Laurent Chaniac: the master of pairing wine and spice

I was hugely saddened this week to learn of the passing of sommelier Laurent Chaniac who worked for many years at one of London’s leading restaurants, The Cinnamon Club.

Unusually for a Frenchman - if I may say so - he embraced the idea of wine and spice with enthusiasm and always came up with imaginative and original pairings for chef Vivek Singh’s food.

They made a great team - both of them pioneers In their own right. Laurent for his wine pairing skills, Vivek for being one of the first chefs to put Indian fine dining on the map.

Vivek wrote a touching tribute to Laurent on his instagram account which he’s given me permission to reproduce below.

If you’d like to appreciate just how ahead of the game Laurent was read this piece on wine and spice which I wrote for Decanter some 18 years ago, I think.

So long my dearest friend Laurent. You have been such a good friend and companion on this journey of food and wine for the last 24 years that I feel lost without you.

It’s taken me some time to collect my thoughts and realise that you have indeed left us. Gone too soon but not without a fight, not without a challenge, not without making a significant change. You, my friend, have given so much pleasure to so many.

In my 30 plus years of cheffing, I have seen so many that love great food, many that love spice, many that love good taste and so many that claim to know and love win but hand on heart I know NO one else that loved spice and wine together as much as you did Laurent! You showed the world that wine with Indian food was not just a passing fad but a legitimate and serious endeavour.

Your ability to imagine flavours and combine them with notes in wine showed me (and many others) that with due care, it’s possible to pair any dish with a good wine. There is a wine for every dish and a dish for every wine if you care to look for it. You were a magician my friend. This was your gift

Your love for hospitality, for wine, for producers, for teams and everything around it has taught me and my team so much. I will miss our sessions, our wine pairing dinners and our discussions. I promise to keep the essence of your spirit for wine and excellence alive for as long as I am. At Cinnamon Collection https://www.thecinnamoncollection.com/ I promise we will continue your legacy of good taste, great wine and the best teams. You have been - and will always be - our OG Wine Guru.

I last saw Laurent at a tasting a couple of years ago when with his customary charm and kindness he pointed out the wines in the room that had impressed him most. Typical of the man

He will be much missed.

Top picture of Laurent Chaniac (L) and Vivek Singh (R)

Fine Wine and Fast Food

The news that Greggs, the mass market bakery was opening a champagne bar in Fenwick in Newcastle created a predictable storm of publicity this week (good on them!) but the idea of matching fine wine with fast food is nothing new. 

Here’s a feature I wrote for Decanter magazine 17 years ago which admittedly didn’t include sausage rolls or steak bakes but easily could have done. Back in 2014, after a trip to Edinburgh, I suggested champagne too!

Anyway enjoy it and regard it as licence to crack open a serious bottle with your favourite takeaway. ‘High-low’ as it’s called nowadays is definitely a trend. Here’s the article as it appeared back in 2007

Fine wine and fast food

One of the most enjoyable food and wine matches I’ve experienced was also the most serendipitous. The family were away, I was working on a book and staggered down half way through the evening to find the fridge virtually bare except for a half bottle of Krug, a half-empty packet of the kids’ fish fingers and some frozen spinach. Ten minutes later, the spinach well anointed with butter, the fish fingers grilled and the Krug poured I had the perfect supper.

Since then various wine lovers have confessed to me their secret pleasures: bacon and eggs or hamburgers with cru class Bordeaux, kebabs with Cote Rotie, champagne with popcorn and it’s made me question why we generally save our best wines for special occasions.

Why pour them for friends who may not appreciate them when you could be tucked up on the sofa with a takeaway and a good DVD and have them all to yourself?

Why create unnecessary competition for your best wines in the form of redundant foams and sticky jus? Let the wine be the hero.

In the interests of encouraging you to hang loose with your cellar I conducted a few experiments courtesy of Decanter’s wine cupboard and a selection of local takeaways.

Needless to say I’m not encouraging you to head for your local McDonald’s - fast food needn’t be foul food - but if even Robert Parker takes his favourite bottles along to his local Chinese as he once told me when I interviewed him - why shouldn’t you?

Armando Ascorve Morales at unsplash.com

Burgers and Bordeaux ****
Why it worked
First stop the local gourmet burger outfit, Gourmet Burger Kitchen and a pukka bottle of Pauillac (Chateau Pontet-Canet 2001). I order their classic, served with salad and relish and a bowl of chunky fries. Apart from struggling to get it into my mouth without covering myself with creamy goo it’s hard to fault the classic meat and potatoes match. Red wine, grilled rare beef, salty potatoes - what’s not to like? The Pontet-Canet even stood up to the raw onion and relish though the match would probably have been marginally better without it and brought some refreshing acidity to the partnership which counteracted the carb overload
What to hold/go easy on
The raw onions and relish. And skip the ketchup
What else to try: A top-notch Californian cab, a Super-Chilean

See some other posh (and not-so-posh) pairings for a burger

Champagne and Sushi *****
Why it worked
The sugar in the sushi rice keyed in perfectly with the dosage in the extravagant Jacquart Katarina we paired with it, the bubbles counteracting the oiliness of the raw salmon. The match also held up when I dunked my sushi in soy (umami at work) and, surprisingly, even when I added a modest amount of wasabi and nibbled some pickled ginger. The seaweed in the maki sushi also tied in well. Is there a nicer way to eat sushi?
What to hold/go easy on
Don’t overdo the wasabi
What else to try: Muscadet

See other good wine matches for sushi

Fish, chips and white Graves ****
Why it worked
I was surprised, I confess, how successful this match with a 2004 Clos Floridene blanc from Denis Dubourdieu was. I would have thought pure unoaked sauvignon would have been better (on a similar basis to adding a squeeze of lemon) but this seductively lush white added a fabulous note of luxury to what were admittedly not the crispest most sizzlingly fresh fish and chips I’ve ever eaten. A bit like partnering them with some really good home-made mayonnaise. White graves is an underrated wine
What to hold/go easy on:
Added lemon juice. Brown sauce. Ketchup
What else to try: Sancerre, Pouilly Fume and other top sauvignon blancs. Champagne - though the Katarina was a bit sweet. Champagne almost always goes well with crispy, deep-fried seafood including fish fingers (see above).

See other great matches for fish and chips

Rotisserie chicken and Chardonnay *****

Why it worked
No news to Decanter readers, I’m sure, but just to draw attention to the fact that even a humble rotisserie chicken can be turned into a feast by partnering it with a top class chardonnay like the big lush creamy Voyager Estate 2002 I tried. Don’t even think of removing the skin. That’s what makes the match.
What to hold/go easy on:
Accompanying veg and salad particularly if dressed with a vinaigrette. Just a few roast or fried potatoes will do.
What else to try: White hermitage. Good pinot noir

See other good matches for roast chicken

Crispy duck and Pinot Noir *****
Why it worked
Another timeless classic but how often do you order crispy duck on its own? Or drink it with a wine as good as the silkily sweet 2003 Au Bon Climat Pinot Noir? A crispy duck and pinot noir party. What a great way to entertain!
What to hold/go easy on
Don’t overdo the hoisin sauce. Or order everything else on the menu to eat with it especially dishes with black bean sauce
What else to try: Cheaper pinots from Chile. A fruity Italian red like a Dolcetto. Mid-weight merlots should work too.

See other pairings for duck, crispy or otherwise

Pizza and Chianti ***
Why it worked
I’ve had better matches for Chianti Classico admittedly but a bottle of Villa Caffagio 2004 doesn’t half improve a supermarket pizza. The acidity in chianti is always great for tackling cooked cheese. Even at its superior best it has a quaffable quality that makes it a relaxing sip.
What to hold/go easy on:
Too many topping ingredients (very un-Italian). Avoid curried meat pizzas - as I hope you do anyway
What else to try: Most other Tuscan reds, new world sangioveses, Languedoc reds like Faugères

See other wine - and beer - pairings for pizza

Curry and Rioja Reserva **
Why it (just) works
I’ve partnered rioja successfully with curry before, most notably rogan josh and the smooth plummy Ondarre Rioja Reserva 2001 just about held its own with a moderately spicy selection of South Indian dishes including a prawn curry, a chicken Chettinad and a potato curry. The key to making it kick in was taking a spoonful of raita with each mouthful which calmed the heat and upped the acidity of the match.
What to hold/go easy on:
The overall heat level. Really hot curries do wine of any kind few favours
What else to try: To be honest a substantial new world red would have been better: with a few years bottle age to tame the tannins. Maybe a Grange 1990? (Only joking)

My top 5 wine picks with curry

Top photo by Meelan Bawjee at Unsplash.com 

Why I’ve put part of matchingfoodandwine.com behind a paywall

Those of you who consult matchingfoodandwine.com regularly may have noticed I have put the Top Pairings section of the site behind a paywall.

You may wonder why after all this time. After all the site has been free to use since I first set it up back in 2006.

At that time it wasn’t common to charge for online content - Jancis Robinson was one of the only writers who did - and then, working for the Guardian, I felt it was all part of the service.

But in many ways it’s been a victim of its own success. Loads of people were using it and not paying for it - something I didn’t mind in the case of private individuals but found slightly galling in the case of large companies. But hell, why wouldn’t they? I wasn’t asking them for money despite offering them over 18 years of expertise!

So, having left the Guardian in the summer, I finally decided to put the key Top Pairings section behind a paywall which you can access by buying a bundle of credits, a model those of you who subscribe to photographic libraries will be familiar with. Or think a ‘carnet’ of Paris metro tickets if you aren’t.

You can either buy them as a monthly or annual subscription where they get automatically topped up or a on one-off basis. 

One credit buys you access to one article so it’s basically pay-as-you-go. You can get an idea of what the article is about from the first couple of paragraphs.

Once you’ve paid for an article you have permanent access to it and there’s no time limit by which the credits have to be used.

Many sections of the site still remain free - the regularly updated Match of the Week slot and Recipes, Entertaining, Wine Basics and Food & Wine Pros among them so there’s plenty to browse.

But if you’d like to access the key recommendations here’s how to go about it;

How to buy a bundle of credits

It’s actually really simple.

Head for the Purchase Credits page and sign up or sign in, choose from the credit packs and you’ll then be able enter your payment details.

(Prices start at £6 ($7.82/7.20€*) for a one-off bundle of 10 credits i.e. 60p (78 cents /.72€*) an article or you could take out an annual membership for £55 (/$71.76/66€*) which would give you 120 credits which works out at only 46p (60 cents/.55€) an article. There is a range of other options.

If you’re a business and would like to set up access for more than one member of your team you can take out a corporate subscription. Only one person needs to sign up but you can then add the email addresses of up to four other colleagues to give them access to the content. If they sign in with that email and hit “forgotten password” they can set up their own password.

Here’s the link you need again

* at the current rate of exchange 20/10/24

Pairing oysters with sake and other seafood

Shirley Booth explains the different grades of sake and why it goes so well with oysters and other seafood.

Ten years ago, when I started the British Sake Association, my dream was to see sake being served in British bars and restaurants, being drunk by young hip urbanites: by people, and in places, with no relationship to Japan at all.

So when I was invited to a sake and oyster tasting at the newly opened Oystermen Seafood Bar & Kitchen in Covent Garden how could I resist? In Japan it’s a classic combination, as we were about to appreciate.

Oystermen was originally set up as a catering business by Matt Lovell and Rob Hampton back in 2016. The following year they established a permanent home in Covent Garden, which expanded into the adjoining building at the end of last year.

As well as an oyster bar, with oysters from Ireland, Maldon, Whitstable, Jersey and Menai, there is a selection of seafood dishes, prepared in the (tiny) kitchen by the talented Alex Povall and Joel Ryan, both formerly at Murano. And, alongside the great selection of wine in the fridge, there is Japanese sake.

The tasting was part of the Japanese government’s JFoodo initiative, a series of events, called Journey of Sake: Harmony Series, created to introduce sake as a partner to a variety of non-Japanese cuisines and was hosted by Oliver Hilton-Johnson from TenguSake

Ollie, as he is known, began by explaining the polishing rate of sake, and how this determines the categorisation and, of course, the flavour. In brief, the more highly polished the rice grain, the more delicate and elegant the taste.

The different styles of sake

Ginjo is polished down to 60% (i.e. 40% of the rice grain is milled away); together with a long slow fermentation this results in a sake characterised by floral and tropical fruit aromas; a DaiGinjo is polished even more – at least 50%, and sometimes down to 38% or even 19%., resulting in a supremely delicate (and expensive) sake.

These styles often have a little (up to 10%) brewer’s alcohol added - to stabilize and enhance the flavours and aroma. But a further categorization, Junmai, refers to sake with no added alcohol, sometimes described as ‘pure rice sake’. Junmai tends to have a more rice-based umami character.

Another categorization concerns the style of brewing, in particular the starter mash. Yamahai and Kimoto are both made with old fashioned slow methods, producing a style of sake which is more complex, dense, earthy and more full bodied, sometimes with ricey or lactic notes.

Honjozo is polished down to only 70%; and Futsushu is ‘everyday sake’ rather like vin de table, and outside the Premium Sake designation. In futsushu the polishing rate, as well as additives and procedures, are not bound by such strict rules: which means you can get some terrible ones, but also some very decent futsushu.

Sake and Food

The synergy of sake with food was enthusiastically explained by Ollie, who told us the three things that sake can do (that wine can’t).

First: temperature. Unlike wine, sake can be - and is - drunk at varying levels of temperature. The Japanese have poetic names for a range of subtly different temperatures (‘flower cold’ and ‘snow cold’ for example) but the main differences are between chilled, room temperature and warm.

This ability to determine the serving temperature means you have the ability to mask or enhance the characteristics of the sake as you serve it. Warmth will mask acidity and seem to make it taste sweeter: chilling it will enhance acidity, and so on. To me this is one of the most instructive things you can do to learn about sake: try the same sake at three or four different temperatures and see how it changes.

The second difference, Ollie explained, was the acidity in sake. Sake has a fifth of the acidity of wine – it’s significantly low in citric and malic acid - the ones you find in wine. Conversely though, whilst wine is low in glutamic acids (15mg per litre in red wine), sake contains a lot : 250mg glutamic acid per litre.

This glutamic acid component of sake is the key to the third big difference from wine. Amino acids - glutamic acid as well as lactic acid and succinic acid - are the agents responsible for what has been described as the fifth taste, umami. Sometimes described as ‘deliciousness’ or ‘savoury’, umami is one of the reasons why sake is so good with food. Amino acids, especially if present in both food and drink in combination, intensify taste, creating more and more umami – enhancing taste, and making everything more delicious.

Oysters too are high in amino acids (particularly succinic acid and glutamic acid) and this is why sake and oysters ‘do so much for each other’.

Our first dish confirmed it. Maldon Rock Oyster (a large oyster) is high in salinity, so Ollie had paired it with Tatenokawa 50 ‘Stream’ - an aromatic Junmai Daiginjo which stood up to the saltiness. Alongside, the smaller Kumamoto oyster, a Japanese breed, was meatier and was paired with Konishi Gold, a Daiginjo Hiyashibori: this was a less aromatic, creamier and richer sake, paired with an oyster with more depth and richness, the sake bringing out the creaminess and richness of both.

As the bream carpaccio was served Ollie explained how sake can wash away, or minimise, any fishiness and saltiness , thereby allowing other aspects of the dish to shine. The Silent Blossom Junmai DaiGinjo had distinct aniseed notes, something you often find in sake and, as the dish featured aniseed herbs, this was a perfect complement. (I had kept back a bit of my Konishi Gold and thought that worked well too, but the Silent Blossom was sweeter).

Next came Oyster-Stout-Braised Beef Shin and Oyster Pie, with a toasted breadcrumb topping– a take on the classic nineteenth century London dish of steak and oyster pie made with stout brewed in south London. An umami-rich aged Junmai DaiGinjo called Aperitif accompanied it. Ageing breaks down sugars into amino acids, creating an umami-rich sake which is good with cheesecake or biscuits (hence the pairing with the breadcrumb topping). The mushroomy, soy sauce-rich flavours of the sake were perfect with this dish.

But we hadn’t finished: a ‘risotto’ made with orzo and braised cuttlefish from Dorset, with Lyonnaise onion and red butterfly sorrel was placed in front of us. This was a rich dish that needed the robust acidity of Black Face – another Junmai Daiginjo.

Then came tempura served with something quite different: Misty Mountain is a Bodaimoto, named after the temple in which it was first brewed. Bodaimoto is an ancient medieval method which results in a 17% slightly sour sake (from the slowly and naturally created lactic acid used in the mash ). It’s rich, fun and vibrant and, unusually for Japan, made by a woman.

We finished with a dessert of roasted peaches in sugar and butter de-glazed with sake (of course) served with peach puree and caramelized white chocolate: the toffee notes of this dish harmonized with a sweet sake UmeShu – sake infused with plum.

To discover more harmonies of sake and food go to https://foodandsake.com/london/ which lists all the places in London where sake is served - there are many more than you would think – and many of them non-Japanese.

For more information about sake and the British Sake Association, or to become a member, visit www.britishsakeassociation.org

To buy the sakes mentioned here on line visit www.tengusake.com

Shirley Booth is founder and president of the British Sake Association

© Shirley Booth 2018. Images © Nic Crilly-Hargrave / niccrillyhargrave.com