My Chef Tony Shiraz Reduction Sauce is loosely based upon an old Italian classic called Vino Cotto (wine boiled). I simply cook down a 2008 Heathcote Shiraz with a carefully selected mix of spices for six hours, thereby intensifying the flavours and evaporating off the alcohol. The end result is a sticky ruby coloured sauce containing the essence of the 2008 shiraz berry.

This sauce may be used both in savoury and sweet dishes.

Use it in savoury dishes where you would use a jus or a balsamic reduction.

After you cook meats (beef steak, lamb cutlets, chicken or game) simply deglaze the pan with Chef Tony Shiraz Reduction. It is up to your own decadence, whether you add cream to finish the sauce or not! Chef tony Shiraz Reduction Sauce is brilliant in cutting the fat in lamb or duck dishes.

Use it as the liquer for poaching pears (and then reduce that liquer down further to make a totally awesome topping with your pears). Also, try it with a touch of garlic shaken into a delicious virgin olive oil as a salad dressing. The resulting dressing marvelously balances the bitterness of a rocket based salad. Now, … ‘where’s that gorgonzola?’

There is a wonderful Italian word - ‘agrodolce.’ Perhaps ‘word’ is an understatement? It refers to a balance between sweet and sour … a masterstroke of culinary brilliance. An ‘agrodolce moment’ is most commonly upon us when we taste fresh strawberries macerated in a couli carefully balanced with the exact touch of balsamic vinegar. I suggest that you take that ‘agrodolce moment’ to a new height by substituting the balsamic with my Chef Tony Shiraz Reduction Sauce.

I want you also to try it as a topping for pancakes and dribbled over Danish waffles. Or, simply souse it over your favourite vanilla ice cream and curl up on the couch to indulge.