Dim sum and Champagne

A very Western approach to Chinese food, admittedly, but if you're celebrating Chinese New Year today with a dim sum lunch you'll find that Champagne - or other sparkling wine - makes a perfect pairing.

For those of you who haven't come across dim sum before they're bite-sized snacks that are traditionally served during the day in tea houses (tea, obviously being the more usual accompaniment). They're a mixture of flavours and textures - some delicate and steamed (usually seafood), some more robust or fried (like pork buns).

Champagne is always at home with delicate seafood dishes and with crisp, deep-fried foods and its slight sweetness keys in perfectly with with the subtle spicing. A good prosecco would also work well. You might possibly want to move on to a red with the meatier dim sum if you're having a long lunch or if you move on to duck, say, but if you're keeping it simple a glass of fizz is just fine.

See Square Meal for a list of London's best dim sum restaurants.

Bacon, egg and claret

You might think the idea of eating bacon and egg with good claret is sacrilege but bear with me.

When you've got a great bottle of Bordeaux you don't necessarily want anything too fancy to drink with it. I was put onto this combination by a friend who once worked for a tycoon who used to regularly crack open a bottle of Lafite or Latour for breakfast.

Now I'm sure the health police will ge me for saying this but it's a great combination. Maybe not before 11am but as a late breakfast or brunch. Rather less grand than the rib of beef with truffle jus you will find suggested on the Lafite website, but considerably more congenial, if I may say so, than the 'soft centred' chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream also recommended on the site.

You want a wine in which Cabernet makes up at least half of the blend, I suggest - not too young but not too venerable either.

Maybe a 'lunchtime claret' if funds won't stretch to first growths . . .

Go on, give it a try!

Sea bass rillettes and Joseph Burrier Mâcon-Vergisson 2007

One of the most reliable wine matches is white fish with white wine and cream and/or butter and white burgundy - one of those blissful combinations that actually makes the wine taste better than it otherwise would.

We unearthed the Mâcon-Vergisson in a bit of a post-Christmas cellar sort-out and thought it needed drinking up. On its own it was pleasant enough with a soft honeyed edge, but it was transformed into a dazzlingly elegant drink by a jar of La Paimpolaise wild sea bass rillettes, a rather pricey but delicious French fish pâté we bought from our local deli. Not an economic purchase for a crowd - you'd be better to make your own - but an indulgent pre-dinner treat for two. The French really are very good at posh food in tins and jars.

The wine came from The Wine Society - the current vintage is 2009. Chablis would also hit the spot.

10 year old tawny with bitter chocolate and malt tart with salted caramel ice cream

I was hoping for an interesting pairing from the last meal of the year and wasn't disappointed. Like last year we went to a New Year's Eve dinner at Montpelier Basement supper club where we were treated to an amazing 8 course feast which lasted into the early hours of the morning.

There were some other good matches (I could have recommended a creamy cauliflower and Stichelton soup with a 2009 Felton Road Chardonnay) but this one struck me as the outstanding pairing of the night.

Truth to tell I'd hoped a beer would do the job (I had a bottle of the Bristol Beer Factory Glenlivet aged Imperial Stout that went so well with my Stichelton the other week) but it proved too bitter with the salted caramel ice cream. The bottle of rich, nutty Tesco Finest 10 year old tawny we'd taken as a back-up worked much better - as I should have known. Tawny port is very good with both chocolate and caramel.

I also tried a sip of my neighbour's PX sherry which also paired really well with the ice cream - as it does with vanilla.

A good way to start the New Year. Happy 2012!

Image © Mariusz Blach - Fotolia.com