Match of the week
Mackerel pasty and Gusbourne Blanc de Blancs 2006
This actually wasn't the dish with which I drank this brilliant new sparkling wine at Rocksalt in Folkestone last week - I'd unfortunately finished my glass by then - but it would certainly have been a knockout wine pairing.
You can see my full account of the meal on my Food & Wine Finds blog here. The mackerel pasty - a combination of mackerel and pork sausage meat - might sound weird but was surprisingly light, savoury and absolutely delicious.
By then we'd moved on to a carafe of Birgit Eichinger Hasel Grüner Veltliner but to tell the truth the Gusbourne, a new sparkling wine which comes from a vineyard just five miles away from the restaurant in Kent, would have been a better match. (Fizz is generally a good call with pastry and fish.)
It was an interesting wine - softer and richer than a comparable Champagne. It won a silver medal in this year's IWSC competition - a considerable coup from a new wine producer. You can buy it direct off their website for £24.99 a bottle.
Other good matches would have been a best bitter or a medium dry cider. Or even a perry.
Beetroot soup and English Pinot Noir
The other day I enjoyed a surprisingly good pairing of a beetroot soup with an English blend of Pinot Noir and Rondo from Kent winery Chapel Down at the London restaurant Roast. I say surprising a) because soup is difficult to pair and b) because the two are so similar in colour that you’d think the wine wouldn’t be a sufficient contrast to the soup. In fact its fruitiness and crisp acidity (the Rondo making it taste more like a mid-weight Italian red) was just the right counterpoint to the earthy rich character of the beetroot.
It was also an interesting match because the soup (which was smooth rather than clear like a borscht) was garnished with goats’ cheese and mint, normally ingredients that would point you in the direction of a Sauvignon Blanc.
It underlines the importance of identifying the dominant ingredient in a dish. Beetroot is a powerful ingredient whichever way its served and generally calls for a red rather than a white. I’ve also enjoyed it with Dolcetto.
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