Red mullet and saffron risotto with Valtellina

You might instinctively think of pairing a fish-based risotto with white wine but there are two factors that make this one, which I had at a lunch to celebrate the 15th anniversary of The Seahorse restaurant in Dartmouth, a good match for a red.

One is that the fish in question was red mullet which has quite a rich earthy flavour and the other that the wine that was served with it was a light, ethereal red from Valtellina (made from Nebbiolo the grape that is used to make Barolo and Barbaresco in Piedmont but called Chiavennasca here.)

Valtellina is a mountainous region in the north-west of Italy and the wines have a particular delicacy and purity. Although this one - the Ca Morei Valtellina Superiore Valgella by Sandro Fay was a 2017 it still tasted very fresh and bright which suited the dish perfectly.

Importer Luca Dusi of Passione Vino, who sells it for £44, describes is as a ‘pinot noir in nebbiolo clothing”. I don’t find is as sweetly fruited as most pinots but with the same seductively silky texture.

The risotto which was made by Seahorse founder chef Mitch Tonks’ son Ben was absolutely perfect by the way. Just the right soupy texture with the rice still with a little bite to it and a marvellous depth of flavour. I’m not sure I’ve had a better risotto outside Italy - certainly not one served at the same time to 60-odd people!

I ate at the Seahorse as a guest.

Poached turbot with champagne

Of all the wine matches I enjoyed last week - and it was an unusually good week for food and drink pairings - I’m going for this dish of poached turbot with champagne - not because it was startlingly original but simply so brilliantly executed.

The dish, which was served at a Champagne Leclerc Briant lunch at London's quo vadis, was more than just turbot (although that would have been good enough).

It was cooked with fabulously plump mussels and clams and an absolutely classic white wine (or maybe champagne) sauce with butter and cream and sea-vegetables which provided an attractively saline counterpoint. Oh and some unctuous olive oil mash.

It was served - extravagantly - with three different cuvées, the Clos des Trois Clochers, blanc de blancs brut 2017 and two 2016s, the Les Basses Priéres 1er Cru, brut zéro which is 80% pinot noir and the Blanc de Meuniers 1er Cru brut zéro which as the name suggests is 100% pinot meunier.

Frankly any one of them would have been perfect but I personally preferred the 2017 blanc de blancs with the sauce. (All Leclerc Briant’s champagnes, which you can buy from Berry Bros & Rudd if you’re feeling particularly flush, are vintage)

Anyway it’s hard to think of a better champagne dish - or a better champagne to go with it tbh.

I attended the lunch as a guest of Berry Bros & Rudd.

Beef stew and oloroso sherry

Last week I was at the Copa Jerez, an international wine and food competition where teams pair a 3 course menu with sherry.

(I judged the UK competition last year which was won by Gail Ge’er Li and Jaichen Lu of Dinings SW3 whose pairing of braised beef tongue and oloroso sherry I wrote about here.)

The ultimate trophy this year was won by Parsley Salon of Copenhagen in Denmark who also presented an oloroso as their main course pairing.

We enjoyed oloroso a couple of other times during the three days we were in Jerez, in both cases with a beef stew. As a ‘racion’ (more substantial tapa) at Valdespino and as the main course of beef cheek at an utterly splendid dinner at Lustau where they paired it with their Colleción Almacenista Garcia Jacana Oloroso Pata Gallina which you can buy from Waitrose Cellar for £22.99 a 50cl bottle.

Most of us obviously think of drinking red with a dish like that but if there were just the two of you - and you were both sherry fans - a glass of oloroso would be the perfect accompaniment. (Many supermarkets do excellent half bottles for less than this, quite often made by Lustau. Morrisons has one for £6.50 for example)

I attended Copa Jerez as a guest of the organisers

Roast chicken and champagne

There are so many good things to drink with chicken you might wonder why champagne needs to be among them, particularly if you regard it as a wine you drink with canapés rather than with a meal

But I was reminded this week at Bob Bob Ricard’s new offshoot Bébé Bob just how good it can be.

For those of you who haven’t heard of it BBR is a fabulously bling Soho restaurant which serves caviar, beef Wellington and other old school dishes with extravagant wines such as champagne*

Bébé majors on rotisserie chicken and chips though you can still precede it with caviar if you want.

We drank Bollinger which was obviously wildly indulgent but actually if you were fine tuning the experience you might want to go for an all-chardonnay blanc de blancs which would suit the wonderfully buttery chicken gravy better. But almost certainly be more expensive.

Why does it work? Because chicken skin is one of those foods that are rich in umami and so is champagne, particularly vintage champagne which would also be a good call if you can run to it. Waitrose does a good one under its own label on which you can currently get 25% off if you buy any 6 bottles which makes it £26.99 rather than £35.99. (Used to be cheaper but they seem to have upgraded it to the no 1 range and bumped up the price.)

Or you could drink cava which would have much the same effect.

*although, to be fair, their margins are reasonable.

See also 8 great wine (and other) matches for roast chicken

I ate at Bébé Bob as a guest of the restaurant

Photograph © Miredi at fotolia.com