countdown on for eggs, coffee and wine

For some, that will mean nothing. Many good people among us will however be counting the hours, minutes and seconds before they can finally enjoy some chocolate or a slice of cake or, for the really committed, that glass of booze. If you’ve been good and deserve a treat my Eof the Week is the giant milk chocolate Extremely Chocolatey Biscuity Egg (£8, M&S) which has loads of crunchy biscuity pieces and is great for dunking in tea. Myself, I accidentally broke my Lent last week. So no eggs for me.

I’d given up the auld coffee, you see. When I arrived at the Waterman Cookery School in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter last Thursday evening, I was handed a glass containing an Easter Egg with a straw sticking out. I sipped and the distinctive taste of a delicious Espresso Martini informed me that I wasn’t going to win the world’s greatest giving up competition this year. I tasted again just to make sure. Yes, definitely coffee. Ah well, no sense in stopping now.

I was there as a guest of Lidl who were showcasing their Easter food and wine. We started off by preparing a scrumptious starter of crab claws and prawns in a garlic and chilli sauce under the watchful eyes of renowned chef Niall McKenna and his attentive team. One to enjoy with today’s Wine of the Week, the ripe, zesty and fulsome 2020 Loss & Schotter Gruner Veltliner (£7.99, Lidl). This lively Austrian white has pronounced pear, peach and nectarine flavours which mingle most pleasingly with subtle spices on a delightfully tangy palate. The crab claws which we amateurishly cracked open with the pliers provided left us all with very sticky, buttery fingers. As I remarked to my pretty companion: “It’s a bit like sex- you’re not off it for Lent, are you?- in any case, if it’s not a messy business, you’re probably not doing it right.” How we laughed!

Roast lamb with a spectacularly good salsa verde alongside roast potatoes and root vegetables baked with herbs and white wine came next. Try your own lamb this Sunday with the satisfyingly savoury, sumptuously smooth and intensely fruity 2019 Cotes du Rhone AOP (£6.99, Lidl). Opulent and tangy plum and blackberry flavours dominate an elegant palate, mingling with backnotes of cherry and dark fruit before a judiciously oaked finish with subtle strands of lick-your-lips liquorice.

It’ll be too late to order this next one in for your Easter lamb but not for all the wonderful barbecues we’ll having in, one hopes, the nearest future. From the superb Wine Society (visit www.thewinesociety.com or telephone 01438-741177), try the full-bodied, robust and complex 2019 Society’s Californian Old Vine Zinfandel (£8.25). Full of decadent cherry and ripe blackberry flavours on an exuberantly juicy palate alongside pungent, earthy spices and notes of dark, bitter chocolate, this is one to enjoy with roast meat, burgers or a juicy, medium-rare steak.

Our evening finished with a magnificent panna cotta- simpler to make than you might imagine- and berry compote and far too much red wine. I’m pretty sure some guests- but definitely not me because I would never break my Lent on purpose- were tearing into Irish Coffees too. Yes, it’s a tough old life being a wine correspondent and nigh on impossible to stay on the straight and narrow, But sure, you wouldn’t have it any other way, would you? Till next week, tipplers, enjoy your eggs, your vino,have a happy Easter and, as ever, sante!