Oaked white rioja and rabbit terrine

This time of year is full of pre-Christmas get-togethers which means a higher than usual number of meals out and an above average number of interesting wine pairings.

I’ve had a terrific match with a carbonara this week (a dry Italian white called passerina) and a stunning one for a venison casserole (an old Felton Road pinot noir) but the ones I was most intrigued by were with a mature white rioja at a Spanish wine dinner at Asador 44 in Cardiff hosted by wine writer Tim Atkin.

It was a really sumptuous barrel-fermented Finca Allende*, from the 2014 vintage (the most recent vintage) which had the richness and depth of a mature white burgundy - not as intense as the Vina Tondonia blanco but more than most oaked white riojas. (It was also aged in oak for 14 months)

It was officially paired with a rabbit and game terrine with girolles and quince to which it added a quince note of its own but was also great with the next course of confit and roast leg of milk-fed lamb with some pretty punchy sides including charcoal king oyster mushrooms, broccoli with morcilla and romesco and escalivada (a roasted vegetable salad). That was also perfect with its intended match of a rich, spicy Montsant Altaroses 2015 from Joan d’Anguera proving, if you’ll pardon the expression, that there are more ways than one to skin a cat when it comes to wine pairing.

Note neither of those dishes would have worked with the brighter, unoaked style of white rioja which can taste more like a sauvignon blanc - but in the oaked style behaves more like and can be substituted for a red.

For other white rioja pairings see The Best Food Pairings for White Rioja.

I attended the dinner as a guest of Asador 44

Ceviche and sauvignon blanc

It’s rare that you keep on coming across a wine pairing that impresses you but my 10 days in Chile over the past couple of weeks have finally convinced me that sauvignon blanc is the perfect match for ceviche which seems to have become Chile’s national dish.

You might wonder why I hadn’t hit on it before. Well, previously I’ve found that the citrus that is generally used in the marinade tended to cancel out the flavours of the wine but in Chile I think they make it with slightly different type of fruit more like a cross between lemon and lime and also don’t use quite so much of it. Also the fish is fantastically fresh which makes seafood the top note rather than the base. (It doesn’t seem to matter much whether the fish is salmon, tuna or rockfish but their ceviche often includes raw onion another element that kicks sauvignon into touch)

Chilean sauvignon is also very fresh and sometimes saline without the powerful grassy or gooseberry character of sauvignons from countries such as New Zealand. Definitely better without oak and the younger the wine the better (so 2018 at the time of writing works just fine along with fresh 2017s)

Spicy Sichuan noodles and sour plum tea

Although I think the difficulty of matching troublesome ingredients with wine is overrated that’s not true in the case of chilli which is an integral part of many Szechuan dishes. The tofu noodle hotpot I had at my local Chilli Daddy in Bristol at the weekend was definitely a case in point.

In fact the heat level was only 2 out of a possible 5 but even then it built quite markedly as the meal went on, one reason, I imagine, why they served a small bowl of (remarkably delicious) pickled beansprouts on the side.

The drink I’d ordered - a sour plum tea or Suan Mei Tang - also proved to be an effective antidote. It was a curious drink I hadn’t come across before - more pruney than plummy and intriguingly smoky.

According to an informative blog post I came across on The Woks of Life it’s made from several ingredients including dried sour plums and hawthorn berries and is commonly served with hotpot and other spicy foods. Wikipedia says the plums are dried before smoking, hence the smoky note.

Although I wasn’t sure I liked the taste at first it was brilliantly refreshing with the noodles and the more I drank it the more I enjoyed it. Definitely a drink to look out for or even make yourself if you like a lot of chilli.

Scallops, nduja and Frappato

Last week I went to a wine dinner hosted by the Sicilian wine producer Donnafugata at Luca in London. They’re best known for their fabulous passito di Pantelleria dessert wine, Ben Ryé, but in fact it was the cleverly partnered dry wines that stole the show.

I’m picking - with some difficulty - as my match of the week a dish of scallops with the 2017 Bell’Assai Frappato, a charming light graceful red from the Vittoria region. What clinched the match - although it could probably have stood up on its own - was the nduja (spicy Calabrian sausage) purée and nutty Jerusalem artichokes that went with it.

I also loved the bold pairing of a white wine - the Vigna di Gabri - a blend of the local ansonica and catarratto with chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and viognier - with a pasta course of rigatoni with braised lamb and olives (lamb and white wine can work surprisingly well) and the pitch perfect match of the dark savoury 2014 Mille e Una Notte (nero d’avola, petit verdot and syrah) with a dish of ox cheek, caponata and grilled radicchio. The bitterness of the radicchio with the sweetness of the ox cheek was an inspired combination.

Oddly the Ben Ryé (we drank the 2015 vintage) went best with a bergamot sorbet rather than the Sicilian lemon tart for which it didn’t have quite enough acidity but all in all a really impressive hit rate. Good work, Luca!

Incidentally I drank the Frappato again yesterday with a dish of chicken chermoula to which it stood up equally well so it can obviously take a fair bit of spice. It’s just gone on sale in Oddbins at £28 although an online company called Tannico seems to have it for £19.70. Incidentally they recommend you drink it cool at 14°-16°C.

For other scallop matches see Top Wine Pairings with Scallops

I attended the dinner as a guest of Donnafugata and Liberty Wines.