12 great South African food and wine pairings

I actually experienced so many great wine and food matches last week in South Africa - some accidental, some intended - that it would be invidious to pick out just one as my match of the week so here are a dozen that really stood out for me. (See also my match of the week last week of Semillon and seafood)

As you can see from some of the menu descriptions South African cuisine can be quite complex, full of bold flavours that can make wine matching quite unpredictable so I wouldn’t necessarily extrapolate from that to say that a specific combination would always work. For a more practical reference consult the list of wine varietals, styles and recommended wine pairings I’ll be posting later this week.

Salmon tartare with sesame-crusted warm oyster, chilled potato, leek cream, ginger soy dressing with the 2008 Chamonix Sauvignon Blanc
Fish tartares are flavour of the month at the moment in South Africa and Sauvignon Blanc, particularly crisp mineral Sauvignons like this Chamonix suit them a treat. This was a great combination I had at Reuben’s in Franschhoek. I also had a similar ceviche of seabream with a more foreward Fishhoek Sauvignon Blanc with Bruce Jack at his Flagstone winery which shows the a more zesty, citrussy style works well too.

Seared scallops, bacon foam and corn puree with Ken Forrester 2008 FMC Chenin Blanc
You might well think this umami-rich dish from Terroir at Kleine Zalze would be a perfect match for Chardonnay - and it would - but it was simply stunning with Ken Forrester’s voluptuous signature Chenin Blanc

Prawn risotto with Raats Original Chenin Blanc 2009
At the same meal I had a light seafood risotto with the Raats Family Original (unoaked) Chenin Blanc which provided a lovely contrasting note of crisp, mineral freshness - working, when I thought about it later - in much the same way as an Italian white.

Smoked duck with chicory and fig salad with Flagstone Writer's Block pinotage
Like many I have my reservations about Pinotage but this is a great example of what the grape can deliver from Bruce Jack of Flagstone, inspirationally paired by chef Pete Goffe-Wood with spicy home-smoked duck breast and figs, a combination that played on Pinotage’s own mocha notes

Spring roll with Bobotie and Creation 2008 Syrah Grenache
One of a number of clever canap pairings designed by Carolyn Martin of Creation Wines to go with their range. Bobotie is a traditional South African dish of curried mince, usually with some sultanas or raisins and the wine was in the fresh, peppery Rhone style rather than a blockbuster Shiraz. (It was also very good with shavings of Biltong which accentuated its savoury, gamey notes.)

Springbok loin and pistachio dusted ostrich liver, parsnip and coffee puree, fig and ash baked celeriac with Rust en Vrede Shiraz 2006
I doubt any of you would be able to replicate this complex dish from chef David Higgs at Rust en Vrede restaurant (I certainly couldn’t) but the one element it needed to complement it was a touch of sweetness which it got in spades from Rust en Vrede’s own full bodied shiraz. (Note though that this was 4 years old. I suspect a newly released shiraz - rather than the more subtle Syrah style would have been overpowering

Grilled quail, grapes, mascarpone, beetroot-cumin puree, couscous with herbs, mustard-hanepoot rosemary jus with Boekenhoutskloof Syrah 2007
There’s so much good Syrah/Shiraz in the Cape right now one's spoilt for choice but I loved this combination of spicy quail and a big savoury Rhone-style Syrah from the irrepressible Mark Kent. (Again at Reuben’s)

Moroccan style lamb with Ras el Hanout with Raats Cabernet Franc 2007
I wasn’t intending to mention any winemaker more than once but this combination of fresh-tasting but powerful Cabernet Franc from Bruwer Raats and Moroccan-style lamb at Terroir was surprisingly successful. (I’d have been thinking more in terms of Syrah)

Peppered Chalmar rump, veal short rib ragout and caramelised pearl onion with La Riche 2005 Cabernet Reserve
One of the impressions I took away from this trip is how good South African Cabernet is now and this velvety, elegant La Riche one was just sensational with a very good dish of seared beef and braised veal at the recently opened Jordan restaurant (better than Syrah, I suspect, the recommended pairing. With pepper in the dish you don’t really need pepper in the wine - the Cab provided a lovely sweet contrast.)

Caramelised grenadilla (passionfruit) tart with crushed hazelnut praline with Jordan’s Mellifera
Again from George Jardine at Jordan, a knockout combination of just-warm, quivering passionfruit tart with a late harvest wine made from Rhine Riesling. The hazelnut praline also added a lovely nutty note to the pairing, preventing it from being oversweet.

Ken Forrester Late Harvest Chenin Blanc 2007 with white cheddar and spiced apricot compote
Cheese is often accompanied by fruit or fruit compotes in South Africa so sweet wines are often a better bet than red - even with cheeses that aren’t blue as this unexpected combination at Terroir proved. (The Chenin was very light and fresh, not oversweet) The apricot compote - spiced, I think, with cardamom - was so delicious I’m going to have to try and get the recipe

2008 Hamilton Russell Chardonnay and cheddar-style cheese.
South Africa still has a way to go before it makes great cheeses but its presentation and use of them is second to none as you can see from this platter served at the Creation winery restaurant. Anthony Hamilton-Russell, who was at the tasting, told me that hard cheeses like cheddar (and, more particularly parmesan) were good with his sumptuously elegant Chardonnay and he was dead right. It worked a treat with the medium-bodied cheddar on this platter.

 

I visited South Africa as a guest of Wines of South Africa and its producers.

Semillon and seafood

This week I’m on a wine trip in South Africa (so posting may be slightly more spasmodic). There have been many great matches already but two interesting ones have involved Semillon a grape the country is beginning to handle very impressively.

We had two at our first lunch which was at Terroir on the Kleine Zalze estate in Stellenbosch: a 2006 Stellenzicht Semillon Reserve and a 2003 Boekenhoutskloof Semillon.

The Stellenzicht which was made in quite a rich style, not dissimilar from those from the Barossa Valley but with a greener edge and a crisper acidity was fantastic with an Asian-style dish of raw beef fillet with spicy ponzu sauce while the more opulent Boekenhoutskloof which had more of a white Graves feel about it proved the perfect match for a main course of poached Kingklip (a local South African fish) with prawns and a white wine sauce (right)

It reminds one what an underrated wine Semillon is.

I am in South Africa as a guest of Wines of South Africa.

Gladstone Pinot Noir and hare royale

My match of the week has to include Gladstone Pinot Noir from Wairarapa in New Zealand which featured in two unexpectedly good pairings at two different restaurants.

The first was at Bistro Bruno Loubet where I discovered to my surprise it was a better match for a super-rich dish of hare royale than the full bodied Argentinian red (Clos de los Siete) both I and the sommelier had thought would be the ideal partner.

The second was at Texture where it proved a surprise hit with a subtle fish dish of cod with barley risotto, prawns and shellfish jus.

The common factor? Both dishes had a umami element - the hare in its rich savoury sauce, the risotto in its shellfish jus and umami is flattering to most wines, especially Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The hare also had a sweet pumpkin and dried mandarin pure which accentuated the acidity and freshness of the wine.

It’s an interesting comment on the increasing open-mindedness of French sommeliers and restaurateurs in London that both restaurants should offer a New Zealand Pinot by the glass instead of a burgundy. That wouldn’t have been the case a few years ago.

Bakewell tart and Liefmans Kriek

It’s been hard to pick a single pairing from the beer and food matching dinner I attended at the Anchor in Walberswick last week but I reckon it’s got to be the perfect pairing of Bakewell tart and Liefmans Kriek.

Liefmans, which is based in Belgium used to make two fruit beers - Kriek which was flavoured with cherries and Frambozen or framboise with raspberries. Now it seems to make just Liefmans which is blended with cherries and other berries and what they call Liefmans Cuvée Brut which is wrapped in the distinctive red paper.and is, so far as I can tell, the old Kriek. Either would have gone with the tart, which contains a layer of raspberry jam with an almond topping. I’ve previously matched it with Frambozen but the Kriek is equally good.

We were also served a glass of Meantime’s very chocolatey chocolate beer which went well with a number of the desserts on this highly indulgent dessert plate (right) but particularly, I thought, with a white chocolate mousse on shortbread. Something you just couldn’t pull off with wine.

The dinner was part of an all day beer experience called ‘Beer Safari’ organised by a Suffolk-based company called Food Safari and included a trip to the local Adnams brewery in Southwold. I’ll be writing more about some of the other beers and pairings I tasted later this week.

I attended the dinner as a guest of The Anchor and Food Safari.