Veal chop with sage and Eben Sadie Sequillo Red

I had lunch for the first time for a while at Hix’s Oyster and Chop House in Farringdon last week where I ordered - appropriately enough - a chop. In this instance a veal chop with sage butter.

It’s the kind of dish which suggests a classic red like a burgundy but my host, Giles Cooper of Bordeaux Index, boldly picked a 14.5% 2011 Sequillo Red from Eben Sadie instead which was absolutely perfect.

Sadie makes his wines in the Swartland and is one of South Africa’s most highly regarded young winemakers. Sequillo is a big generous Rhone-ish blend of Syrah, Mourvedre, Grenache, Carignan and Cinsault and at around £17-£19 (£17.49 AG Wines, £17.50 by the case winedirect.co.uk) is a terrific buy. There’s not much left of that vintage about so snap it up. It's drinking perfectly.

There were also a couple of outstanding beer matches from the Brewers’ Association dinner I went to last Monday at Club Gascon. You can read about them here: Does craft beer suit posh food?

Blesbok loin with root vegetables, num num and 2010 Delaire Graff Botmaskop

Another week of brilliant pairings, another tough decision to make but I’m going for this combination at Delaire restaurant in Stellenbosch because it was such a great dish.

South Africans are rightly proud of their raw ingredients and this combined perfectly a colourful dish of blesbok - an indigenous antelope - with winter root vegetables, poached num num (hard to track down on Google without getting waylaid by references to the National Union of Mineworkers or alternative spellings to nom nom but a fruit belonging to the Apocynaceae family and eugenia berry pickle (a tropical plant belonging to the myrtle family). So, meaty and fruity but not oversweet.

It would have worked well, I think, with a number of reds but was perfect with the vividly, fruity 2010 Delaire Botmaskop, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc with dashes of Merlot, Petit Verdot, Shiraz and Malbec (more so than the much more expensive Lawrence Graff Reserve (which, unusually, showed better with the cheese).

The Shiraz and Malbec played their part in making the wine less austere than a classic Bordeaux blend despite the wine's comparative youth. Rhone varietals like Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre would work well too with these kind of flavours

The 2010 isn’t available in the UK yet but the 2009 is available in bond from Justerini & Brooks for £70 for a six bottle case.