Mangalitza pork pie and Pomerol

I often get asked what the best pairing for a serious red wine is and I don’t think the people who pose the question would expect the answer 'pork pie'.

But this is the second time I’ve accompanied a pie with a top Bordeaux and it was absolutely magnificent.

The pie wasn’t just any old pork pie obviously but a freshly baked Mangalitza pork and prune pie from Coombeshead Farm in Cornwall, one of the places I’m most looking forward to returning to when we can travel again.

They rear the mangalitza pigs, which are a slow-growing cross between a Hungarian breed and a wild boar and have the most incredible flavour. You can only get it as part of the Mangalitza & Co pork box which also includes sausages, bacon and the most outrageously fatty but delicious pork chops*. They don’t mention deliveries after the end of February so may have limited availability

The wine was a 2007 La Conseillante Pomerol I bought about 8 years ago from Tesco when they were doing a fine wine promotion. It had been kept in less than ideal conditions but was still gloriously vibrant and velvety. The 2007 now costs about £70 - I certainly didn’t pay anything like that for it! I’m not sure it wasn’t under £20.

See also What food to pair with red Bordeaux

* According to the British Pig Association, mangalitzas used to be known as the ‘lard pig’. You can see some fabulous photos of them on their site

I paid for the Mangalitza & Co pork box and the wine myself.

Cassoulet and red Bordeaux

One of the questions I regularly get asked is what to drink with a special bottle. The general expectation is that I’ll suggest a meal of Michelin-starred quality but as this match of the week shows a rustic dish will do very nicely.

The wine was a 2009 Cuvée Barthélemy from a biodynamic Bordeaux producer Château le Puy whose wines I’ve written about before. Although they could legitimately be classified as ‘natural’ they don’t taste at all funky but smooth, polished and, in the case of this particular bottle, still surprisingly vibrant for a 12 year old wine.

I pulled one out to drink with a slow braised lamb dish from the Towpath café cookbook I made on Saturday night which includes 3 heads (heads not cloves) of garlic but is cooked for so long it doesn’t taste overly garlicky.

Even better I drink the remainder of the bottle with an improvised cassoulet I made with some of the leftover lamb, some Judion beans, half the remaining confit garlic, a duck leg I serendipitously found in the freezer and some mini chorizos which would no doubt outrage any self respecting Toulousian.

Anyway the Barthélemy was gorgeous with it, retaining all its richness and suppleness and handling the (admittedly) mild heat of the chorizo really well. A real treat but sadly not a cheap one. The cost of the more recent vintages at Buon Vino which stocks most of their range is £125-145 a bottle but their more affordable cuvées should work too.

For other cassoulet pairings see Six of the best wine pairings with Cassoulet. You'll find the cassoulet recipe I normally make rather than this cheat's version here.

Mushroom risotto with spatburgunder

OK, this pairing is not rocket science - I’m sure you know that pinot noir is a great match with mushrooms and so obviously with mushroom risotto too. But you may not have totally taken on board just how good German pinot - or spätburgunder, as they call it in Germany - is nowadays.

The bottle was a half bottle of Mimus Ihringer Winklerberg spätburgunder I was sent by Iris Ellmann of The Wine Barn and was just fabulous with the most gorgeous pure, ripe but not remotely jammy fruit - quite beautifully in balance and amazingly vibrant considering it was from the 2015 vintage. (Under screwcap which was interesting). Sadly it’s not cheap at £33.65 a bottle but pinotphiles will be used to that. And it does fall into the Erste Lage classification - which is equivalent to a premier, if not a grand cru.

The risotto was one that came as part of the excellent takeaway menu I had ordered from Root in Bristol and came with a punchy chive purée which you can see I somewhat clumsily swirled into it. (Interestingly the tasting note on the wine suggests that it’s good with herbs)

I have to confess that I drank a glass of grüner veltliner I had open with a couple of the other dishes which included fried celeriac with Korean Barbecue sauce and hispi cabbage with cheese and crispy onion crumb but the spätburgunder and risotto match was definitely the highlight

You’ll be pleased to hear we’re doing a competition with Iris next month.

See also Which wines and beers pair best with mushrooms.

The wine was a sample from The Wine Barn. I paid for the takeaway.

Pizza and Valpolicella

With time stretching like an aching chasm from one end of the week to another I've no idea how it’s possible to miss out my regular match of the week post but there you go. (Last week’s should have been chilli con carne and Robert Oatley Shiraz which I can heartily recommend)

Still, onto this week and a reminder from one of my favourite local Bristol restaurants Pasta Loco what a delicious wine Valpolicella can be. I’d ordered their Black Truffle meal kit cos why wouldn’t you? - and they turned up with a complimentary bottle of Valpol which was very nice of them.

I’m going off-piste and matching it with pizza not because it didn’t go with the pasta sauce - Valpolicella goes with practically everything - but because it was particularly good with the focaccia (above) which was studded with tomatoes and sage. It doesn’t take a massive mental leap to appreciate you could drink it very happily with most pizzas too. You just might have forgotten how deliciously thirst-quenching it can be.

You can buy this particular bottle which is the Montresor San Pietro from Pasta Loco's sister website as part of their La Sorella Selezion (for £105) or £8.64 a bottle from the rather wonderfully named Fiveoclocksomewhere in Essex.

And if you live in Bristol you can pick up pasta from one of the group’s other restaurants Bianchis which also offers a lunchtime special on the days when it’s open (Wednesday-Sunday, I think). Check out their website for the latest menu and opening hours.

For other pizza pairings click here.