Which wine to choose for a barbecue

If you’re planning a July 4th barbecue this weekend - or barbecuing any other weekend this summer - you may well be wondering which wine to choose. After all the average barbie with its multiple marinades, sauces and salsas is an assault course for any wine. Which is why a lot of people give up and drink beer or pitcher cocktails.

Here are the factors to take account of.

A lot of barbecue marinades are sweet which tends to make lighter wines taste thin and sharp. But they may also be spicy so you don’t want a wine that’s too tannic or oaky.

The temperature may well also be high so you don’t want your wine to taste too ‘hot’ or alcoholic. I’d therefore avoid wines of over 14% ABV.

The ideal choice is a medium bodied wine with enough personality to stand up to the myriad different flavours and possibly a fruitier, less dry one than you might normally drink.

Good examples of white wines are Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Australian Riesling while Beaujolais, inexpensive Pinot Noir, Merlot, Shiraz and Zinfandel make good red wine choices (but watch the alcohol on the latter two)

Rosé is also an ideal barbecue wine especially the new generation of stronger, darker, more intensely fruity rosés you find from countries such as Chile and Argentina as are the increasingly popular sparkling rosés (Cava rosado is a particularly good bargain)

Almost more critical than the colour of the wine, however, is how you serve it. Any wine - even red wine - benefits from being chilled in hot weather which is why it’s not worth opening a wine of any great age or complexity for the average barbecue.

Of course now barbecuing is so easy many people grill several times a week and here slightly different guidelines apply.

If the meal is not what most people would regard as a barbecue but merely a conventional meal with the main course cooked over the grill you can serve a similar type of wine to the one you would normally serve though with a greater level of intensity to allow for the heightened flavours.

With a simply grilled fish served with herb butter, for example, you might drink a crisp dry white like a Sancerre. If it was seasoned with a spicy rub and cooked over coals you might prefer a zesty New Zealand, Chilean or South African Sauvignon Blanc.

How to entertain like an Italian

Last week I went to a marvellous lunch in Oxford’s Christ Church college dining hall hosted for its members by the Guild of Food Writers. The room - shown right - was just breathtakingly beautiful, lit romantically although the event was held in full daylight, with lights all down the long trestle tables. The oil paintings round the walls must have been quite priceless - the room must have looked the way it does for a century or more.

The menu was inspired by one of my favourite Italian food writers Ann del Conte’s new book The Painter, the Cook and the Art of Cucina which is sumptuously illustrated with paintings by artist Val Archer. And while the quality inevitably faltered in one or two dishes due to the sheer size of the gathering (about 250 guests, I would guess) what struck me was just how easy it was to put together and how simple it would be to replicate at home.

Here’s what we ate and drank:

Antipasto - a selection of salumi and roasted vegetables such as aubergines and artichokes (dead easy - just buy these in from an Italian deli or in jars)

Primo - Trofie pasta with pesto. This would have been nicer if made with freshly made pesto but is undoubtedly easier with ready-made. The caterers used the sponsor Sacla’s pesto which is not bad. A pesto from a deli or supermarket chill counter would have been better

Both these dishes were paired with a Fontanafredda Gavi di Gavi 2006 - a smooth, dry white that was fine with the antipasti, but particularly good with the pesto

Secondo
Brasato al Dolcetto (braised beef in Dolcetto) with polenta and green beans. The only course of the meal that required any real work and even then it could be done beforehand. Essentially it’s a pot roast with a red wine sauce, thinly sliced before serving (a classic Italian trick to make meat stretch). In the original recipe, which I’ll try and get permission to post on the site, a 1 kg (2.2lb) joint serves 6-8. If you baulk at making polenta at the last minute you could, del Conte suggests, replace it with mashed potato. The beans can be blanched and reheated just before serving

The match with this and the cheese below was a Barbera Bricco Tondo 2006, again from Fontanafredda - a bit young to have developed any real character but basically a sound match.

Formaggi
Montebore (a marvellous Piedmontese cheese of mixed cows and ewe’s milk which, according to Del Conte is claimed to be the only cheese served at the grand Renaissance banquet to celebrate the wedding of Isabella d’Aragona, daughter of the King of Naples to Gian Galeazzo Sforza, son of the Duke of Milan in 1489!) Not easy to get hold of but a good Italian artisanal cheese such as a Pecorino would be fine as a substitute.

Dolci
Sciroppo di rose (rose syrup) ice cream with a selection of homemade Italian biscuits including baci di dama and brutti ma buoni (great name for a biscuit - ‘ugly but good’!). There’s a recipe for the latter in the book which looks quite fiddly but you could easily buy in a range of Italian biscuits from a deli or quality supermarket and serve them with a home-made or shop-bought ice cream or sorbet.

It was partnered with a delicately sweet, quite delicious Fontanafredda Moscato d’Asti Moncucco 2006 - a classic pairing.

Five courses and very little work for the cook. What could be better?

Which type of Valentine are you?

From the window displays in the shops at the moment shops you’d think we were all clones when it comes to love and romance. That we’re anyone’s for a bunch of roses, a box of chocolates and a bottle of pink champagne. But lovers come in all shapes and sizes - and ages.

What suits a first-time cook of 21, eager to impress or a couple in the throes of passion isn’t necessarily going to work for a pair who’ve been married for 21 years and face sniggering teenagers at any display of affection.

As someone who isn’t married to a hearts-and-flowers type, much as I love him, I know I just couldn’t pull off a candlelit dinner without us both dissolving into helpless fits of giggles. So here are some light-hearted suggestions for Valentine’s feasts and matching wines to suit all situations

The Valentine newbie
If this is the first Valentine dinner you’ve ever made and you’re an inexperienced cook to boot, the key thing is not to be too ambitious. Make a simple main course, something that doesn’t take too long or leave you hot and flustered - a couple of salmon or duck fillets - even a steak (no chips if you don’t want frying-oil infused hair!) and buy in your starter and dessert.

(For the former I’d suggest some seafood such as crab or prawns provided, obviously, your loved one isn’t allergic to shellfish and a chocolate dessert. Gu makes some sinfully chocolatey little puds. Just pretty them up and make them look home-made.

To drink you could serve champagne or a good sparkling wine with maybe a glass of pinot noir (the world’s sexiest wine, surely) with the main course. Just don’t drink too much of either if you don’t want to fall asleep on the sofa after dinner.

The can’t-keep-your-hands-off-each-other couple
Little point in arranging a romantic meal - you probably wouldn’t get past the first course - so think in terms of a picnic. In bed. A bottle of champagne, some generously filled smoked salmon sandwiches and a tub of ice cream should do the trick. And lay in the ingredients for a hearty breakfast with some freshly squeezed orange juice and good strong coffee the following morning.

Thirtysomething gourmets
Even if you love to be in the kitchen Valentine’s night is not the night to pretend you’re Gordon Ramsay so don’t embark on a meal you’ve never attempted before. One dazzling course, maybe, just to underline what a brilliant cook you are - a terrine, a really good risotto or a fabulous cake but keep it light.

Personally I’d go for luxury ingredients - caviar or a caviar alternative, foie gras (if you eat foie gras), lobster or fillet steak and a simple fruit tart with which to enjoy a really gorgeous dessert wine (see my article here on wine matches for luxury ingredients)

Harassed parents
Any of you who have or have had teenage children will know that any expression of physical affection is likely to be greeted with repulsion so there’s absolutely no point in trying to have any kind of romantic encounter at home. You could book a restaurant but it’s not the best night of the year to dine out. Restaurants often resort to expensive set price menus and staff tend to be rushed off their feet. Personally I’d leave it a week or two and escape for a romantic weekend. And just open a very good bottle of wine to accompany the family dinner.

Saga lovers
The kids have flown the nest. You can do anything you like. Lucky you. I’d jump on a train to Paris, Venice, anywhere . . . just do something impetuous and romantic. Or go out to lunch to a fabulous restaurant (always cheaper at lunch than at night) and spend the evening cosily at home with a modest glass of your favourite malt whisky or - yes, why not - a glass of champagne. In the bath.

Image © Kudryashka - Fotolia.com

Treat your friends to a magnum this New Year's Eve

One of the best ways to make your friends feel they’re getting a special treat is to serve them a magnum - i.e. an extra-large bottle that contains two full bottles (1.5 litres) of wine. Many champagne houses have offered the option for years but an increasing number of other wine producers are realising that there’s a demand too.

On Christmas Day we served a magnum of Moet et Chandon 2000 (with smoked salmon) and a Chivite Coleccion 125 2000 from the Navarra region of Spain with the turkey. Both were drinking well but the ‘wow’ factor of having such impressive bottles on the table was the real thrill for our family and friends.

There’s another advantage to buying magnums. They almost always age better than comparable wines in a 75cl bottle. Because there is proportionately less air space in the bottle the wines tend to change less in character and age more slowly. This particularly benefits champagne. Moet is not a brand I’ve been particularly impressed by in the past but this bottle, from an memorable vintage, was a real cracker - gloriously rich and honeyed. My mother-in-law said it was the best champagne she’d ever tasted (so maximum brownie points there!)

The Coleccion 125, a contemporary blend of tempranillo, merlot and cabernet sauvignon was still vividly fruity and vibrant. It’s a wine that generally ages well but is even better in a large format as they call it in the trade.

The only drawback is that magnums tend to cost more if you buy them straight off the shelf because they’re a non-standard size and need time to come to their peak so the best plan is to buy them when they’re released and hang onto them for a few years. Because of their comparative scarcity they tend to be more in demand than standard bottles so you need to get your order in early, or in some cases, be a regular customer of the winery to get your allocation. Plan now for 2012!

* If you need to chill down a magnum make sure you think ahead. They can be tricky to fit into a fridge so make sure you have a large bucket and plenty of ice handy. (Iced water cools more efficiently than ice alone.)