Sweetbreads with mushrooms and Dog Point pinot noir

One of the great pleasures of living in Bristol over the past 15 years has been the friendship I’ve struck up with chef Stephen Markwick and his wife Judy.

In fact Stephen’s restaurant Culinaria - now sadly closed - is one of the reasons we moved to Redland, just a 10 minute walk away. I then went on to work on two books with him one of which, A Well-Run Kitchen is still in print and you can buy here.

Anyway I’m lucky enough to be invited to eat at their place from time to time and last week he cooked a mindblowingly good meal of sweetbreads with a creamy mushroom sauce with new potatoes and broad beans from his allotment. Knowing what he was making I took along a 2017 Dog Point pinot noir with which it went absolutely perfectly.

It’s tempting to feel that you need to drink a top burgundy with a classic dish like that but good New World pinot with a bit of bottle age often eclipses it - certainly for value. (The Wine Society is selling the 2019 vintage for £26 although the 2017, if you can find it, is more like £32)

By the way if you feel a bit squeamish about the idea of sweetbreads the umami-rich sauce, which is the key to the pairing, would work equally well with chicken.

For other good pinot matches see The best food pairings for pinot noir

23 year old Chablis and crispy chicken wings

There were a couple of contenders for match of the week this week. I particularly enjoyed a gin and tonic with my king prawn coconut curry for a start but I’m going for this pairing as it’s always tricky to know what to drink with an very old wine.

The bottle in question was a 1999 La Forêt premier cru Chablis from Domaine Dauvissat-Camus which had developed a rich, almost caramelly flavour though still with a fresh acidity that cut through our starter of salt baked celeriac and confit of chicken wings (basically boned out, crisped up wings). There was some black garlic and pickled wild garlic stems in the dish but it was the umami taste of the shards of crispy chicken skin that did the trick.

The dish was at Rhubarb at Drapers Hall in Shrewsbury and the wine was generously shared by James Tanner of Tanners wine merchants round the corner where I had been doing a food and wine tasting. (The prawns with sweet chilli sauce and Barry & Sons Clare Valley riesling and belly pork with apple purée with Domaine Bruno Sorg pinot gris from Alsace were particularly good matches there!)

For other good pairings with Chablis click here

I ate at Rhubarb as a guest of Tanners Wines

Tagliatelle of raw cuttlefish and passerina

Having spent most of our week in Abruzzo inland we seized the opportunity to have a meal at La Barcaccia a fish restaurant on the seafront at Pescara before flying back and this clever dish of cuttlefish ‘tagliatelle’ was one of the crudi (raw dishes) on the menu.

It was served with little finely sliced sweet onion then simply dressed with olive oil and lemon juice and garnished with fresh green chillies which gave it quite a kick (The abruzzesi like their chillies though they’re usually dried)

We opted for an inexpensive white passerina which worked brilliantly with the dish and also with the very gorgeous pasta dish of scampi, clams and bottarga we had afterwards. Passerina is one of the local grape varieties, the others being pecorino and trebbiano though this particular bottle from Pasetti is not available in the UK.

Grilled lamb with mustard glaze and a 25 year old Xinomavro

I’m conscious I don’t post as many red wine pairings as I should partly because I tend to drink white wine more often, particularly at this time of year but this was a really spectacular match at a Visit Greece lunch at Above at Hide last week held to promote the Greek wine trails.

The main course, a hugely clever dish from chef Ollie Dabbous was Herdwick lamb, grilled over charcoal, glazed with violet mustard (and some kind of sweet element (maybe honey, maybe fig compote) served with a grain salad and pickled vine leaves, was one of the best mains I’ve had this year.

It was boldly served with a 25 year old xinomavro from Pegasos in the Naoussa wine region which echoed the figgy notes in the dish. And it was fascinating to see how long and how well a xinomavro could age, particularly when served from such a huge and flamboyant decanter (old wines don't always stand up to being decanted). You can, rather amazingly still buy the wine from Hedonism Wines.

The other great match of the lunch was a salad of chicory and pink grapefruit with herbs and a manouri cheese and acacia honey dressing with a 2020 Gaia Thalassitis Assyrtiko from Santorini. Equally good if less surprising.

I attended the lunch as a guest of the Greek Tourist Board.