Match of the week
Grosset off-dry riesling with a Chinese New Year’s Eve feast
We had a great feast with friends on Saturday night to celebrate the Chinese New Year, cooking a range of dishes from Fuchsia Dunlop’s fabulous Every Grain of Rice about which I was raving last week.
They included fiery fish-fragrant aubergines (right), beef with cumin (unusual for China), pungent dried shrimp with cabbage and a wonderfully quirky dish called ‘smacked cucumber’ which contained Sichuan pepper and chilli oil. A challenge for any wine.
I had high hopes of Jeffrey Grosset’s 2010 Off-Dry Watervale Riesling from the Clare Valley region of South Australia but couldn’t have imagined how well it would work.
It was superbly balanced with that trademark Clare Valley lime character but managed to be light (only 11.5%) and powerful at the same time and intensely flavoured enough to stand up to all the punchy flavours in the food.
In fact it was so dry I was amazed to find it contains 16g/litre of residual sugar according to Grosset's UK importer Liberty Wines. (The acidity is 9g per litre).
On the strength of that bottle I ordered six more (from Rannoch & Scott who still seem to have a few left at the time of writing as does slurp.co.uk and Australian Wines Online.
If you can find it, grab it. It’s among the best Aussie rieslings I’ve tasted, including Grosset’s own Polish Hill. The 2012 vintage, now called Alea*, is supposed to be even better.
* Possibly the 'off-dry' description may have created the wrong impression - don't let that put you off though.
Dim sum and Champagne
A very Western approach to Chinese food, admittedly, but if you're celebrating Chinese New Year today with a dim sum lunch you'll find that Champagne - or other sparkling wine - makes a perfect pairing.
For those of you who haven't come across dim sum before they're bite-sized snacks that are traditionally served during the day in tea houses (tea, obviously being the more usual accompaniment). They're a mixture of flavours and textures - some delicate and steamed (usually seafood), some more robust or fried (like pork buns).
Champagne is always at home with delicate seafood dishes and with crisp, deep-fried foods and its slight sweetness keys in perfectly with with the subtle spicing. A good prosecco would also work well. You might possibly want to move on to a red with the meatier dim sum if you're having a long lunch or if you move on to duck, say, but if you're keeping it simple a glass of fizz is just fine.
See Square Meal for a list of London's best dim sum restaurants.
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
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