Crab, chervil and Smederevka

There were two wine pairings in contention for my match of the week slot this week. The other being the excellent combination of mature cheddar with Washington State cabernet but that’s not rocket science and this was the more intriguing discovery.

It stemmed from the fact that I suddenly have an abundance of herbs including chervil which I’ve managed to grow successfully for the first time and am flinging into everything. It has, I’ve discovered, a wonderful affinity with fresh crab with which I was planning to do something clever but decided in the end to serve straight with a squeeze of lemon, mayo and chervil sprinkled lavishly on top.

Having tried a youngish chablis (a bit of a disappointment) and a New Zealand sauvignon blanc (too overpowering) I found the perfect match in a crisp, citrussy white called Smederevka Belo 2019 12% from Tikves in Macedonia which had marked herbal notes of its own. (Smederevka is the grape variety, Tikves is the place)

It’s great value too. You can buy it for £8.45 from the The Whisky Exchange or £48.18 for six and from a number of other indies including Noble Green.

For other crab pairings see The Best Wines to Pair with Crab

I was sent the smederevka as a sample by The Whisky Exchange.

Two exciting new pairings for asparagus

I’ve been thinking about the tricky subject of wine with asparagus for long enough to have come up with a number of different pairings but I came across two this week that were really a bit of a revelation.

The first was part of a meal at The Cauldron in St Werbergh’s, Bristol which is running a pop-up outdoor (covered) chef’s table called The Table* at which chef Henry Eldon serves a number of delicious courses from his wood-fired oven. One was a dish of chargrilled Wye Valley asparagus with ‘last year’s’ strawberries’, a fruity note which was perfectly echoed by the fresh tasting Corsican rosé from Domaine Vico TV presenter Andy Clarke had put on the wine list which, in a nice local touch, is sourced entirely from Bristol merchants and importers. The strawberries, which were lightly pickled (I think), created the bridge to the wine that made it particularly successful but dry rosé is pretty nice with asparagus anyway.

The other - also from Corsica - was the 2020 Sartène Blanc, a fabulously fragrant vermentino from Domaine Saparale, part of a line-up of spring and summer wines I tasted with Jason Yapp from Yapp Brothers and which we then again enjoyed with asparagus, this time with extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice and seasalt. Possibly one of the best asparagus pairings I’ve come across, I reckon because, as with the first pairing, the asparagus was served with olive oil rather than butter.

You can buy it from Yapp’s for £18.25 - which is not cheap but well worth it for a really lovely white that I suspect it will only get better over the summer

For other asparagus pairings see also Top wine pairings with asparagus

Unfortunately the Table is booked solid until July but follow them on thecauldronrestaurant on instagram to find out when the next booking period opens

Oysters and a Half Shell Gin martini

Having always understood you shouldn’t drink spirits with oysters I was surprised to come across the recommendation from oyster specialist Wright Brothers of accompanying them with a gin martini made from their Half Shell gin.

The gin which has been distilled with Carlingford oyster shells, kelp seaweed and Amalfi lemon is unusual enough - not exactly oystery but certainly saline - but was even better served straight from the freezer with a dash of Aecorn Dry an alcohol-free aperitif which slightly reduced the 42% alcohol of the gin while adding an intriguing herbal, borderline woody note to the martini.

The main thing though is that it was utterly dry which is what you want if you’re eating oysters unadorned or with just a small squeeze of lemon. I only used it because I didn’t have any dry vermouth to hand and I’m not sure it would have worked any better. (Incidentally I tried the gin as a G & T with the oysters too and it didn’t work half as well. The tonic really tasted quite intrusively sweet.

I wouldn't say the gin went better with one type of oyster than another really, just any good oysters you can get your hands on!

Oh, and no alarming after-effects!

You can buy the gin - and oysters - from the Wright Brothers website for £36 a 50cl bottle (it comes in a rather handsome tube) and from their restaurants.

In the light of this I may have to revise my post on oyster pairing The Best Wine (and other) pairings with oysters but you'll hopefully find some other useful suggestions there.

I was sent the gin and the oysters by Wright Brothers

Nduja and a super-Tuscan red

I don’t often get inspiration from chefs when it comes to food and wine pairing - you’d think they’d be into wine but they often aren’t - but Theo Randall’s suggestion of a super-Tuscan red with his dish of roast sausages with borlotti beans and nduja sauce was spot on.

Having posted the recipe, which comes from Theo’s new book, The Italian Deli Cookbook, I finally got round to cooking it over the weekend. Although the key ingredient, nduja, comes from Calabria it was absolutely delicious with a rich, smooth 2019 Grattamacco Bolgheri Rosso from Berry Bros and Rudd, a blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot and sangiovese. Unfortunately it already seems to be out of stock* at BBR who originally sent it to me but you can find it at Majestic, tannico.co.uk or wineeye.com by the case.

Similar Tuscan reds or rich full-bodied reds from the Maremma would also work or you could go for a southern Italian red like an aglianico, primitivo or nero d’avola. (There’s an interesting post on Calabrian wine here.)

Nduja, if you’re not familiar with it, is a soft Calabrian sausage with quite a spicy chilli kick. You can buy it in many Italian delis. Waitrose now stocks it as part of their Cooks Ingredients range

* a general problem at the moment. Wines seem to be flying as soon as they come in so if you read about something you like the sound of don’t hang around!

Recipe photograph ©Lizzie Mayson