Bacchus and cucumber

Hot on the heels of its best ever medal tally in the International Wine Challenge, English wine is under the spotlight again this week which has been designated English Wine Week. It was sparkling wines that did particularly well in the Challenge but I have a soft spot for a variety called Bacchus, a white wine with a refreshing, sappy hedgerow freshness, not unlike a Sauvignon Blanc. Camel Valley in Cornwall makes a particularly good version.

I've suggested cucumber as a match not because I imagine you'll eat cucumber on its own with it but because I think cucumber-based dishes are a great match for its delicate flavours. You could serve cold poached salmon, for instance with a cucumber salad with a light dressing made with tarragon vinegar which would work really well or an old-fashioned cucumber and cream cheese mousse, an unjustly forgotten recipe from the '70's which makes a light and refreshing starter for this time of year.

Bacchus will also pair well with the kind of dishes that work with a light, minerally Sauvignon Blanc - fresh goats cheese or crumbly white British regional cheeses such as Wensleydale, fresh crab or a lightly dressed seafood salad. It also makes a delicious aperitif.

Image © Natika - Fotolia.com

Greco di Tufo with grilled seabass

I was reminded just how spectacularly, unexpectedly good southern Italian whites can be by a Slow Food wine dinner the other night at Flâneur to celebrate the publication of the English edition of their restaurant guide Osterie & Locande d’Italia. It was hosted by Feudi di San Gregorio, the iconic winery from Campania whose wines I haven’t tried for a while.

The winery is situated 40 minutes from Naples in the sub-region of Irpinia. It’s not at all what you imagine from Southern Italy: lushly vegetated and hilly - the vineyards are planted 500-700 metres above sea level - it suffers very cold winters and hot summers. The soils are partly volcanic.

The highlight of the evening for me was the recently released 2000 vintage of Feudi's Greco di Tufo which was paired with some little deep fried pastries called panzerotti. Quite delicious but I longed to try it with a simple piece of grilled fish such as seabass which I think would have been its best pairing. It was rich, dry and full but with a pure, crisp acidity that made it a fantastic partner for food.

I also loved the basic wine in their range, the Albente Irpinia Bianco, a blend of local grape varieties including Falanghina, Coda di Volpe and Fiano which makes a fine aperitif.

Incidentally the Osterie guide is a must-buy if you’re visiting Italy with details of all the restaurants that still serve distinctive, regional food.

Sparkling wine and spicy snacks

The idea of drinking sparkling wine with Indian street food might seem crazy but it’s a really good pairing as I was reminded last night when I dined at Masala Zone just off Carnaby Street with Warren Edwardes, the CEO of a company called Wine for Spice.

Edwardes sells three wines which you’d probably consider unremarkable if you tasted them on their own but which are cleverly designed to deal with the heat of spicy food. He deliberately set out to replicate the effect of a lager, still most people’s drink of choice with a curry. by creating a wine that had a refreshing spritz - less fizzy than a sparkling wine but fizzier than a still one. The wines are also modest in alcohol which means that you can swig rather than sip them.

The pairing I thought worked best was his Viceroy White, a blend of the grapes that are used to make cava (Macabbeo, Parellada and Xarel-lo) and just 11.5% We tried it with two different spicy snacks - chicken tikka served with a fresh coriander chutney and some sev puri, crisp little biscuits topped with spicy mash and fresh chutneys and scattered with what looked like deep-fried vermicelli. As usual with sparkling wines it paired really well with the crisp snack but also handled the stronger flavours of the marinated chicken and chutney well, both dishes enhancing the natural creaminess of the wine.

I also tried his Raja Rosé, a strong dry rosé, again made in Spain from Tempranillo and Garnacha with a lamb thali based on rogan josh and a hottish Goan prawn curry with his Rani Gold, a blend of the Catalan grape varieties above with 50% Muscat, quite similar to Torres Viña Esmeralda. Again, given the strength of the wines (12.5% and 11.5% respectively) they held up surprisingly well because of the spritz. (One of the reasons Edwardes - a banker in a former life - makes them semi-sparkling is because the wine attracts a lower tax rate than sparkling wines like Champagne but they also do the job of refreshing the palate without making you feel excessively bloated or gassy.)

Would I serve the wines at home? I’m not sure that I would (I’d probably go for full-strength fizz) but I’d be extremely grateful to find them in an Indian restaurant. You can apparently buy them from Ocado in the UK or contact Warren through his website wineforspice.com

Incidentally, Masala Zone is a great place to go for a quick meal if you’re in the West End. It serves genuinely authentic Indian street food at a very fair price. There are also branches in Islington and Earl's Court.

Charcuterie and Beaujolais

With the unseasonally warm weather showing no signs of a let-up it’s time to revisit the classic combination of French charcuterie and Beaujolais - perfect for picnics and other outdoor eating.

Beaujolais has had a poor press in recent years but at its best - and the recent 2005 vintage is a great year - it’s a charming and seductively summery wine. I recently bought a bottle of 2005 Georges Duboeuf Chiroubles which Waitrose has been selling at the knock down price of £5.99 and it was quite simply delicious - full of vivid red cherry fruit. Many Pinot Noirs have followed the trend of red wines becoming increasingly full-bodied but this was beautifully balanced.

If you don’t pick a ‘cru’ Beaujolais like Chiroubles (there are 10, named after the individual villages in the region), make sure you buy a Beaujolais-Villages, a step-up in quality from basic Beaujolais.

Charcuterie, for those of you who are not familiar with the term, is a catch-all description for processed meat products, mainly based on pork. It includes pâtés, terrines (such as the Terrine Beaujolais featured today), rillettes, all kinds of preserved sausages (saucisson sec) and air-dried ham. A good selection with some cornichons (small pickled cucumbers) and a crusty baguette makes a fine meal.