Pizza and Franciacorta

Expensive Franciacorta might not be the first wine you’d think of drinking with a pizza but bear with, as they say … And not just because it’s Italian.

If you think how well a light gassy lager goes with pizza it doesn’t take a massive leap of imagination to realise that sparkling wine would work too.

But a sparkling wine as posh as Franciacorta (which, if you're not aware comes from Italy, just north of Milan)? OK, it is a bit of an extravagance but if you happened to have one open and felt a bit peckish and that pizza would hit the spot you wouldn’t be disappointed.

How do I know? Cos I had a couple of tasting samples over after a Franciacorta tasting and suddenly had the urge for a takeaway pizza (an aubergine parmigiana from one of Bristol’s best pizza restaurants Flour & Ash) and it worked amazingly well.

The Franciacorta was an organic zero dosage Barone Pizzini Bagnadole Riserva 2011 so vintage quality but remarkably good value (for Franciacorta) at around £35 though I haven’t been able to find a UK stockist.

I’m not sure I’d drink prosecco with pizza - for my taste it would be a bitt too sweet but cava and crémant, for sure. And champagne? Yeah, sure, why not? Champagne goes with (practically) anything!

For other pizza pairing suggestions see The Best Wine and Beer Pairings for Pizza

Chocolate truffles and PX

You can tell how much I love sherry from the fact that this is the second week running a food pairing involving sherry has been my match of the week.

Actually it could even have been the second consecutive week for palo cortado (this time with an aged Manchego) but I thought that might be overdoing it!

So it’s unctuous chocolate truffles with sweet raisiny Pedro Ximenez aka PX - in this case Gonzalez Byass Nectar.

The pairing was one of six in a sherry event for which I collaborated with my local tapas bar, Bar 44 which, like their Cardiff bars, is closed for the time being. Owen Morgan, who presented the tasting with me, co-owns the bars with his brother Tom and sister Natalie and is a complete sherry fanatic, known on Twitter and Instagram as @sherrymonster44.

The truffles, which contained indecent amounts of chocolate and cream along with a dusting of grilled hazelnuts, were also insanely good. So rich you (or at least, I) couldn’t manage more than a couple with a couple of accompanying sips which suits PX just perfectly.

For other PX pairings see here or to buy a copy of my sherry ebook click here.

Paella with pork, chorizo and spinach and palo cortado sherry

There’s still a tendency to think of sherry as an aperitif or just for drinking with tapas but it can go really well with a more substantial dish as I was reminded this week.

One of my Zoom cooking groups had decided to cook from the Moro cookbook, which was, incredibly, published back in 2001 but still feels really fresh and relevant.

I made a dish which they describe as a paella but which is more like a typical Spanish ‘arroz’ dish made without tomatoes, saffron or seafood. The key ingredients were pork, chorizo and spinach (I substituted chard) but the element which made it so particularly delicious was the slow cooked umami-rich onions and peppers. There was also a spicy note from the pimenton and cascabel chillies which I used as a substitute for the dried nora peppers recommended in the dish but probably needed cooking rather longer than the 15/20 minutes it took to cook the rice.

I tried a couple of reds with it but settled in the end for a glass of Hidalgo’s fabulous Wellington 20 year old palo cortado which chimed in perfectly with all the deep savoury flavours. Amazingly it had been open for weeks but was still wonderfully rich and nutty. You can buy it from indies such as Eynsham Cellars for £28-30 a bottle but Waitrose does a decent own label one for £11.99. A dry amontillado would work too.

I have to say that Spanish rice dishes are a lot easier than risottos (or should that be risotti?) as you don’t have to stir them. And equally, if not more tasty.

For other palo cortado and amontillado pairings click here.

Korean meatballs with mango, lime and ginger gin

Oooofff, Korean food is spicy! Even when I toned down the gochujang chilli paste in the meatballs I made on Saturday night they were a challenge for most of the wines I tried with them (a characterful Babylonstoren rosé powered through). But the best match by far was a gin and tonic made from Romy's Edition Mango, Ginger and Lime gin, a collaboration between Bristol-based Six O’Clock Gin and Indian food writer Romy Gill.

I made it up as a G & T with Fevertree Naturally Light tonic, plenty of ice, a couple of slices of mango and an extra squeeze of lime and its sweet fruitiness offset the chilli heat perfectly. I can imagine it going really well with Indian street food like Romy’s addictive samosa chaat too.

Six food pairings for gin that might surprise you

The meatballs were from chef Judy Joo’s new book Korean Soul Food though I used minced turkey thigh meat rather than chicken. It’s a really good recipe - the meatballs were a perfect texture. Judy suggests accompanying them with Gochujang mayonnaise which provides another fiery kick and I made her addictively spicy Korean style cucumber salad to go with them too.

I don’t know nearly enough about Korean food so am looking forward to experimenting more from this book. Hopefully my chilli tolerance will increase!

For more about pairing Korean food and wine read this archive post from Marc Millon.

I was sent the gin as a sample.