Fennel and apple salad and Solaris

Finding a new salad that you love and will make many times over again is a win for any weekend but when you find the perfect wine pairing with it too it’s a real high point

The salad comes from fellow Guardian writer Meera Sodha’s Fresh India and is a fennel and apple chaat with caramelized almonds to give it its full name. It’s really light and springlike as the ingredients suggest and comes with crunchy little nuggets of caramelised nuts flavoured with crushed fennel seeds, ginger and honey. The dressing is a simple oil and lemon one seasoned with garam masala - which just gives it a faintly spicy kick. I swopped half of it with neighbours who gave me Meera’s winter pilau from East in return then we ate and chatted on Zoom.

The wine is Welsh, believe it or not - a Solaris from Montgomery vineyard in Powys and is deceptively rich given its modest 11.5% ABV. Solaris has become popular in the UK given that it ripens early. Montgomery's version is not cheap: Welsh - and English - wines rarely are but it really is delicious with some lovely fresh tropical fruit. You can buy it for £17.95 from Cheers of Swansea.

For other wine pairings for salad see Which Wine Pairs best with Salad

Poached salt pollock and cauliflower with Julien Meyer's 'Nature' Sylvaner/Pinot Gris

Like half the world it seems at the moment I’m a bit obsessed with cauliflower so was drawn to this dish at Birch in Bristol on Friday like a moth to a flame

It was a brilliant assembly of different tastes and textures - very lightly salted, flaky fish (who knew pollock could taste so good?), some deeply savoury sautéed cauliflower - and a few finely sliced florets - the crunch of slender shavings of radish and the richness of almond butter - so perfect with the cauliflower. It was satisfying at so many levels.

With it - and most of the rest of the meal - we drank a bottle of biodynamic producer Julien Meyer’s 2012 Nature from Alsace, an unusual and fragrant blend of pinot gris and sylvaner - and only 11.8% incidentally. I love sylvaner - it’s so fresh and fragrant - and actually applied a lovely lift to the whole dish.

You could have drunk any number of wines with it: almost any crisp not overly flavourful white such as a verdicchio or grüner veltliner would have worked well too but this was spot on.

Manzanilla sherry and smoked dried beef with almonds

Manzanilla sherry never fails to surprise me with its versatility but you don't often come across a combination as good as the one I had last week at Lido restaurant in Bristol.

It was a 'tapa' of cecina which is a Spanish oak smoked air-dried beef, very finely sliced - almost shaved - and served with beetroot, a few salad leaves, a drizzle of almond sauce and some toasted almonds. You often find the flavour of almonds in dry sherries like this so I suppose this was a natural but the combination was just sensational. (Fino would have obviously worked too.)

The manzanilla was a La Goya Delgado Zuleta which you can buy from RS Wines of Bristol (0117 963 6000) for £4.50 (I think) and Corney & Barrow for £5.99 a half bottle. The sort of sherry you - or at least I - want permanently in the fridge.

Image © stockcreations - Fotolia.com

French apricot tart and Cérons

On Saturday we celebrated the 50th wedding anniversary of some good friends - a rare occasion which deserved (and got) several splendid bottles including a magnum of Gosset Champagne and another of one of the best of our local winemakers down here in the Faugères, Domaine des Estanilles (a magnum of the 2002 Château des Estanilles which was drinking superbly)

The most interesting match though was a little known sweet Bordeaux, Cérons, a tiny appellation just next door to Sauternes and Barsac which shares many of their characteristics. This 1999 vintage of Château de Cérons was quite glorious with flavours of honey, grilled nuts and quince and an ideal match for a classic French apricot tart with almonds.

There’s a very interesting account of the area on the Bordeaux Undiscovered blog here

Château de Cérons has apparently been stocked by Templar Wines in the UK and Sams Wine & Spirits in Chicago though it doesn’t appear to be on either list at the moment.