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.