Mike: Our zero-wastage credentials for drinking whole bottles of wine are high.

Merrick: It was before I knew you that you recycled everyone’s spit, wasn’t it?

Mike: Spit-bucket brandy! It was amazing. There’s no real concept of nose-to-tail in winemaking, but the closest thing is whole-bunch reds. You cut the grapes off the vine and ferment the entire bunch with the grapes hanging off the stems. It creates a more complex red wine where there’s perfume, slipperiness and texture from the greenness of the stems. You get all the detail, not just the berry and the juice. So for me, if you’re going to do sustainable holistic food stuff, you need to do the same with wine. The stems usually go to livestock and the skins can be re-fermented into a light, refreshing piquette or distilled into grappa.

Merrick: What about ripasso? Where you’re re-passing the juice over the skins

Mike: Exactly. Ripasso… That’s Italian for pizza isn’t it?

Merrick: What! Here I was thinking pizza was Italian for pizza. My mum’s family grew up poor in Broken Hill and it’s given me an real objection to waste. So with this dish I look at all those greens and I love it. I love chard and things people don’t usually like. And I love cavolo nero. With cavolo nero I’d go for a nero d’avola because they both have the word ‘nero’ in them.

Mike: I saw this dish and thought: beer. For me, this is a dish that has requisite and pleasing bitterness and therefore something bitter alongside, but not quite bitter. A sour beer would be a wonderful accompaniment. And you’ve got that cornucopia of greenery and a hit of chilli, then the sour tang of a beverage alongside. I am in a place where balance and all the nuance of dish-versus-final- condiment-in-glass work in synergy.

Merrick: Right. I am going to see your synergy and I am going to match it like a yin and yang. So you’ve got this beautiful cornucopia of green, the iron-rich nature of the greens, and I am just going to chuck in a Baileys on ice. Why have it in your cupboard and not use it? When is Nan coming to drink it? She’s not coming! Either break out the Baileys and have it with some cavolo nero, or just break it out and decide it’s a party night and white Russians for everyone.