Migas and San Miguel

Last week I was in Malaga for Semana Santa (Holy Week) which is the most mind-blowing experience, marked by daily - and nightly - parades through the town. In between - and when the streets weren’t rammed solid with spectators - we managed to snatch the odd meal, the best of which was at a tapas bar called Meson Iberico.

Practically everyone at the bar - the best place to sit by far though you need to be in on the dot of 1pm to get a seat - was drinking San Miguel on draft rather than wine which not only made sense at lunchtime but with the food.

Two of the dishes in particular went brilliantly with it - the tortillitas de camarones - crisp fritters filled with tiny prawns (also VERY good with manzanilla sherry) and the best migas I’ve ever eaten. In Spain the term refers to a dish of breadcrumbs cooked with ham fat or chorizo (or both) and garlic which doesn’t sound very appetising but is unbelievably tasty. There’s a good explanation of the different regional variations on the Catavino website which also suggests a young tempranillo as a pairing.

If you want some other Malaga recommendations check out my friend food writer Thane Prince’s website - she was the one who led me - and indeed, accompanied me - to Meson Iberico.

Challans Duck and Château le Puy

It’s easy to be so cocky about a wine pairing that you cease to leave your mind open to other possibilities. So duck has always led me to burgundy (or other pinot noir) rather than Bordeaux. But last week’s spectacular meal with Château Le Puy at Hélène Darroze at the Connaught convinced me that mature Bordeaux can be just as delicious an option.

It wasn’t just any old duck mind you but a Challans duck, much prized in France for its tenderness and depth of flavour. It was served with endive and, I subsequently discovered from the menu, rhubarb though that wasn’t really detectable in the dish.

9 great wine matches for duck

And the deep, sensuously velvety wine, the 2009 vintage of the Chateaux single vineyard Barthélemy for which they are trying to get a separate appellation, would have shone with practically anything to be honest. The vineyard is farmed biodynamically and the wine made with without sulphites, fining or filtration. (I’d love to give it blind to anyone who dismisses all natural wine as faulty or ‘cidery')

There were some other fascinating wines and pairings during the meal too - their extraordinarily deep-coloured rosé 'Rose Marie' with a dish of lobster with morels and vin jaune, a chocolate and coffee dessert with a wine, Detour des Isles, which is treated like a madeira and travels round the world before being bottled and the discovery that the 2015 vintage of their white Bordeaux Marie Cecile which is 100% semillon was the perfect match for our cheeseboard.

The experience had a particular poignancy for me in that my late husband introduced me to Le Puy and we shared the fabled 2003 at one of our favourite restaurants La cour de Rémi which was always our final stop in France at the end of the summer holidays. He would have loved this extraordinary dinner.

I ate at Helene Darroze as a guest of Chateau le Puy. The restaurant has a vertical of of their cuvée Emilien on the wine list.

Crab tartine and Sancerre

Last week was a week for revisiting the classics. Oysters and Chablis, Fino and fried almonds (and excellent jamon croquetas at Paco Tapas) and this absolutely textbook match at Bar Boulud in Knightsbridge which recently reopened after last year’s devastating fire in its host hotel, the Mandarin Oriental.

I suppose you would expect nothing less of a Frenchman working in America, let alone a perfectionist such as Daniel Boulud. The crab (which was Cornish) was piled generously on a slice of sourdough toast with just enough avocado to create a creamy base without overwhelming its delicate flavour and some fine slices of radish on top.

Sommelier Yuri Gualen picked a really lovely Sancerre Florès from Vincent Pinard (which you can buy for £19.95 in Field & Fawcett) to go with it which was utterly perfect - equally elegant and restrained - just supporting the dish, not overpowering it. Sometimes it’s good to know when to hold back.

For other wine pairings with crab click here

I ate at Bar Boulud as a guest of the restaurant.

Baron Bigod cheese and Sipsmith orange and cacao gin

I really didn’t know which match to choose from the spectacular 10th anniversary dinner which Sipsmith held in their distillery last week. Most of the pairings were cocktails (I also loved the combination of roast Iberico pork fillet with a Red Cat, an invention of master distiller Jared Brown’s*) but I’m going to go for the line-up of four cheeses which was paired with four different gins

The outstanding combination was Baron Bigod a luxurious Brie de Meaux style cheese from Suffolk with Sipsmith’s orange and cacao gin. It’s a gin I’d have run a mile from if I’d heard it described but was actually ridiculously good.

According to their website it’s distilled orange blossom, cacao nibs, vanilla, coffee, and black cardamom blended with a syrup made from orange zest and raw cacao nibs - more orangey than chocolatey in the event They say it makes a 'decadent' Old Fashioned though I was pretty happy sipping it on the rocks.

The other cheese pairings were Bath Blue with sloe gin (I’ve pulled the same trick with Stilton), Comté with Bramble gin liqueur and Petite Rouell Cendrée (a Pyreneean goats cheese) with Bees Knees which I think must be one of their limited edition gins as I can't find it online. Or maybe this cocktail.

Anyway it proves that flavoured gins and gin liqueurs definitely have a place alongside a cheeseboard should you care to push the boundaries with your guests.

See also Six pairings for gin that might surprise you

* a blend of 50ml gin, 20ml dry vermouth (though he modified it to 10ml dry, 10ml sweet to pair against the dish) and 10ml-20ml juice from homemade cocktail cherries

I attended the dinner as Sipsmith’s guest.