Which Wine for Rabbit Pie?  Add/Read Comments

A 'what wine with Victorian rabbit pie' email discussion amongst members of The Circle of Wine Writers has thrown up an interesting suggestion -

"Pies were sometimes cold entree, made as showcase pieces with elaborate pastry and not really an important enough part of the meal to warrant a specific wine. If they were served early in the meal, they might have been accompanied by a Mosel, a Liebfraumilch, or a dry Riesling. If the pie was served as part of a sideboard (what we now call buffet), there might have been a punch, such as "Punch a la Montmorency" is two quarts cherry ice cream, mixed with a "gill" of kirsch, half a gill of noyau, half a pint of good Sauternes, and a quarter as much Italian meringue."

"Try actually visualising this. It would be a modest quantity of turbid pinkish slop with polystyrene-like fragments of crumbled meringue floating on the surface, and so rebarbatively sweet to taste, it would be a kind of monstrous dessert in itself. Furthermore, the quantities of liquid are actually quite small compared to the ice-cream and meringue, so it's hard to imagine it as a drink. How many was it intended to serve? And what exactly does the phrase 'a quarter as much' refer to? A quarter as much as what? Further clarification required"