Spanish ham and orange wine

There were other dishes on the table* - but it was the jamon de Teruel, a lesser known ham from Aragon in Spain, that was the standout pairing with the orange wine I was drinking last week.

It came from a company called Oranj which operates a subscription scheme curated by different sommeliers and restaurateurs who choose the wines that go into the monthly selection. It has the rather splendid name of Dinamo Nucleo X, comes from Umbria and, as you can see, has a glorious amber colour and an appealingly soft apricot and quince-like character which made it good introduction to orange wine. It's also only 11%.

It doesn’t seem to be available currently from Oranj (a good reason for subscribing) but you can buy the 2019 from Natural Born Wine though it might not be as charmingly fresh and fruity. (It comes in litre bottles).

You could try other orange wines too, obviously. I also liked the 2021 Airene from Vinos Ambiz I also bought from Oranj which is sadly out of stock now too. (You do need to subscribe to take advantage of the more interesting wines they get in)

I think it’s the slight saltiness and umami in Spanish ham that made the combination sing. The iberico ham above would also work brilliantly. For other great pairings with orange wine click here.

*we also had a punchy potato salad with a gribiche (egg, cornichon and caper) dressing and a tomato and green bean salad

Top image by Aves y estrellas at shutterstock.com

Peaches, burrata and white vermouth

I knew that peaches and burrata were a perfect pairing but what to drink with them?

I happened to have a glass of Cocchi’s Extra Dry white vermouth to hand which I hadn’t really expected to work - vermouth is generally the sort of drink you sip before a meal rather than with one - but it was utterly delicious.

Although it states on the label it’s ‘extra dry’ it’s actually not. Not quite a bianco but definitely fruity - like a charentais melon with a citrus twist. I suspect the basil also enhanced the subtle herbal notes of the drink - it's definitely a modern and very accessible take on vermouth.

I just drank it over ice though you could have made it a longer drink with a light tonic or soda

I think the dish would also go with a rich aromatic sauvignon blanc, with a southern Italian white such as a Greco di Tufo or, as here, with a Cape White blend

Lovely and summery anyway.

Bacchus and coriander salsa

English wine isn’t probably not the first bottle you’d reach for if you were serving a punchy salsa but on the basis of last week’s experiment maybe you should!

I was helping a friend make supper and she handed me a spinach pesto and asked me to zhuzh it up. I added some finely sliced spring onions, a bit of chilli, a good squeeze of lime, more herbs (mainly coriander and mint) and it turned into a creditable salsa which we had with some grilled tuna, tomatoes and mange tout.

I’d also taken along a couple of bottles including this very snappily packaged Bacchus which provided an extra layer of citrus that offset the salsa perfectly. It comes in a colourful paper bottle which is made from recycled paper, with a recyclable plastic pouch - rather like a mini bag-in-box which apparently gives it a carbon footprint six times lower than glass.You can buy it from Avery's in Bristol and Laithwaites for £18.99 or £14.99 if you buy any 12 wines from them. (You can see a couple of other recommendations from their range in a recent Guardian column)

A fun wine to take to a dinner party.

Roast monkfish with girolles and Kalimna cabernet/shiraz

If an Australian cabernet-shiraz is the last wine you’d think of pairing with fish here’s why it worked at a recent lunch that Penfolds hosted at Trivet in London

First of all the fish was monkfish, a meaty fish that can generally stand up to red wine

Secondly it was roasted - a more robust way of cooking fish than poaching or steaming

Thirdly it was accompanied by wine-friendly girolle mushrooms

And fourthly it was accompanied by a very skilfully made red wine sauce (the most impressive thing about the whole meal was the way chef Jonny Lake who used to head up the kitchen at The Fat Duck, crafted the sauces to suit each wine.)

But maybe the most important factor of all was that the wine was 60 years old. Given it wasn’t a massively expensive wine in the first place - we’re not talking Grange - it was still extraordinarily bright. Not with its primary fruit obviously but not in any way over the hill. And it was its lovely mellowness that made it such a good match.

You can buy the most recent vintages for £32.99 a bottle from Majestic or £28.99 on their mix six deal - not bad for a wine that might last 60 years!

For other monkfish matches see The Best Wine Pairings for Monkfish