Dark chocolate tart with 10 year old Tawny

One gets so used to partnering dark chocolate with sweet red wines, most notably port, that it’s easy to overlook other equally successful options. This was a brilliant combination I came across - somewhat improbably - at the game and Burgundy dinner I reported on last week.

The ‘tawny’ was not Portuguese but a delicious Australian ‘sticky’ made in the Barossa Valley by Grant Burge. It was slightly sweeter than most tawny ports, almost more like an oloroso sherry with a delicious rich raisiny character that was just perfect with the rich, dark, dense chocolate and its accompanying scoop of vanilla ice cream - like rum and raisin ice cream in a glass.

You can apparently buy it for about £15.49 from independent stockists such as Amps Fine Wine, Ann et Vin, Hailsham Cellars, Kingsgate Wines and www.southaustralianwines.com

Kylie Kwong's roasted beef fillet with Cape Mentelle Cabernet Merlot

Celebrations come thick and fast at this time of the year - first Burns' Night, and now Chinese New Year and Australia Day. Since both fall on the same day this year I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone (terrible expression but you know what I mean) and mark the Year of the Ox with a beef recipe matched with an Australian wine.

Appropriately enough the recipe - a barely seared beef fillet dressed with a punchy sweet and sour dressing - comes from Australia-based chef Kylie Kwong whose family originally came from China.

This is the kind of dish you could serve with either a red or white wine so I'd go for a (relatively) cool climate red with sweet fruit and supple tannins, a description that perfectly fits the Cape Mentelle Cabernet Merlot available from Waitrose and independent wine merchants for £11-£12.50 a bottle.

Image © Igor Klimov - Fotolia

Spicy lamb stew with Coonawarra Cabernet

I’m aware that there’s a Francophile bias to this site but there are recipes where I automatically turn to the New World. The spicy lamb dish I picked up the other night from my local restaurant and takeaway Culinaria is one of them - a hottish tagine-style dish of spiced lamb, aubergines, chickpeas & merguez sausage which was almost on the verge of being a curry.

I suppose it’s not so surprising I reached for a ripe fruity Cabernet Sauvignon - lamb and Cabernet is a classic but once spices are involved nothing is automatic.

The sauce was quite sharp though (I thought it might have included tamarind) and the wine, a 2003 Reschke Vitulus Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon (imported by H & H Bancroft and available for £12.99 from the Oxford Wine Company) neither too alcoholic (13.5% is quite modest by Australian standards) nor too heavily oaked.

It was a great combination, the supply plummy fruit adding just the right counterpoint of sweetness to the stew.

Ham and Barossa Semillon

Thos of you of a certain age may remember that great ‘70s favourite ham and pineapple which conisisted of a large limp gammon steak, curling at the edges and a couple of fried pineapple rings. From a tin. There was one thing that was good about the dish though and that is that ham and pineapple are great together, something we’ve rather forgotten in these more sophisticated times.

It works too with Barossa Semillon which has a powerful pineapple flavour of its own. I discovered a 10 year old bottle, an inexpensive Peter Lehmann, at the weekend when I was clearing out the wine store and was amazed to find just how lush and rich it still was. I knew Semillon aged but it’s Hunter Valley Semillon that has the reputation for longevity not the Barossa and that matures in quite a different way - more like a Riesling.

If you want to repeat the experience you obviously don’t have to drink such a venerable bottle - a rich young Barossa Semillon will do nicely. Keep the ham - hot or cold - relatively plain like a good old fashioned glazed joint of gammon and serve in thick chunky slices. Resist the temptation to put tinned pineapple slices with it or they’ll knock out the pineapple flavours in the wine. Not that you would anyway . . .

Image © viperagp - Fotolia.com