Celeriac, celery and caerphilly soup with Coteau des Treilles Anjou blanc

It's always difficult to decide what to drink with soup - one liquid with another never seems quite right as I've remarked before - but the thicker the soup is the easier it is.

This was a smooth rich vegetable soup made from celeriac and celery with a little finely sliced Gorwydd Caerphilly and a good slosh, I would guess, of double cream.

It was a brilliant foil for a sumptuous barrel-aged organic Chenin Blanc, the 2008 Pithon-Paillé Coteau des Treilles which had the opulence of a great white burgundy. Pithon Paill is a partnership between Jo Pithon and Joseph and Wendy Paillé who act as négociants sourcing fruit from different parts of the Loire. The Coteau des Treilles is their own vineyard of which there is a very good account on Chris Kissack's site here.

You can buy it - and the '09 vintage from Caves de Pyrène for £28.70. Smiling Grape sells the '09 for £34.99. (So top white burgundy prices too, then.)

Plaice with clams, girolles and mash with FMC Chenin

I only have to look at how many of my matches of the week involve fish to realise that it now appeals to me more than meat. Not that I’m anti-meat by any means it’s just that the sort of wine you pair with it is fairly predictable, well-trodden ground.

Piscine pairings are much more intriguing - this week’s match being a case in point. A clever, complex dish of grilled plaice, clams, girolles, celery and mash (right) which was served at a wine dinner at Medlar in Chelsea which featured Ken Forrester’s FMC Chenin from Stellenbosch.

White wine and fish - what’s unusual about that, you might ask? The wine, that’s what. With 6.1g of residual sugar it’s not really a dry white yet with an lively acidity it’s doesn’t taste medium dry or ‘demi-sec’ either - particularly not the most recent 2009 vintage. It’s just incredibly lush - like a great white burgundy or rich dry white Bordeaux.

The ingredient that the chefs had cleverly included in the dish which made the pairing was some buttery mash which keyed in beautifully to all that richness and left the citrussy notes to chime with the seafood. The girolles and the crisp fried onions also helped. I don’t think it would have worked with older vintages such as the 2007 which would be better suited to spicy dishes like butter chicken, Thai-spiced scallops or rich pâtés and foie gras.

I’d heard good things about Medlar which were borne out by this dinner. Well worth the detour to this end of town.

I ate at Medlar as a guest of Enotria who import the FMC and other Ken Forrester wines.

Apple tart and orange wine

Apple tart is a pretty forgiving kind of dessert but here's a brilliant new pairing I found at Casanis restaurant in Bath last week.

The owner who comes from Nice makes his own Provençal orange wine and it's a perfect match for the simple apple tart that he serves.

It stands to reason when you think about it. Orange and apple are good bedfellows (it always helps to think of the other ingredients that go with a dish when you're trying to work out a wine pairing). I can imagine other sweet orange-flavoured drinks working well too - though liqueurs like Cointreau and Grand Marnier might be a touch strong.

The only problem is finding an orange wine. You should be able to track one down at top end wine merchants or in department stores such as Selfridges or Harrods but don't get confused with natural 'orange' wines which are by and large dry and wouldn't do the job. (Their colour comes from extended skin contact with white grape skins, not from oranges.)

Or you could make your own. There's a great recipe here from American cookery writer Patricia Wells which I first spotted in her book At Home in Provence and have always intended to make. Maybe now's the time.

Roquefort and Lagavulin

Having been on Islay for the jazz festival all weekend I've been thinking about nothing but whisky and jazz but there is as good a combination : Islay whisky and strong blue cheese

I actually had to wait until I came home though to try the classic pairing of Lagavulin and Roquefort as there are no cheesemongers or even cheesemakers on the island.

Those of you who are familiar with the Lagavulin 16 y.o won't need telling it's an extraordinary combination of sweet and smokey - a huge-flavoured, yet subtle whisky that needs a equally characterful partner to set it off. You might think that a pungent salty Roquefort would be too extreme but there's a wonderful alchemy between the two - as there is in all the best food and drink pairings, the Lagavulin adding a subtle smokey overlay to the cheese, the cheese making the whisky even more intense and mysterious. For me it's better than Roquefort and Sauternes.

You could I'm sure pull the same trick with other peaty Islay whiskies such as Ardbeg or Laphroaig and with alternative sheeps' blues like Lanark Blue or Beenleigh Blue but it is one of the all-time greats of food and drink pairing.

I attended the Islay Jazz Festival as a guest of Lagavulin.