Mount Pleasant Elizabeth Semillon 2007 and roast chicken with tarragon

I never understand why retailers tell me it’s so hard to sell Hunter Valley semillon. It’s such a unique style of white wine which tastes (lusciously) of fresh pineapple when it’s young and of baked or grilled pineapple as it matures.

Maybe it’s because it aquires a slightly oily texture as it ages - a bit like a riesling but it’s also seductively rich and despite its low ABV (11%) a full-bodied enough partner for roast chicken as I discovered at the weekend. We tried it with a bird I’d roasted with tarragon and served at room temperature (delicious at this time of year). It was also perfect with a chicken pie I was trying out.

This particular vintage seems to have picked up an impressive number of gongs - it has 10 gold medals on the label yet is an incredibly reasonable £14.95 at slurp.co.uk and Hawkshead Wines. The 2005 vintage is even better value at £53.94 (£8.99 a bottle) at Tesco.

For more semillon pairings see this longer post.

Cecina (cured beef) and Mencia

Last week I was in Galicia (for three days. Without my suitcase. Thankyou Easyjet) visiting the denominations of Valdeorras and Bierzo where the star red grape is Mencia. (For years I got them confused periodically thinking the grape was Bierzo and the region Mencia but I’ve finally got it straight.)

Anyway Mencia is the most fabulously food-friendly wine, especially when it’s young and vibrant. More full-bodied (though less refined) than burgundy, riper than cabernet franc, to which it’s often likened the most helpful comparison I think is with Beaujolais which has a similar juiciness when young but can also be quite a weighty wine.

It’s particularly good with all things porky - and beefy, as I discovered from this pairing with some wonderful, home-cured, home-smoked thinly sliced beef called cecina* which was just insanely delicious. I now suffer from cecina withdrawal symptoms.

This particular combination was with Pittacum’s fresh, slightly funky (it’s organic) 2014 Petit Pittacum which is stocked by Les Caves de Pyrène at £9.10, L’Art du Vin at £11.40, and by Joseph Barnes at £11.66. A real match made in heaven. It would also be great for a barbecue.

* you can read more about cecina here

Bread and butter pudding with apricots and passito di Pantelleria

It’s tough to pick out just one wine match for from the dinner I had at Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons last week but I’m going for this sophisticated twist on a classic English pudding from chef Paul Heathcote which was paired with a passito dessert wine from the island of Pantelleria

Bread and butter pudding, which is basically a creamy mass of bread, butter and egg custard, isn’t that hard to match with dessert wine - it also goes spectacularly well with Sauternes - but the poached apricot Paul had served on the side provided the perfect link to this rich, marmaladey wine from top Sicilian producer Donnafugata.

Ben Ryé is their famous air-dried passito-style wine made from muscat of Alexandria grapes, known locally as Zibibbo. This was the 2013 vintage though it ages much longer.

The dinner - part of a series where TV chef Raymond Blanc is inviting back some of his most famous protegés to cook with him - also contained some other great pairings: goats cheese agnolotti with olives and honey with the 2014 O Rosal albarino from Terras Gaudas, braised turbot with asparagus and tarragon with Stéphane Aladame’s Montagny 1er cru ‘Découverte’ 2012 and Goosnargh duck with rhubarb with a 2010 1er cru Beaune ‘Reversées’ from Jean-Claude Rateau.

Paul’s signature black pudding with ‘baked beans’ (not Heinz!) and sweetbreads which kicked off the meal was also served with the albarino but he hinted it would have gone better with champagne. (The Laurent Perrier 2006 which was served as an aperitif would have been spot on.)

An amusing sidenote: apparently the bread the Manoir kitchen offered Paul was too good for the pud. He sent out for the bread he always uses - a Warburtons white sliced loaf!

The next events are on July 15th with Adam Simmonds, September 16th with Eric Chavot and October 21st with Bruno Loubet of Grainstore. Paul Heathcote owns two restaurants in Preston, Lancashire.

I attended the dinner as a guest of Le Manoir.

Gosnells mead and honey-smoked chicken

Every so often someone trumpets a mead revival but it never quite seems to happen, probably because there’s not enough of it about yet.

But at The Manor in Clapham you can drink it and I suggest you do.

It sailed right through a brilliant fixed price lunch but I’m highlighting two dishes - the honey-smoked chicken with lettuce and borlotti beans (makes sense given mead is brewed from honey but the honey in the dish didn’t overwhelm it) and a spectacular dish of cauliflower with grue de cacao, medjool dates and kefir. Which was basically different textures of cauliflower - raw, roast and whipped into an light-as-air mousse. (No, I didn’t know what grue de cacao was either. It’s cocoa nibs and there’s an excellent explanation on this US site.) I'm going for the chicken as it's easier to replicate at home.

The mead is brewed by Gosnells in Peckham (‘course it is!) and is much drier than mead traditionally was. Think of it like a dry, slightly honeyed perry. Hugely refreshing. You can find a list of other places that stock it on their website.