Pairing Comté cheese and Chivite Coleccion 125 Reserva 2001

I spend a lot of my time trying to discourage people from drinking their favourite red wine with a cheeseboard because it's so often a disappointment but every now and again you come across a red wine and cheese combination that really works.

I had in fact picked a cheese for the purpose, a nine month old Comté. It's similar in style to Gruyère but has a richness, roundness and depth of flavour - almost a fruitiness - that you rarely get in Gruyère cheese.

Being a comparatively young cheese it was mellow rather than intense so gave an easy ride to a mature modern Spanish red, a 2001 Coleccion 125 from Bodegas Julian Chivite, a blend of Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. It's a wine I've consistently enjoyed over the years, a wine that's still very much in its prime but on which the tannins have softened sufficiently not to intrude on the pairing

It also survived a Dorset Blue Vinney, a West Country cheese which is milder and more mellow than many blues.

Those were the only two cheeses on the table by the way - and all you need. The more cheeses you have, the more chance that one of them will get into a fight with your wine.

Image ©Awe inpiring images

Salade Niçoise and Rosé

The weather has been so unseasonally hot over the last couple of days - well into the 20s (or the late 70s for those of you who prefer to think in Fahrenheit) - that I’m suddenly fast-forwarding to summer and one of my favourite meals, Salade Niçoise.

It’s one of those classic dishes over which strong views rage - over the presence or absence of tuna, anchovies or, more controversially still, green beans and potatoes. Jacques Médecin in his Cuisine Niçoise claims that the original was made predominantly of tomatoes and consists exclusively of raw ingredients (apart from hard-boiled eggs) and would not have been dressed with a vinaigrette, merely with olive oil. Seared tuna, a popular replacement for tinned tuna nowadays, is a totally new-fangled invention.

Personally I like to gild the lily so I break all the rules. I blanch some fine green beans and refresh them with cold water. I lay them on a plate and scatter them with small, sweet cherry tomatoes, some torn fresh basil leaves and some generous chunks of tuna (I like the Spanish tuna which comes in jars rather than in tins. Ortiz is a good brand). I drizzle all that with a little vinaigrette, top it with some halved or quartered hard boiled eggs over each of which I sometimes (unforgiveably) dollop a teaspoon of mayo. I drape anchovies over the top than scatter the salad with a handful of black olives. I serve warm, buttered new potatoes with it. And a glass of rosé, of course.

You can drink any rosé you like but I personally find the fruitier styles from Chile and elsewhere in the New World just a bit too sweet for this dish. I also find many Provencal rosés a touch wimpy. What you need is a bold, dry southern French rosé from the Rhône or the Languedoc. The rosés from Costières de Nîmes are particularly good. Or a Spanish rosado from Rioja or Navarra. But that would probably break the rules too.

Photo © Ivan Mateev @fotolia.com