Lamb tagine with dates, prunes and apricots and a very good Beaujolais

publication date: Mar 24, 2008

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author/source: Fiona Beckett

Now here’s an unexpected match. I would be wary of pairing a Beaujolais - even a Morgon - with something as sweet as a lamb tagine with dried fruits thinking it would make the wine taste slightly sharp but the combination worked perfectly.

The wine, admittedly, was an exceptional Morgon from an unusually warm year (2005) from a celebrated winemaker called Marcel Lapierre we visited in the village of Villié-Morgon the other day. He makes his wines as naturally as possible, without filtering them and frequently without any sulphur though for wines he exports he adds a touch. He also uses natural yeasts which means you don’t get any of the standard banana-y, bubblegummy aromas and flavours you do with more commercial wines from the region.

The wine we tried was in perfect balance - ripe but not oversweet, dense but supple, refreshing, as wine always should be, but with plenty of backbone and personality. It reminds you, if you need reminding, of all the virtues of Beaujolais and how versatile it is with food. You can buy it in the UK from Vine Trail of Bristol and Bibendum Wines and in the US from Kermit Lynch

If you’d like the recipe for the tagine - a good way of using a cheaper cut of lamb - you can find it on my new blog The Frugal Cook which is charting my day-to-day progress (or occasional lack of it) with the book I’m currently writing.