Smoked duck and blood orange salad with Chilean Gewürztraminer

Gewürztraminer is a tricky wine to match, one that one usually falls back on recommending with oriental food, so it’s always good to come across something that’s outside the Asian register.

This was a salad I rustled up last night based on a smoked duck breast I was given to try by the Somerset smokery Brown & Forrest when I visited the other day. I immediately thought of partnering it with seasonal blood oranges and watercress but as the latter was sold out at my local greengrocer, I ended up using a bag of mixed bitter salad leaves including radicchio and chicory.

But it was the dressing that made the pairing. Having divided one orange into peeled segments I squeezed the juice of half another orange (about 2 tbsp, I’d guess) and whisked in about 2 tsp red wine vinegar, 1 tbsp of sunflower oil and 3 tbsp of olive oil (I didn’t want the olive oil flavour to be too dominant) But what made it was the seasoning - a scant teaspoon of pink peppercorns crushed with a little Maldon sea salt and I think it was that that linked so well to the wine.

That was a 2010 Chilean Gewürztraminer from Torres Santa Digna range which was apparently Fairtrade certified this year although they don’t use the logo on the bottle. It was less aromatic than most Alsace Gewürz with less of those pungent rose petal and lychee aromas that are so typical of this variety but enough to make it distinctively aromatic. A nice refreshing wine for people who generally find Gewürz too full on.

You can apparently buy it for about £7.99 from Charles Steevenson, Denhoffer Wines, Experience Wines, Partridges of Sloane St, Sandhams Wine Merchants, Telford Wines and other independent wine merchants - one way you might do your bit for Fairtrade fortnight which starts today.

Incidentally I tried the salad with an Australian Riesling and Pinot Noir I happened to have open and neither was as good. The Gewürztraminer really stole the show.

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Lamb with coriander and the Garage Wine Company's Cabernet/Carignan

This is possibly the most off-the-wall pairing I encountered on my recent Chilean trip and for that reason the most exciting - both on account of the food and the wine.

The wine is made by the small Garage Wine Company which is part of a group of independent vintners called MOVI about whom I shall be writing more in due course. It’s the 2008 vintage, numbered #18 and is a blend of Cabernet from the Upper Maipo area and some old bush vine Carignan from Maule (I was tremendously impressed by the Carignan I tasted in Chile). It was deliciously supple and aromatic with intense flavours of fresh figs and dark cherries.

The dish, for which I simply have to get the recipe, was a Peruvian dish of slow cooked lamb in a dense coriander sauce which we had at Puerto Peru, the restaurant where we did the tasting. Its herbal character set off the wine to perfection though I suspect it would also have gone well with some of the other wines we tasted especially the Cabernet Francs.

At the moment the Garage Wine Company's wines are not exported to the UK but you can contact the owner Derek J Mossman Knapp direct through their blog or via email to derekATgaragewinecoDOTcl

Ceviche and pisco sour

I’ve been in Chile for the past week at the World’s Best Sommelier competition and have plenty to report about that but here’s a great non-wine match in the meantime - and a couple of tips about how to make an authentic Pisco Sour.

Ceviche, as I’m sure you know, is raw fish marinated in citrus and you find it everywhere in Santiago, especially in the Chilean and Peruvian restaurants. I’ve found in the past it works well with Soave and Torrontes (see below) and it’s fantastic with Chile’s Sauvignon Blancs as I’ll be explaining later this week but it’s also really enjoyable with Pisco Sour which is Chile’s - and Peru's - national cocktail.

The classic formula, according to the barman at a Peruvian restaurant I went to called Puerto Peru, is 3 shots of pisco. 1 of lemon or lime juice, 1 of sugar syrup and half an egg white. The restaurant infused their sugar syrup with orange and lemon peel and cinnamon which made it more aromatic and slightly less tart.

Sadly pisco sours are pretty difficult to reproduce outside of Latin America as the flavour depends on the local limon de Pica which are are actually rather more like small lemons than limes (for a more detailed explanation check out this useful article on a website called Rick Cooks. My hunch is that you’d get nearest to it by blending grapefruit, lime and lemon juice together.

You also, of course, need a bottle of Pisco, the Chilean/Peruvian grape-based spirit or brandy but that’s reasonably easy to get hold of.

It's an absolutely delicious drink but as you can see from the quantities above pretty lethal so take care!

Salmon and Pinot Noir

If you think you automatically need to partner a fish dish with white wine think again! Meaty fish such as salmon and tuna take really well to Pinot Noir, the grape variety that the hero Miles raved about in the hit movie Sideways.

I wouldn't, of course, pour it in all cases. If I was serving simply poached salmon cold or hot with a butter sauce I'd still go for a medium-bodied white like a Chardonnay but if it's seared, grilled or barbecued or served with a spicy crust then a light red like Pinot Noir provides a lovely contrasting sweetness.

Try some of the great value bottles currently coming out of Chile such as the Las Brisas Pinot Noir, currently available at the Co-op and Sainsbury's for £8.99.

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