Top pairings
Six of the best wines with a nut roast
You might be surprised that a nut roast isn’t that different from a conventional roast when it comes to finding a wine pairing.
The savoury flavours are designed to act as a satisfying substitute for meat and so work best with similarly full-bodied red wines.
Especially at Christmas you’re likely to be having them with the same kind of vegetables to the turkey - and possibly even the same gravy (so long as it’s not turkey stock-based, obviously).
There is one wild card though I probably wouldn’t serve with a turkey but would be terrific with a nut roast ....
Go on - be bold. I dare you!
Robust rhone or Languedoc red
Based on local grapes like grenache, mourvedre, cinsault and syrah the robust flavours of southern French reds work really well with the intensely savoury flavours of a nut roast. Other GSM (grenache/syrah/mourvèdre) blends should work too as would a northern Rhône syrah such as Crozes Hermitage
Cabernet sauvignon
Lots of nut roasts contain cheese and so pair well with cabernet, especially a cab with a couple of years’ bottle age
Pinot noir
If your nut roast contains mushrooms you’ll probably find a pinot goes well with it but I’d make it a medium to full-bodied one as opposed to a light youthful red burgundy
Chardonnay
Also a good match for a mushroom-rich nut roast, especially with a wild mushroom gravy. Though if there are chestnuts and a red wine gravy involved as in this recipe I’d again go for a red like a merlot or malbec.
Oaked white rioja
I’m sure the Spanish wouldn’t dream of it (I doubt they eat nut roasts anyway) but why not? One of the world’s most underrated whites
Amontillado sherry
Now this is a wild card and I wouldn’t serve it to a tableful of guests but if there’s just a couple of you and you’re sherry fans a medium dry amontillado sherry would be great.
Whatever wine you choose if you’re a veggie, or serving a nut roast to one, you need to check whether the wine is suitable for vegetarians - in other words that it’s not fined with any animal-derived products.
Photo © Monica Shaw
The best wine pairings for hachis parmentier
Que boire avec hachis parmentier? Or ‘what wine should I drink with hachis parmentier?’ - the French answer to shepherd’s and cottage pie.
I’ve been down in the Languedoc this week and decided to have a crack at one of France’s favourite comfort foods, not least because we’d rashly bought a huge tray of potatoes from a local grower who turned up at the door. The distinguishing feature of hachis parmentier, which makes it irresistible to potato lovers like me, is that it has two layers of mashed potato, one on the bottom as well as one on the top.
The middle would have traditionally been filled with leftover pot-au-feu or chopped roast meat moistened with stock (I used freshly minced beef) so it has less of a gravy-ish taste than a shepherd’s or cottage pie but is still quite meaty and savoury. There’s usually quite a lot of garlic - there was in mine - and parsley.
The French of course would drink French wine - what else? - but any robust, rustic dry red would do. We drank a rather indulgent natural wine called El Niño from Casot de Mailloles in the Roussillon (the 2011 vintage) which was absolutely delicious but I’d be happy to drink a hearty red from almost anywhere in south or south-west France or an inexpensive Bordeaux come to that. You couldn’t go wrong with a Côtes du Rhône Villages, Côtes du Roussillon or Costières de Nîmes, for example.
Sometimes hachis parmentier is made with confit de canard (preserved duck) with which you could also drink the wines I’ve suggested but also a pinot noir or a Beaujolais.
For my suggestions for shepherd’s pie click here.
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