Match of the week
Braised short ribs in red wine with Les Clos Perdus Corbières
The weather has been so absurdly autumnal this week that I cooked a substantial stew for friends on Saturday night, an intensely flavoured braise of beef short ribs (or pot au feu as our local butcher describes them) with plenty of lush, red wine (a Valdivieso Cabernet Sauvignon from the Maipo Valley in Chile which is part of the Waitrose own label range).
Because this cut is quite fatty even when skimmed I wanted something drier with more pronounced acidity to accompany it and had the perfect answer in a couple of beautifully crafted reds I’d come across at the Bristol Wine and Food Fair last month and which I'd been dying to try with food.
They’re from a domaine called Les Clos Perdus which is based in Peyriac de Mer in Languedoc and is run on biodynamic principles by an Australian and an Englishman with an unusual background - Paul Old, a former dancer who trained as a winemaker in Australia and Hugo Stewart who used to be a farmer in Wiltshire.
The two wines we drank with the stew were the 2005 Cuvée 31, a blend of Mourvèdre, Carignan and Grenache from Peyriac de Mer and 2005 Prioundo, a blend of Grenache, Cinsault and Mourvèdre. They couldn’t have been better with the stew though being a Mourvèdre fan I marginally preferred the Cuvée 31 which was more supple and aromatic. The Prioundo struck me as very similar to a Priorat.
You can buy their wines online by the case (Prioundo is £132, Cuvée 31, £149) or by the bottle from independent wine merchants such as Green & Blue in London and Corks of Cotham in Bristol. You can also find them in a number of top London restaurants such as Gordon Ramsay at Claridges, Club Gascon and The Square.
Salmon ceviche and Soave
With its intense citrussy flavour ceviche - marinated raw fish - is a tricky dish to pair with wine.
One’s natural inclination might be to pick a white with a similar flavour profile such as a Sauvignon Blanc but the likelihood is that the more intense flavour of the marinade will strip the citrus flavours out of the wine.
At our local restaurant Culinaria at the weekend I picked a half bottle of Pieropan Soave to kick off our meal which held its own really well with a delicious starter of salmon marinated with lime served with guacamole (Mexican avocado dip). It didn’t interfere with the pure lime flavour but had enough personality to stand up to the zingy flavours of the dish. A decent Pinot Grigio, I suspect, would work equally well.
Image © karandaev - Fotolia
Cold roast veal with herbs and St Chinian rosé
It’s been so hot over the last couple of days here in the Languedoc I haven’t felt much like cooking so we raided the very good local traiteur (takeaway) in Murviel yesterday for our weekend’s eating. The highlight was some beautifully cooked rare roast veal with herbs - in the style of Italian porchetta.
I accompanied it with a tomato, rice and basil salad and a green salad (which I did manage to rustle up from scratch) and paired it with our neighbour’s very good St Chinian rosé. His estate is romantically named Domaine Belles Courbes which translates as ‘beautiful curves’. (Referring, I hasten to add, to the vineyards . . . )
He has two rosés - an oaked and an unoaked version - both based on Cinsault and Grenache (the oaked version also has Carignan). We were drinking the unwooded version which also paired brilliantly well with some French style stuffed tomatoes with sausagemeat we had the other night and - to my surprise - with some very ripe Charentais melon. (I would have thought it would have been too dry)
I didn’t think you could get hold of it in the UK but it is apparently available from a company called Wines Unfurled (www.winesunfurled.co.uk 01280 847422) for £8.99 a bottle. Here it's only 5 euros ;-)
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Spicy lamb stew with Coonawarra Cabernet
I’m aware that there’s a Francophile bias to this site but there are recipes where I automatically turn to the New World. The spicy lamb dish I picked up the other night from my local restaurant and takeaway Culinaria is one of them - a hottish tagine-style dish of spiced lamb, aubergines, chickpeas & merguez sausage which was almost on the verge of being a curry.
I suppose it’s not so surprising I reached for a ripe fruity Cabernet Sauvignon - lamb and Cabernet is a classic but once spices are involved nothing is automatic.
The sauce was quite sharp though (I thought it might have included tamarind) and the wine, a 2003 Reschke Vitulus Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon (imported by H & H Bancroft and available for £12.99 from the Oxford Wine Company) neither too alcoholic (13.5% is quite modest by Australian standards) nor too heavily oaked.
It was a great combination, the supply plummy fruit adding just the right counterpoint of sweetness to the stew.
Chicken and vegetable tagine with southern French rosé
Today, as you’ll probably not need reminding, is le quatorze juillet which marks the storming of the Bastille and the start of the French revolution. These days the French are more likely to head for the beach than onto the streets as it’s a public holiday and the start of the month long summer vacation for many but it’s celebrated with street parties all over France.
Here’s an appropriately modern French pairing, which I enjoyed last week in Arles to inspire you if you want to throw an impromptu party of your own. North African food is very popular in the south of France and I ordered this unusual chicken and vegetable tagine in a Moroccan restaurant called L’Entrevue. Normally a chicken tagine has fewer vegetables but this was more like a cross between a classic chicken and lemon tagine and a vegetable couscous. It also contained chicken livers, an unusual and imaginative touch which went very well with the preserved lemons in the dish.
As it was a sweltering 33°C we automatically reached for the rosé, a pale, crisp dry style from Château Mourgues du Grès in the Costières de Nîmes region around Arles. It matched the tagine perfectly, the slight spiciness bringing out all its delicate fruit. The cuvée is a blend of Syrah, Grenache and Carignan called Fleur d’Eglantine and is available from vivinum.co.uk and Sam’s Wine and Spirits and Morrell in the US
For wine matches for other types of tagine check out Which wine to pair with a Moroccan tagine
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