Chicken musakhan and valpolicella ripasso

Not only did we celebrate the first of our Honey & Co Sunday wine clubs* yesterday but it also produced an outstanding match of the week: this savoury-sweet Palestinian chicken dish and a valpolicella ripasso.

You can find the recipe in their award-winning cookbook with you should definitely acquire if you haven’t already got it. It was my favourite cookbook last year, although I could have sworn yesterday’s version had a touch of cinnamon in it. (You could add half a cinnamon stick but the flavour should be subtle.)

It’s an incredibly moreish recipe with a touch of sweetness from the currants and pomegranate molasses which is what makes the off-dry Valpolicella, which gets its own sweetness from semi-dried grapes, chime in so well. It almost tasted like super-charged pomegranate molasses itself. I think it would work well with other middle-eastern main courses, which often include fresh or dried fruits too.

This particular wine, the Valpolicella Classico Superiore Seccal Ripasso 2013 from a producer called Nicolis comes from restaurant supplier Bibendum who provided the wines for the event. You can find the slightly older 2011 vintage from winedirect.

*Just to remind those of you who didn’t read my blog a few weeks back, I’ve teamed up with Honey & Co to run a series of pop-up wine classes and lunches once a month at their fabulous Marylebone restaurant. The next session is on December 6th and is on sweet and sparkling wines. At the time of writing I think there are a couple of tickets left but they were being snapped up pretty quickly by those who were at yesterday’s event. Call 0207 388 6175 to book.

Poached langoustines and Pierneef Sauvignon Blanc

Last week I caught up with Hein Koegelenberg of La Motte which I visited a couple of years ago when the winery was nominated Wine Tourism Champion by the Great Wine Capitals of the World (you can find my Decanter article on the experience here).

He was in London to show off his latest releases (and take in Rugby World Cup semi-final which didn't go quite as well) at Mosimann’s in Knightsbridge where we tried the wines with a menu devised by Anton Mosimann.

There were a couple of striking matches but I’m going for the first pairing of a dish of lightly cooked Scottish langoustines with lemon and fresh herbs which included (I think) pea shoots and leeks - elements that chimed in perfectly with his 2014 Pierneef Sauvignon Blanc. Those of you who follow me in the Guardian will know I’m not a massive SB fan but this wine, which as 10% semillon and is sourced from cooler vineyards in Elgin, Bot River, Elim and Napier, was wonderfully fresh and citrussy (grapefruit, mainly) rather than being pungently aromatic.

The downside is that I can’t currently find it in the UK but will add stockists as and when I find them. It’s worth trying SA Wines Online.

The other pairing that was particularly good was the Rhone-like 2013 Pierneef Syrah Viognier with some very rare highland venison and a selection of vegetables that included the normally wine-killing red cabbage. It breezed through the lot.

Hepple gin and venison tartare

We think of gin even less than whisky as a pairing for food but with the incredible popularity of gin these days - and the need for the many new entrants to the field to create a distinctive image for their brand that could be about to change.

Last Friday I was tasting a new super-premium gin called Hepple from Northumberland with one of its creators, TV chef Valentine Warner. It’s based on juniper of course but handled slightly differently with three different distillation methods, green berries as well as riper ones along with bog myrtle, lovage, Douglas fir and citrus so it’s incredibly aromatic and herbal.

After we’d tasted its component parts we drank it as a gin and tonic (with Fevertree Naturally Light) and I had a hunch - based on gin’s compatibility with patés - it would go with the venison tartare on the menu at Wallfish Bistro where we were doing the tasting - and so it proved. I'm guessing you could also drink it neat though at 45% that might be a bit challenging. Maybe a martini.

You can currently buy it at Fortnum & Mason and drink it (cough) in my son Will’s Hawksmoor restaurants though it will be in wider distribution from early November.

Glazed bacon ribs and Meursault

What do you pair with a classic Irish dish of bacon and cabbage? Guinness might the traditional answer but when the bacon is celebrated northern Ireland butcher Peter Hannan’s amazing French trimmed dry cured bacon rack, glazed and cooked on the barbecue and served with an outrageously creamy parsley sauce then something a little more extravagant is called for.

But Meursault? How does that work? Well pork goes at least as well with white wine as red but it’s really all about the sauce. Cream absolutely loves chardonnay and with a sauce of this richness a classy burgundy like the 2012 Vincent Sauvestre Meursault Clos des Tessons we drank with it* is the answer. It was just stunning.

Two other matches that worked well were a deliciously refreshing medium dry 4.5% Meadow Farm Irish craft cider and - more unexpectedly - a dark, exotic blend of nero d’avola and nerello mascalese from Cantina Cellaro in Sicily which had an unusual taste of cloves which were of course the link to the ham. Would any nero d’avola work as well? I’m not sure it would but it would certainly be worth a try.

*From Robb Brothers in Portadown