Chicken liver crostini and Rosso di Montalcino

One of the most striking things about my trip to Tuscany last week was the reminder of how good young red wines are with Tuscan food - right the way through the meal, not just with the main course.

It was certainly true of the first lunch we had when we arrived which was co-hosted by the Bolgheri winery Poggio al Tesoro and San Polo in Montalcino, both owned by the Allegrini family.

I expected Poggio al Tesoro’s fragrant Solosole Vermentino to match the crostini that were handed round at the beginning of the meal - and it did - but not quite as well as the elegant 2014 San Polo Rosso di Montalcino which sailed effortlessly through the tomato, mushroom and (most challenging of all) chicken liver toppings. It also paired really well with a creamy dish of fettucine, zucchini, pancetta and robiola cheese - as did the 2008 vintage of the Solosole which I was also tempted to make my match of the week.

This would apply equally well to youthful chiantis or any other young sangioveses. It’s the acidity that makes them work so well - and the fact that, like white wines, they’re served at cellar temperature.

The San Polo Rosso di Montalcino costs £16.99 from slurp.co.uk and £18.95 at Eton Vintners.

I travelled to Tuscany with Liberty Wines

Salsa verde and Chianti Classico

Wine pairing is much more about the way you cook a dish and the sauce you serve with it than it is about the basic ingredient and so it proved with this week’s match at the recently opened Brackenbury.

It was a dish of roast skrei cod with a potato, radicchio and sage bake and salsa verde, a punchy sauce of parsley, mint, olive oil, anchovy and capers* with which the elegant young Selvapiana Chianti Rufina we had chosen paired perfectly.

There was in fact quite a lot going on in the dish that assisted the match. The fact that the cod was roasted. The radicchio and sage - both slightly bitter - and the smoothing effect of the potato but it was the tangy salsa verde that clinched it.

Note: one of the reasons it worked was because the wine was both dry and lean. The salsa would have made a riper, more full-bodied red taste much sweeter, most likely unbalancing both the wine and the match.

Obviously the wine would work just as well, if not better, if the sauce had been served with lamb or veal.

* There’s a video of Danny Bohan of the River Cafe making a salsa verde here

For my full review of The Brackenbury click here.

Image © koss13 - Fotolia.com