Celeriac, celery and caerphilly soup with Coteau des Treilles Anjou blanc

It's always difficult to decide what to drink with soup - one liquid with another never seems quite right as I've remarked before - but the thicker the soup is the easier it is.

This was a smooth rich vegetable soup made from celeriac and celery with a little finely sliced Gorwydd Caerphilly and a good slosh, I would guess, of double cream.

It was a brilliant foil for a sumptuous barrel-aged organic Chenin Blanc, the 2008 Pithon-Paillé Coteau des Treilles which had the opulence of a great white burgundy. Pithon Paill is a partnership between Jo Pithon and Joseph and Wendy Paillé who act as négociants sourcing fruit from different parts of the Loire. The Coteau des Treilles is their own vineyard of which there is a very good account on Chris Kissack's site here.

You can buy it - and the '09 vintage from Caves de Pyrène for £28.70. Smiling Grape sells the '09 for £34.99. (So top white burgundy prices too, then.)

Jasnières, Gorwydd Caerphilly and apple, pear and ginger jelly

With the icy weather it’s been a week for staying duvet-wrapped indoors as much as possible so I haven’t encountered my usual range of stimulating food and wine matches but this was a top one, facilitated by my friends Todd and Jess of cheesemongers Trethowan's Dairy.

They’ve just brought out a range of jellies to pair with their most popular cheeses and brought along the apple, pear and ginger jelly that goes with their own Gorwydd Caerphilly.

We partnered it with an off-dry Chenin Blanc, a Jasnières from Domaine Le Briseau and it was just lovely, the pear note in the wine blending harmoniously with the pear in the jelly, both complementing the subtle flavours of the cheese.

A good example of when a single cheese and the right accompaniment can be much more satisfying than a whole board of big-ego cheeses. And further proof, if proof were needed, how white wines can often out-perform reds.

Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic and Thierry Puzelat Pinot Noir

Last week’s highlight was a trip to the newly opened downstairs restaurant at Terroirs, a restaurant of which regular readers will know I’m a huge fan (along with the rest of the UK’s wine-writing fraternity).

I have to confess we ate a disgraceful amount including grilled squid with piment d’Espelette, langoustines and aioli, eggs ‘en meurette’, Middle White pork ‘rillons’ with a mustardy lentil salad and crème caramel but the highlight was a whole roast Landaise chicken cooked with 40 cloves of garlic. (No, I didn’t count them but that’s how the dish was billed. There were 30 at least, that’s for sure which sounds terrifyingly garlicky but in fact the effect is quite mild and sweet.)

To partner it we had a bottle of Thierry Puzelat PN ‘Les Montils’. Puzelat who is based in the Loire is one of the high priests of natural winemaking so this was no ordinary Loire red but funky and slightly medicinal: the kind of wine you’re not sure you really like at first sip but which grows on you as it opens up - particularly with a plateful of chicken, garlic and duck fat roasties.

To tell the truth almost any Pinot Noir would have worked with this dish but they wouldn’t have been half as thought-provoking . . .

Duck paté, rillettes and red Anjou

Last week we spent 24 hours in Cheltenham, mainly to eat at Le Champignon Sauvage about which I’ll be posting a review tomorrow. We also had lunch at a pub/bistro I’d heard good things about called the Royal Well Tavern which has this year been awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand and recently picked up a glowing review from the Observer’s restaurant critic, Jay Rayner

It’s run by a couple of young guys called Sam Peaman and Humphrey Fletcher who both worked at The Glasshouse in Kew. Fletcher, the chef, has also worked at Kensington Place and The River Café which gives the restaurant impeccable Modern British credentials.

Because of our blowout the night before we stuck to the starters which included a half pint of prawns and mayonnaise, warm chorizo and chickpeas, a particularly tasty lamb kofta with spiced aubergine and mint yoghurt and the dish that is the subject of today’s match - duck pâté with duck rillettes and cornichons.

I instinctively reached for the Loire red that was featured on the menu with it - a light, fruity, Cabernet Franc-based Anjou l’Ardoise 2008 from Domaine des Rochelles that had just the right degree of freshness and acidity to offset the fattiness of the charcuterie.

A perfect match. And a very nice restaurant indeed.