Spicy tuna pasta and Tuscan red

Some of the best meals - and the best wine pairings - come about without a great deal of forethought. Like the pasta I threw together last week in France from storecupboard ingredients then accompanied with a cracking bottle of inexpensive Tuscan red we’d just bought from a winemaker at a natural wine fair. Yes, Italian wine. In France! Who’d have thought it?

I’m not mad about tuna pasta to be honest but I spiked it with a lot of garlic, some green olives and some pickled Spanish chillies which gave it quite a kick. (The base of the sauce was passata.)

Too much possibly for my wine, I thought, a rustic Sangiovese from youngish (8-10 year old) vines called Il Secondo di Pacina* but it had that wonderful light breezy elegance that Italian wines effortlessly seem to possess. And it was only 6 euros (£4.69 equivalent at the time of writing). Sssssh - don’t tell the French!

At that price we bought six bottles - wouldn’t you? - so I’ll be able to report on other good matches. Pizza seems an obvious candidate, as are other pastas with tomato-based sauces. One English retailer, Swig, no longer apparently stocking the wine, recommends sausages, pasta with meat sauces, grilled meats, wood pigeon and cheese “though it was also excellent with a humble baked potato.”

You can buy it in the UK at Gergovie Wines in Maltby Street

Their own website currently seems to be down but here's a description of the winery from their American importer Indie Wineries.