Italian cheese and a Provence red from Microcosmos

I don’t often pair red wine with cheese, let alone make it my match of the week but the Italian cheeseboard I had the other day at Bocca di Lupo in Soho proved a great pairing for a highly unusual Provencal red

Well, actually, the grapes (old vine Carignan and Grenache) are grown in Provence but the wine is made in Marseille at Fabienne Vollmy’s quirky urban winery Microcosmos Chai Urbain.

I was actually attracted to the tasting and lunch because she also makes Vermentino about which I have a bit of a thing at the moment but this deliciously wild, ripe, unfined, unoaked red handled both the cheeses - a pecorino and a deeply savoury red wine-washed cheese (a good style of cheese for red wine). I think the candied orange peel also helped.

The wine, which is called Cargo*, also paired well - more predictably - with lamb chops

All Fabienne’s wines are made in tiny quantities - she’s a true garagiste - but the Cargo is available in the UK for £237 a case from The Burgundy Portfolio.

* Named because the winery is only a few hundred metres from the port of Marseille.

Beef shin pie and a Languedoc red

It’s amazing how many different styles of eating you can pack into a week, particularly when you’re travelling. At the moment I’m in sunny Chile stuffing myself with seafood and sauvignon blanc so I'm finding it hard to remember that just six days ago I was in rain-ravaged Britain craving pies and stews.

As next week’s match is bound to be Chilean I’ll opt for a pie. It's one one of the pairings I devised for a customer evening at Islington butcher’s Turner & George.

(Declaration of interest: co-owner Richard Turner is a mate so I agree to help them choose some wines they could sell in the shop and match them with different cuts. I get paid in meat which strikes me as an excellent arrangement.)

Richard cooked up some veal to go with a gruner veltliner, some really porky sausages with the SW6 London syrah I wrote about the other day and some pheasant we matched with a Volnay then heated up the cracking ‘Polly’s beef shin pie’ they sell to go with an organic Languedoc red - the 2011 Mas des Dames “La Dame”.

By popular vote the La Dame just inched it over the Volnay/pheasant combo. It’s a satisfyingly rich full-bodied blend of grenache, syrah and old vine carignan that is absolutely made for a pie or rich beef stew.

You can buy the wines from the Turner & George shop (I think I deserve at least another lamb chop for telling you that) or in Roberson in Kensington if you’re the other end of town.

I couldn't take a picture of the pie as I was conducting the tasting. This picture is © fkruger - Fotolia.com

Joue de boeuf and a rich Roussillon red

I've been in Paris for the last few days so this week's pairing had to be from here. There are so many possibilities but as I haven't written about a meat match for a while I'm going to pick the braised beef cheek and vegetables we had with a quirky wine called KM31 from the Roussillon.

Beef cheek or joue de boeuf as it's called here seems to be one of the most fashionable main courses in Paris at the moment, judging by the menus we've been reading but I doubt if anywhere does it as well as Le Baratin, a natural wine bistro in the 20th just off the rue de Belleville. (You can see my review here). Normally if it's cooked until it's falling apart - as it should be - it's quite soft but this had the most amazing rich crust - presumably by popping it in a hot oven again before serving it. There was also a subtle touch of vinegar in the dish and some fresh tasting seasonal vegetables which added a welcome lightness to the dish

The wine was a warm, generous blend of Grenache and Carignan blend from the 2009 vintage from a mad Roussillon winery called Domaine YoYo. A natural wine but not a weird one, in case you're worried. Just perfect with the rich, beefy flavour of the meat and also pretty good with the joue de veau that I ordered. They like their cheeks in Paris ;-)

Faggots with onion gravy and Mas Belles Eaux Vieux Carignan

Faggots, which are basically a rather gamey British meatball made with pork belly and offal, are a bit of an acquired taste along the lines of the French sausage andouillette but well made, as they are when supplied by our local butcher, they can be very tasty. They need to be accompanied by onion gravy which normally leads one in the direction of a robust ale but the other night we had them with a bottle of Mas Belles Eaux Vieux Carignan 2006 which actually worked very well.

Carignan, as I’ve mentioned before, is not my favourite grape variety but well-crafted examples like this do have an appeal especially with robust gastropub dishes (braised lamb shanks and steak and kidney pie would be other apt examples).

Mas Belles Eaux is a Languedoc estate just north of Pezenas that was taken over a while ago by insurance giant AXA Millsimes who also own Quinta do Noval and Chateau Pichon-Baron.

The agency is now handled by Gonzalez Byass in the UK (+44 1707 273188) though the wine is currently in limited distribution*. At a retail price of £18-20 it may strike you as a an extravagant partner for offal of any kind but oddly it’s often the simplest dishes that show off good wines to best advantage. And there are of course less expensive Carignans and Carignan blends around to test the combination.

FromVineyardsDirect sells the less expensive Mas Belles Eaux Les Coteaux.

Image © Igor Klimov - Fotolia