IT was Father’s Day eve and the air was redolent with the smell of roasting pork; around the house the sounds of groans when the dad jokes came out…

“I was going to tell a dairy joke but it was too cheesy.”

“I told my doctor I’d broken my arm in two places. He said stop going to those places.”

“I’m trying to read a book on the history of soap. But I just can’t hold on to the story.”

“What do you get when you cross an actor with a pig? A real ham.”

With the roast pork we drank a Chalk Hill vermentino, 2015 made from 100 per cent vermentino grapes.

At $19 a bottle this is a good value, crisp dry white from McLaren Vale. Vermentino is yet another southern Italian grape from Sardinia suited to a Mediterranean climate and it thrives in SA.

It is a lovely, greenish-tinged wine that is usually paired with fish. While traditionally more aromatic whites are paired with roast pork (viognier, marsanne, roussanne and bold chardonnays), the combination worked with the unfortunately-slightly-overdone roast pork not hogging all the flavour.

The size of the roast was a problem turned into an opportunity; there was no need to be disgruntled, like the pig that lost its voice, because there were at least three more main meals to be derived from the pork.

The Father’s Day dinner was pork stir fry with onion, capsicum, broccoli and brown rice finished with light soy sauce. I believe that the best drink to go with Chinese-style food is beer. While that might make me sound like a bit of a boar, beer seemed a good Aussie Father’s Day drink. And with the chocolate cake for dessert there was a Baileys Irish Cream and then cheese and a port: a swine and cheese party?

There seemed to be no end to the bits and pieces of the roast. The dinner after Father’s Day was a pork hash (that’s the recipe with potatoes, not the stuff you smoke). And the dinner after that was pork and pea risotto, which finally used up the pork roast. Never again will I buy such big chunk of meat.

The drink de jour was another McLaren Vale Italian import, a Chapel Hill, the Chapel Verdelho, 2015. This is an interesting medium-bodied wine that dealt with the buttery, porky taste of the risotto well by leaving a clean mouth-filling citrusy taste.

The grape variety was originally grown for Madeira fortified wines and that was the purpose associated with the variety’s introduction to Australia in the 1820s.

Madeira is a world away (in Portugal, actually) from the succulent table wines that Chapel Hill now produces. It is a pleasure to drink this well-made varietal. I would serve it again with pork, although the Chapel Hill website suggests that it should be matched with seafood. And that would work, especially with a full-flavoured seafood such as calamari.

Pork can be matched with red wine and I think that a good Sangiovese would have particularly complemented the roast pork and the pork and pea risotto.

Sangiovese is, like the vast number of Italian wines, a variety that opens up with food. It is the main variety behind the ever-popular Chianti. Alas there was none of that varietal in the wine collection. I remember trying a Pizzini Sangiovese from the King Valley in Victoria but, alas, that was a memory only; as thankfully now is the roast pork and derivatives.

And the two final dad jokes:

“What is the difference between a pig and a man? A pig doesn’t turn into a man when drunk.”

“What is worse than a male chauvinist pig? A woman who won’t do what she’s told.”