Which beers to drink at Easter

You may find family and friends resistant to the idea of putting beer on the Easter table (though some will be secretly pleased) but stick to your guns.

The more your guests see how great beer is with different types of food the more confident they’ll feel about serving it themselves and the less likely it is that the only beer you’ll find when you go to their house is a Bud. So, here goes:

Turkey
Roast turkey is a very beer-friendly dish. I particularly like it with Duvel and with the Scottish golden lager Schiehallion but you could pair it with any kind of golden ale or lager such as Budweiser Budvar from the Czech republic or with a Belgian or Northern French blonde ale, the beer world’s equivalent of chardonnay. Amber ales and lagers work well too.

Lamb
Two ways to go here - you could go for a strong Trappist beer like Orval, Chimay Rouge or a French bière de garde (the equivalent of a full bodied red) or a slightly sour red ale such as Duchesse de Bourgogne (think pinot noir)

Duck
Surprisingly, given how different a type of meat it is, the beers I’ve recommended above with lamb would work with duck too. If you were feeling particularly daring you could offer a cherry or raspberry beer. Duck and cherries? Classic.

Chocolate
Better with beer than with wine, many think but I’m not sure that most beer fans favourite choice, porter, isn’t too heavy for this time of year. Again a raspberry or cherry-flavoured fruit beer could well work particularly if you serve fresh berries with the dessert

Lemon tart
I’ve already focussed on the problems intensely lemony desserts pose for wine and beer certainly isn’t any easier. Hey, why not just eat it on its own?

Eggs
A witbier, bière blanche or other light, cloudy wheat beer is generally regarded as the best match for brunch dishes. Since it’s also good with smoked and cold salmon, spring vegetables such as asparagus and salads it’s well worth having a few bottles around.

You may also find this post useful:

Which wines to drink at Easter

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What type of food pairs best with Brunello di Montalcino?

I always like to respond promptly if someone draws attention to a wine match that’s not available on the site so thanks, Nigel B of Hong Kong for pointing out there was nothing on Brunello di Montalcino.

I have to confess I don’t drink Brunello as often as I’d like (perhaps I should live in Hong Kong . . . ) but luck would have it I’d drafted something recently which I hope is a help.

“When asked what food suits their wines best Brunello producers will simply say ‘meat’ or ‘game’ by which they mean Tuscan-style as it wouldn’t occur to them there’s any other way to cook. As Claudia Roden put it in The Food of Italy Tuscans have always “liked natural foods undisguised by sauces and elaborate artifice.”

That said, Brunello is a great wine that deserves something substantial, a fine roast leg of lamb with rosemary, pot roast pheasant, roast squab with truffles or that most famous dish of all bistecca alla fiorentina, Tuscan-style steak, ideally sourced from the indigenous Chianina beef.

More rustic dishes such as Tuscan sausages and beans or pappardelle with wild boar (cinghiale) or hare (lepre) sauce would also work very well with younger Brunellos.

Cheese should be kept simple, especially with older vintages. Aged pecorino or parmesan would be ideal.”

If there’s any food, wine or other drink you can’t find a pairing for don’t hesitate to let me know.

Image by Gianni Crestani from Pixabay

The best wine matches for Comté

After a recent visit to the Jura I've rethought my ideas about which wines make the best wine pairings for Comté cheese.

We were guided through a tasting by flavour analyst Claire Perrot who suggested a couple of matches I wouldn’t have thought of - Champagne and Alsace Pinot Noir. And since then I've been back and tried a couple more (see my update below)

Comté is France’s most popular AOP (Appellation d’Origine Protégée) cheese by a significant margin selling about twice as much as its nearest rival Roquefort.

It’s a cooked pressed Gruyère style cheese which in fact used to be referred to as Gruyère de Comté. Individual wheels vary hugely though I found them in general more caramelly, nuttier and slightly less salty than Gruyère but less fruity than Beaufort though there will obviously be differences between winter and summer cheeses - summer cheeses being fuller-flavoured than winter ones.

The French tend to eat Comté fairly young which makes it an unchallenging partner to a wide range of wines including reds. Once it’s older, nuttier and more intense you may want to veer towards whites or some of the other suggestions below:

Local dry Arbois whites
The classic local terroir-based match. Most of the ones I tasted were a blend of Chardonnay and the local Savagnin grape which gives the wines a nutty, slightly earthy, mineral character which chimes in perfectly with the cheese. I suspect old Muscadet, which I've been tasting recently, would work well too.

Vin Jaune
Arbois’ distinctive sherry-style white is a fantastic match for 12-18 month Comtés. And on that basis so is ...

Dry(ish) sherry
Amontillado and palo cortado being the two wines recommended by the Comté website although since I’ve successfully paired dry oloroso with Gruyère I suspect it would work well with Comté too. (Sherry is more sympathetic to Comté than port, I think.)

Champagne
The big surprise. I tasted a biodynamic Champagne from Lassaigne, les Vignes de Montgueux, which was just delicious with a 15 month old winter Comté. Vintage Champagne I suspect would be fantastic with older Comtés still.

Aged or minerally Chardonnays
On the basis that Arbois wines containing Chardonnay work well others should too, particularly mature Chablis and other mature Chardonnays such as this one from Kistler that struck gold with a 56 month Comté. You wouldn’t want the oak influence to be too pronounced though.

Old white Bordeaux - an 18 year old Domaine de Chevalier Pessac-Léognan was stunning with both 2 and 4 year old Comtés at a tasting I did with affineur Bernard Antony a few years ago.

Alsace Pinot Noir
I really liked a 5 year old 2006 Schueller Pinot Noir with a fresh, milky six month old Comté but the local Poulsard grape works well too

Mature - and immature but not overoaked - Languedoc reds . . .
A surprise perhaps but I’ve drunk Languedoc Syrah - young and old - successfully with youngish Comté.

. . . and mature Spanish reds
I've had striking success with a 9 month old Comté and an 8 year old Navarra red from Chivite. Mature Rioja reservas and gran reservas of course, should work too.

So a number of different possibilities which indicates that Comté is a pretty easy-going cheese which earns its place on a cheeseboard. The common factor in the most successful pairings however seems to be age. Mature wines seem to work particularly well. The wines I’d hesitate to pair with it are high alcohol new world reds with a lot of jammy fruit and intensely herbaceous whites like New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc which I don’t think would work as well. I don’t think rosé does Comté many favours either.

September 2015. On my latest visit to Fort des Rousses I discovered two other really good pairings for a full-flavoured 3 year old Comté Juraflore: a 2002 vin de paille and a MacVin du Jura, a curious blend of savagnin juice and must and brandy which tastes like a cross between a dessert wine, a grappa and a whisky!

Image © bluesky6867

The best wine and beer pairings for savoury pies

We Brits don’t need much encouragement to eat pies—they’re a staple of comfort food culture. But when it comes to enjoying a drink with your pie, the question arises: which is the better match—wine or beer? The answer, as always, depends on the type of pie you’re talking about and the flavours it brings to the table.

Steak pies with gravy
Almost always better with a strong ale or porter in my opinion.

Steak pies with red wine sauce
Should work with any full-bodied red. I normally tend to favour Languedoc or Rhône-style reds but a new world red like a malbec or an Australian shiraz would work well too

Chicken pies with a creamy filling
I’d go for an unoaked or subtly oaked Chardonnay, old vine Chenin Blanc or any other smooth dry white. Cider and perry also work well with chicken pies.

Pies with a tomatoey filling
Whatever the other ingredients I generally find cooked tomato works better with wine than with beer - I’d suggest an Italian Sangiovese or a Tempranillo-based red like Rioja, especially if there’s chorizo in it.

Cheese and spinach pies
I generally prefer crisp whites such as Sauvignon Blanc or even a more neutral white such as a Picpoul de Pinet with a light vegetarian pie like this but a light red like a Beaujolais would be delicious too.

Fish pies
Pair with the same sort of wines as creamy chicken pies.

Cold pies
With a classic pork pie I’d always go for an English bitter. A cold game pie however is a great match for a good red burgundy or Pinot Noir.

Photo © Richard M Lee at Shutterstock