Match of the week

Pork and chicken pie and English sparkling rosé

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on June 30 2025 at 10:38

You might think of pork pie as pub food, best accompanied by a pint of beer or cider and it’s true that both make excellent pairings.

But at Fortnum & Mason’s English wine tasting last week I tried a glass of their own label English sparkling rosé with their excellent pork and chicken pie and it also worked brilliantly.

The wine, which is made by top English producer Gusbourne, is quite ldelicate so actually benefited from having a bit of fatty, slightly salty pork to accentuate its fruit. (When I say fatty I don’t mean unpleasantly so, obviously, just that a pork pie by definition includes some pork fat. As does a sausage.)

Anyway I thought it would be a perfect combination to take along to a grand summer picnic like Glyndebourne - or even a not-so-grand one.

(The Co-op does a rather good English sparkling rosé called Eight Acres in their ‘Irresistible’ range if you can’t run to the Fortnums one. Or to pink champagne which would be the other, more costly, alternative.)

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