Gorgonzola dolce and La Stoppa Ageno 2005

I’m a bit obsessed with orange wine* at the moment. It seems to go with so many things not least blue cheese as this match with gorgonzola at Le Baratin in Paris underlined.

It may of course have been the age of the wine which was nearly 10 years old and from an unusually warm vintage that gave it an extra richness. It’s made from Malvasia, Ortrugo and Trebbiano and comes from the La Stoppa estate in Emilia Romagna (You can read US importer Louis Dressner’s interview with the owner Elena Pantaleoni here. As you can see (right) it was an incredibly deep colour and tasted (most deliciously) of dried apricots and quince.

The Gorgonzola was creamy and not too strong - a surprising cheese, admittedly for a French restaurant to be serving but Le Baratin - one of my favourite Parisian restaurants - is quite unconventional despite describing itself as 'traditionnell'.

The Solent Cellar has the 2007 vintage of the Ageno for £24 and Wine Bear for £25.33. The more recent 2009 vintage is stocked by Ottolenghi at £26.50 with 10% off if you buy a case of six

You can see my review of Le Baratin here.

* for those of you who aren't familiar with the term an orange wine is a white wine that is made by leaving the juice in contact with the skins as you would a red which give the wine its deep orange (or sometimes lighter than orange) colour.

Duck liver, bacon and onions with orange wine

There’s still a lot of suspicion about orange wine with many in the wine industry taking the view that it’s faulty rather than, what it actually is, a different style of wine.

Basically it’s a white wine which has been left on and picked up colour from the grape skins in a similar way to a red. That gives it more tannin and body than the average white.

Becky the co-owner of our favourite local restaurants Birch is a great fan and produced this wine off the list for us to try: a Bianco Testalonga from Antonio Perrino in Liguria which is made from Vermentino grapes. It was very dry but refreshing and had that lovely quince character that makes orange wine so interesting with food.

I thought it paired well with several of the dishes we ate including a ‘snack’ of rye crispbread and smoked pollock’s roe and a caramelised onion tart but was particularly good with a starter of duck liver, home-cured bacon and onions cooked in cider (no cheap jibes about orange wine tasting like cider anyway please . . . )

You need to think of orange wine as another option on the wine list like rosé - and arguably better suited to this time of year than many crisp fresh whites depending on the food you're eating. (It's not so good with seafood, IMO.)

For other suggestions as to what to eat with orange wine see Donald Edwards post here.

Grilled lamb chops and ‘orange’ wine

One of the most striking things I’ve noticed during my few days in Rome this past week is how white wine seems a better match for the local food than red does. Even with red meat like lamb? Strangely, yes.

Of course I’m not talking about the largely bland local Frascati (of which there seems to be a curious dearth on wine lists) or many of the lamb-based offal dishes, come to that but the simple fried lamb chops we had at a neighbourhood restaurant called Da Cesare al Casaletto to which I was taken by local wine expert Hande Leimer (aka vinoroma*) and her husband Theo.

The wine, which was suggested by Hande, was an extraordinary ‘orange’** wine called Agano Emilia from La Stoppa in Emilia-Romagna made mainly from Malvasia Aromatico blended with Ortruga and Trebbiano. Even more surprising it came from the 2007 vintage yet was still astonishingly fresh. I’m not mad about orange wines as a rule but this was so seductively scented every sip was a pleasure.

It also paired particularly well with a speciality of the restaurant - gnocchi with a cacio e pepe (cheese and pepper) sauce and with an impeccable rigatoni carbonara. In fact it rubbed along with pretty well everything.

It’s not the first time I’ve found white wine works with lamb - sharp Greek whites like Assyrtiko are great with lamb kebabs for example - but it’s undoubtedly the most unusual pairing. As always wine matches depend on the way you handle the central ingredient.

*Hande runs wine tastings for visitors to Rome - you can see details on her website.

** orange wine is a wine made from white wine grapes using methods more akin to red winemaking including extended skin contact which gives the wine its orange colour