Tête de cochon, chou and chenin blanc

Pork and chenin blanc is a tried and tested pairing but this delicious way of serving it at Le Saint Eutrope in Clermont Ferrand the other day made the wine we were drinking - a Pineau de la Loire from Thierry Puzelat of Clos de Tue-Boeuf - really shine.

The dish consisted of thinly sliced, pressed tête de cochon or pigs head topped with a shredded cabbage salad dressed with a buttermilk dressing and toasted hazelnuts which offset the soft slightly appley flavours in the wine perfectly.

It also survived a punchier dish of pigs ear with homemade kimchi which was served warm but the kimchi wasn’t as hot as most. Also really good - do go if you’re anywhere near Clermont or en route to the south.

I can’t find the wine online in the UK (although Les Caves de Pyrène imports most of Clos de Tue-Boeuf’s wines) but according to Le Caveau in Kilkenny who stock the wine

"Pineau de la Loire is the original name of Chenin blanc, in this case, the blend is 90% Chenin and 10% Menu Pineau grown on a mix of clay, flint, sand and gravel. The vines were planted betweem 1993 and 2013. The grapes are crushed gently, the juice ferments and ages 7 months in old barrels. It is bottled unfined, unfiltered with a tiny amount of SO2. Lovely citrus and wild flowers on the nose, the palate is soft and gentle, with pear, apple and lime character."

You could of course, try the combination with another natural Loire chenin or maybe a South African old vine chenin blanc. A dry perry would also be delicious.

Baked celeriac and blanc de blancs champagne

Not many producers take food and wine pairing as seriously as champagne house Gosset which sponsors an annual ‘Matchmakers’ competition for young sommeliers and chefs which was held at the Cordon Bleu's Cord restaurant in Fleet Street

The winners were Matthew Davison and Adam Eyre of Fischer’s at Baslow Hall in Derbyshire whose winning dish was an umami-rich dish of Orkney scallop with nori salt, baked celeriac, fermented ceps, XO sauce, umeboshi furikake, sliced nori and a reduced celeriac stock.

Scallops are a given with blanc de blancs champagne but it was the other elements that were particularly intriguing - the savoury ceps which had been foraged the previous year, the salty XO sauce but above all the rich, sweet earthy flavour of the baked celeriac and celeriac stock which was made from the celeriac peelings.

The teams also had to produce a dish to match the 2012 Grande Reserve based on a shopping basket of ingredients including Berkswell ewes' milk cheese. Fischer’s turned it into a an unctuous Berkswell and champagne sauce which was served with a mushroom and bean fricasée and again went brilliantly with the champagne.

Goes to show you don’t have to have meat in a dish to create a stellar champagne pairing.

I was invited to the competition by Gosset champagne.

Le Petit Aioli and Bandol Rosé

A classic pairing this week but beautifully executed.

Petit aioli is a scaled down version of le grand aioli, a Provencal dish of cooked vegetables and usually eggs and/or fish served with a super-garlicky mayonnaise.

In this case, at the Sessions Arts Club in London's Clerkenwell, it included soft boiled eggs, anchovies, broccoli, chicory, some kind of Italian (I think) greens and pink fir potatoes with a gorgeous great gob of golden aioli

We took advantage of the fact that there was a Bandol rosé - a 2019 Chateau Pradeaux - on the by the glass list and it was utterly perfect - deep and intensely savoury. It could have easily dealt with the pork belly fennel and orange we shared as a main course too.

A totally lovely place with cracking food, a terrific wine list and a really nice bunch of staff.

Smashed potatoes and low alcohol IPA

You might not think that potatoes merited a pairing on their own account but then i guess you haven’t tried making Poppy O’Toole’s rosemary and garlic sharers.

Poppy is a young British chef who has amassed an incredible social media following for her immoderate love of potatoes and I don’t use the word incredible lightly. She has 1.8 MILLION followers on TikTok where she posts as poppycooks.

This is one of her recipes which if you’re not a subscriber to Tiktok you’ll find on Instagram (@poppy_cooks) and it’s basically super-crisp parmesan and rosemary crusted potatoes dunked in a parmesan, garlic and mayo dip. Which is as good as it sounds

I wouldn’t say I’d found the ultimate pairing for them (I’m leaning towards champagne though have yet to try out the combination) but can report that a well-chilled can of the impressively hoppy Green Light Quarter IPA - a 1.2% alcohol beer from Powderkeg - hit the spot nicely.

No and low-alcohol beers are getting so good these days.

And this may be the ultimate beer snack.

Photo © Nick Austin