Apple tatin and sparkling perry

The surprise match of the natural wine dinner I went to last week at Bar Battu was not a wine but a perry - 'sydriculteur' Eric Bordelet's sparkling Poire Granit.

You'd have thought that such a light drink (it's only 3.5%) wouldn't stand up to such a sweet dessert - especially one served with a Calvados-flavoured crème fraîche but in fact it made a deliciously refreshing counterpoint after quite a rich main course of duck.

Apparently Bordelet, who used to be sommelier to three Michelin starred chef, Alain Passard and rather quaintly describes himself as a pomologue and a poirologue, often serves it with pan-fried scallops according to stockist The Smiling Grape Company which sells it for £18.99 (so not cheap). They reckon it would also work well with goat’s cheese.

Cornish Blue and South African Muscat

After last week's Muscat pairing my match of the week oddly involves Muscat again, this time a sweet Muscat Petits Grains from South Africa with the romantic name of Heaven-on-Earth. The grapes are apparently dried on a bed of straw and rooibos tea, a flavour I couldn't really pick up in the wine but it was very attractive nonetheless with an lovely quince and apricot flavour.

I partnered it with the award-winning Cornish Blue at a wine and cheese pairing I ran at the Cheese and Wine Festival in London at the weekend and it went really well. That isn't always the case with light dessert wines and blues (the Heaven-on-Earth is only 11%) but Cornish Blue is quite a mild cheese. (To be honest I'm surprised it won the title of World Champion Cheese at the World Cheese Awards last year. It does however make it a good blue to have on a cheese board as it's less likely to clash if you're drinking a red as I suggested shortly after it picked up its award.)

It was supplied along with the other cheeses in the tasting by Paxton & Whitfield whose affineur Rhuaridh Buchanan shared the platform with me. The other pairings were a Sancerre and Ticklemore goats cheese, Rioja Crianza and Manchego and Touchstone Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon with Auld Lochnagar, a Scottish cheddar-style cheese about which I've written here.

All the wines were organic and came from Vintage Roots. The Heaven-on-Earth Muscat is also Fairtrade-certified and £8.99 for a 50cl bottle. It would be lovely with an apple tart too, I reckon.

Cru classé Bordeaux and rack of lamb

Just as last week’s match of the week was a classic - so is this week’s: the main course we had at Oliver Peyton’s National Gallery Café at a dinner to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Circle of Wine Writers.

The wines were provided by the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux and included Lynch Bages Pauillac '96, Branaire-Ducru St-Julien ‘98 and Canon La Gaffelière St-Emilion 2001 all of which provided fascinatingly different pairings for the dish which was served medium-rare with broad bean and Jersey Royal crushed potatoes and a tomato and rosemary jus.

I personally thought the beautifully mellow, complex Lynch Bages was the best match with the relatively delicate flavours of the dish though the brighter, sweeter fruit of the La Gaffelière made an interesting counterpoint. Both it and the the Branaire-Ducru would probably have benefited from a dish with slightly more powerful seasoning though the herby note of the rosemary keyed into all three wines.

Of the other two courses I thought a dish of slightly oily hot-smoked sea trout failed to do justice to a sumptuous bottle of Chateau Latour Martillac Pessac-Léognan 2007 (a Riesling would have worked better, in my view but obviously this was a Bordeaux dinner) but the pairing of the 2002 Chateau Guiraud 2002 Sauternes with a lightly caramelised apple tarte tatin and honey clotted cream was spot on.

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