Cheese and Château Bouscassé Vieilles Vignes 2000

As those of you who are familiar with this site will know I’ve got issues about drinking red wine with cheese. It may seem an obvious partnership but all too often it seems a warring one.

However yesterday our cheeseboard harmonised quite beautifully with the tail end of a bottle of Château Bouscassé Vieilles Vignes Madiran 2000 from Alain Brumont which had already taken some roast guinea fowl with spicy stuffing in its stride.

The cheese was admittedly chosen to inflict minimum damage on whatever red we decided to serve. The selection included a very young fresh Pecorino, a creamy Sharpham Brie, a mellow Devon Oke (less sharp than an artisanal cheddar) and an unusually creamy Picos Blue from Spain. (Note: no stinky cheeses!)

The wine was also mature and untypical in style for Madiran - beautifully supple rather than tannic and not over-extracted as many can be. (It’s tannin that tends to interfere with cheese matches).

You can buy current vintages from Fortnum & Mason, Noel Young and Hailsham Cellars for between £18.95 (Hailsham Cellars) and £29.95 a bottle (Fortnum’s) which seems a huge discrepancy. Happily we bought ours direct from the cellar a couple of years ago about which I now feel rather smug :)

Duck confit and Madiran

The two days I spent in the Gers region of the south-west of France last week (members can see a full report here) reminded me just what a strong terroir-based match the local Tannat-based wines are with duck confit. I tried it both with a Madiran and a humbler Côtes de St-Mont which uses the same grape varieties.

Duck confit, for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, is made from duck legs which have been salted and then cooked in duck fat. It’s consequently, as you’d expect, both salty and fatty which sounds unappetising but the meat develops a wonderfully rich flavour and fall-apart-texture that makes it quite a delicacy.

The effect of the saltiness and fattiness also has the effect of subduing the tannins in the appropriately named Tannat and making the wines taste softer and more supple. I don’t know if it would be as good a match with Uruguayan Tannat which tends to be riper and more alcoholic. It’s the refreshing astringency of these south-west French wines that works so well - as you’d expect them to.

Madiran also pairs well with the great French bean dish cassoulet which contains duck or goose confit.