“The colour was bright in this young wine. The initial sharpness went away as it breathed. It went well with the chunky steak pie filling, pinot noir being versatile in its food pairing,” writes wine columnist RICHARD CALVER.

It was a meeting of three people who are assisting to establish an industry association in the transport sector, me included.

We were bemused by the need to manually complete a national registration form for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission as we sat around a table at the Artists’ Shed in Fyshwick where mate Chris has a small framing business (for paintings, not criminally related).

We delved into questions such as where each member of the governing committee had been born. It seemed interminable and incapable of completion. If I was ever framed for murder, I’d be flattered that they thought I could finish a project. 

Lunch time came around and we decided to grab some food from a nearby pie shop. We received our pies in brown paper bags, and sauce was on hand. This reminded me of the difference between our usual more elaborate lunches and the lunches that most working people, me included, eat every day.

Then treasurer Paul Keating, at the time of the introduction of the Fringe Benefits Tax in the 1990s, railed against those who received a tax-deductible, luxury lunch.

Newspaper columnist Crispin Hull encapsulated this sentiment in his 1994 commentary: “Keating always attacked the Liberals for allowing tax rorts, asking why should pheasant under glass be tax deductible while the pie and sauce is not.”

At the Artists’ Shed we transferred the pies to plates and ate with knives and forks. I then produced a Brown Brothers 2025 Classic Pinot Noir that has recently been released for a very accessible price of $20 a bottle. Meetings always go better with a small glass of wine. 

“This will elevate our working-class lunch,” said Chris as he demolished his pie in record time.

“Boarding school?” asked Tom. 

At my request we then focused on an assessment of the wine and immediately noticed a lovely red fruit bouquet, although the first sip was slightly astringent.

The colour was bright in this young wine. The initial sharpness went away as it breathed. It went well with the chunky steak pie filling, pinot noir being versatile in its food pairing.

I’d recommend it as being sufficiently light to eat with salmon, but complex enough to pair with the rich insides of a meat pie. Through the middle there was a hint of sweet fruit. The fresh acidity on the finish of this wine cut through the fattiness of the meat. 

It was an everyday lunch elevated by a glass of reasonably priced wine. I held the bottle of wine up, said to my companions: “This wine is $20 but some of the world’s most expensive wines are pinot noirs, especially those from Burgundy. 

“I recently looked up the world’s most expensive pinot noir. It’s a Domaine de La Romanée-Conti Grand Cru 2019 that sells for over $US72,000 ($100,513) a bottle. It’s grown in a vineyard in Vosne-Romanée part of the Côte-d’Or in Burgundy where the streets should be lined in gold with these sorts of prices.” 

There was a pause. Wistfully, we all looked down at our empty plates and got up from the table. We had work to do. And a phrase my father once told me loomed from the distant past: when workers ask for a bigger slice, management agrees to a thinner knife.