Langoustine and chickpea velouté with ‘fine’ rosé

I went to a really interesting tasting and lunch in London last week to celebrate the new Fine Rosé Day - an attempt to get the world to take rosé more seriously as a gastronomic wine.

The menu was devised by - none better - the team at the newly two Michelin-starred Trivet, each course paired with two contrasting wines, and contained some really interesting matches.

The standout one for me was a dish of poached langoustine with chickpea velouté - an unlikely but hugely clever combination, with both elements cleverly playing on the strengths of the two accompanying wines

One was the 2023 Feudi di San Gregorio San Greg rosato whose delicate red berry fruit chimed in beautifully with the langoustine (and accompanying dill); the other the more mature, savoury Ultimum from Torpez in St Tropez which was sensationally good with the slightly nutty chickpea velouté.

I can only find the Ultimum in Germany, Sweden and Switzerland at the moment but you can buy the San Greg currently from allaboutwine.co.uk for £19.39 which is a good price as it’s over £22 elsewhere. But do try the chickpea pairing with other savoury rosés.

Sauerkraut and orange wine

I could of course have written about wine pairings with schnitzel this week having spent four days at Austria’s major wine fair VieVinum in Vienna but it merely confirmed my view that grüner veltliner is a pretty unbeatable match. (Along with beer!)

However what was a revelation is just how well orange grüner - even a fairly wild example - pairs with sauerkraut and dumplings, the sauerkraut in particular.

Stands to reason when you think about it. The sourness of sauerkraut offsets the slight sourness of an orange wine. But they also (my friend Ruth Spivey and I had a different one each) went with the grammelknödel (roughly translated as pork scratching dumplings) that were served with it at an excellent little restaurant we found called Glacis Beisl.

You’re going to ask exactly which orange wine aren’t you and I’m going to have to confess I’m not sure given they they didn’t bring the bottles, just the glasses. (My excuse is that we were preoccupied with Ruth’s gorgeous baby, Bob)

However I did at least take a picture of that page of the wine list and am pretty sure it was the first two.

Anyway do remember this next time you’re in a restaurant that serves sauerkraut or choucroute and look to see if there's an orange wine on the list - although riesling does work too as you can see from this post.

Indian-spiced soft-shell crab and English sparkling rosé

You might have thought English sparkling wine and in fact English wine in general was a bit delicate for Indian food but this pairing at Trishna last week was spot on.

Crab of course goes well with rosé anyway and sparkling wine is great with deep-fried food so it wasn’t a massive leap to pair the two when spices were involved especially when they were as subtle as at Trishna which has a Michelin star

The wine was one of the most elegant English rosés, Busi-Jocobsohn’s 2019 Rosé Brut which has a lowish dosage of 6.3g which counters the idea that you need wine with a touch of sweetness with spicy food.

However it is a single vineyard wine and slightly fuller and riper than the extra brut rosé of theirs I’ve tasted before which helped it stand up to the dish (and makes for more pleasurable drinking too)

You can buy it from their website busijacobsohn.com for £39 - which is good value for a sparkling rosé of that quality.

For other wine and crab pairings see The Best Wines to Pair with Crab

I ate at Trishna as a guest of Busi-Jacobsohn.

Steak tartare and Provence rosé

It’s back to the usual drizzly grey grot this Monday morning but the past week has been glorious.

Definitely rosé weather which prompted my friend Andy Clarke* and I to crack open a bottle of Provence rosé at one of my favourite Bristol restaurants, Little French, the other day.

You might think that was odd as we’d both opted for steak. Andy, an onglet, in my case a steak tartare. But actually the wine - the By.Ott from Domaine Ott worked with both

In my previous post on steak tartare I wrote “Not the very pale Provence type but a Bandol rosé would be lovely.” I take that back - a good quality pale Provence rose is spot on too, especially with a fresh crunchy salad on the side. (And chips, obviously!)

You can buy By.Ott from various Indies in the UK, normally for around £25 but a wine merchant called De Burgh has the 2022 for £19.99 though I'm guessing they'll move on to the 2023 if that sells through quickly

* BTW Andy has a new book on gin coming out if you’re keen on cocktails and although I’m not much of a mixologist myself I’ve had great success with his recipes.