Roast partridge and Pinot Noir

I’ve already suggested pinot noir as a good pairing for partridge so it was good to find the recommendation vindicated at lunch with Carolyn Martin of Creation Wines at 67 Pall Mall last week.

We’d already tasted our way through their latest releases and I’d earmarked the partridge on the strength of their still very youthful but delicious 2016 Art of Pinot Noir. Interestingly it tasted much smoother and more mellow with the bird - a reflection of how it will round out as it ages.

I also liked the Art of Chardonnay with the dish which worked largely because there was a layer of creamed sweetcorn under the bird and some roasted squash on the side - two ingredients that pair really well with chardonnay

We also had a very interesting tasting of different herbs and flowers with the wines - Martin has done pioneering work on matching flowers and wine which forms the basis for one of the many wine and food tastings at her and her husband Jean-Claude's Hemel-en-Aarde winery. It’s prompted me to start putting down my own thoughts on matching wine and herbs which I’ll post shortly.

For other pairing options with partridge see

The best wine pairings with partridge

I ate at 67 Pall Mall as a guest of Creation Wines

Anchovies and Txakoli

What pairing can I possibly I pick from a trip to San Sebastian, the most gastronomic city in Spain, possibly even in Europe?

Well, I’m going for a simple but brilliant one: anchovies and the deliciously crisp local white wine Txakoli.

You get this combination everywhere - the locals love their anchovies and take great pride in the ones they cure themselves.

This is a pintxo from Antonio bar in which they’re wrapped round some diced, spicy guindillas and some sweeter pickled (I think) green pepper, a punchy mouthful that would defeat most wines but surprisingly not the 11.5% txakoli which sailed both through them and practically everything else we threw at it over the 36 hours we were in the city.

The bottle to the right is made by Basque family producer Txomin Extaniz which cultivates the precipitous vineyards just outside the town which form part of the denomination of Getariako Txakolina. You can buy it from Ocado, Oddbins and Cambridge Wine Merchants for £14.99 or thereabouts* which is admittedly not cheap but it’s not an easy wine to produce and worth it for something quite unique.

There's also a quirky way of serving txakoli which is poured from a great height to preserve its slight spritz as this video explains.

(*Look out for promotions and, in the case of Ocado, of those 25% off deals!)

Oysters and dry German riesling

I don't normally think of pairing raw oysters with riesling - even dry ones seem too sweet but I came across a combination last week at the newly opened Magpie in London that worked brilliantly.

The reason was that the oysters were served with diced apple and chicharron (pork crackling), two ingredients that are massively riesling-friendly - the apple because it mimics the flavours, the pork as a perfect savoury contrast.

The riesling was a 2014 Schloss Marienlay from Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt in the Mosel - fresh, bright and appley itself (trocken I'm guessing) and available on tap at the very reasonable price of £5 a glass.

It also worked really well with a pretty dish of trout, grapes and quinoa

For other oyster pairings see

Best matches with oysters

Aged Vouvray and wild boar terrine

I sometimes forget to put the wine first in a pairing when it should be the star of the show and this 1995 Close du Bourg Vouvray from Huet was truly spectacular: still fresh as a daisy but subtly, seductively honeyed it was pure pleasure from the first to last sip.

Still you - or at least I - always need something to nibble with a glass and what my friend Fiona conveniently had to hand was a jar of charcutier Stéphane Reynaud’s wild boar terrine which we had on sourdough toast. Surprisingly mild-flavoured with tiny sweet chunks of carrot it was the perfect foil to the delicate wine.

Even better, I imagine would have been something like a chicken liver or duck liver parfait that would have added the creaminess that Vouvray loves but still a memorable experience by any standard.

Incidentally Stephane Reynaud now has a restaurant in Shoreditch, London called TraTra which sounds a good place to go if you're a charcuterie fan.

For other ideas of wines to pour with paté see

10 Good Wine Pairings with Paté