Roast pork belly and young tempranillo

This week’s match of the week isn’t a new discovery - roast meat with red wine isn’t exactly rocket science - but the fact that it was pork that was going so well with tempranillo rather than the usual lamb or beef intrigued me.

The wine isn’t labelled as rioja although both it and the winemaker Gonzalo Gonzalo Grijalba come from the region. It was named as a result of the banks turning him down for a loan. (Gran cerdo loosely translates as fat pig!)

It’s a really vibrant, swiggable red which went really well with a biiig and very delicious plateful of fennel salted pork belly with all the sides I had at The Old Market Assembly in Bristol at the weekend.

You can buy it from Buon Vino for £9.95 a bottle or from Roberson for £9.99 or £53.95 a case of six (£8.99 a bottle) which is remarkably good value for an organic wine. It would be great with a barbecue too.

For other suggestions with roast pork and other Sunday roasts see

A quick guide to wine pairings with a Sunday roast

Gyozas and kombucha

One of the best discoveries of our recent weekend in Bridport in Dorset was a brilliant small restaurant called Dorshi. You might easily miss it as it’s down an alley off the high street but seek it out. (The alleyway is just to the side of The Bull hotel)

The Asian-inspired menu is in two parts - dumplings and what they rather nicely refer to as ‘not dumplings’ - but their speciality is gyozas with different types of filling. Being unable to decide we went for the tasting plate but all went really well with Real Kombucha’s Royal Flush I’d ordered, rightly anticipating a bit of a boozy evening watching England play Ukraine.

Kombucha, for those of you who are not familiar with it, is a non-alcoholic fermented tea and Royal Flush is made with first flush Darjeeling. It’s carbonated so tastes like a sparkling wine though with a fruitier, slightly peachy flavour in the case of the Royal Flush (some kombuchas are flavoured with other ingredients like ginger and lemon). You can buy it in Waitrose for £8 a litre bottle or direct from their website for £48 a pack of six. Or even from Amazon which has the smaller bottles.

Anyway it’s a great option in a restaurant whether they have dumplings or not.

Bacchus and chilli

The most surprising wine pairing discovery of the year so far is that England’s Bacchus is remarkably good with chilli

I had one (the award-winning New Hall Bacchus Fumé) with kimchi the other day and thought it must be a fluke as Bacchus is generally quite low in alcohol and it seemed unlikely it would stand up to such punchy flavours but last week I tried another one - the 2020 Dillions Vineyard Bacchus from Sussex - with the first course of an amazing seafood feast from Ixta Belfrage of spicy cassava crisps, radishes and a zesty lime mayo and it was perfect.

To be fair the back label on the Dillions Bacchus does suggest Asian food as a pairing so they’re onto it too.

Why? I guess it’s because with its bright citrus and passionfruit flavours Bacchus is quite similar to sauvignon blanc which would be another go-to with these kind of flavours but I always think the image of Bacchus is rather genteel, perfect for English summer food like my other suggestions here. Turns out you don’t have to treat it that gingerly

PS Also in the photograph was a hibiscus, strawberry and lime agua fresca which of course matched the cassava chips and dip too

Spaghetti with courgettes, basil, smoked almonds and Bordeaux rosé

I was sent a really unusual rosé the other day from biodynamic Bordeaux wine estate Chateau le Puy, their 2019 Rose-Marie.

Unusual because it was deep pink, almost like the traditional clairet, intensely savoury and most of all because it was a whopping 15%. You could have easily drunk it with a rare steak or a rack of lamb.

In the event I had it with something rather lighter - a dish of spaghetti with courgettes, basil smoked almonds and old Winchester cheese at the hotel I was staying at last week, The Sun Inn in Dedham and it went really well with that too - the slight bitterness of the basil and the smokiness of the almonds bringing out the sweetness of the fruit.

I reckon it would also go with a cheeseboard - in fact it’s basically a red masquerading as a rosé as well it might be given that it’s £49 a bottle (from low intervention wines).

Could you pull off the same trick with a cheaper rosé? Of course you could provided it wasn’t too sweet - I wouldn’t go for a pinot noir rosé, for example but the Wine Society has a delicious dry Bordeaux rose, the Château Bel Air Perponcher Réserve 2020 (currently out of stock but hopefully coming back in as I've only just been sent it) which is a rather more modest £9.50 and 12.5%. Or a Bandol rosé which has a bit more character and structure than a typical Provençal rosé.

See also The best food pairings for rosé

I ate at the Sun as a guest of the hotel and was sent the Le Puy rosé as a sample.