Nduja and a super-Tuscan red

I don’t often get inspiration from chefs when it comes to food and wine pairing - you’d think they’d be into wine but they often aren’t - but Theo Randall’s suggestion of a super-Tuscan red with his dish of roast sausages with borlotti beans and nduja sauce was spot on.

Having posted the recipe, which comes from Theo’s new book, The Italian Deli Cookbook, I finally got round to cooking it over the weekend. Although the key ingredient, nduja, comes from Calabria it was absolutely delicious with a rich, smooth 2019 Grattamacco Bolgheri Rosso from Berry Bros and Rudd, a blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot and sangiovese. Unfortunately it already seems to be out of stock* at BBR who originally sent it to me but you can find it at Majestic, tannico.co.uk or wineeye.com by the case.

Similar Tuscan reds or rich full-bodied reds from the Maremma would also work or you could go for a southern Italian red like an aglianico, primitivo or nero d’avola. (There’s an interesting post on Calabrian wine here.)

Nduja, if you’re not familiar with it, is a soft Calabrian sausage with quite a spicy chilli kick. You can buy it in many Italian delis. Waitrose now stocks it as part of their Cooks Ingredients range

* a general problem at the moment. Wines seem to be flying as soon as they come in so if you read about something you like the sound of don’t hang around!

Recipe photograph ©Lizzie Mayson

Cozido and Cortello

We went to a Portuguese evening at a local cafe, Tart in Bristol last week, which does a monthly supper club. The food was great, especially a main course of cozido, a substantial, saffron-laced stew of chicken, pork, chorizo and beans that would have actually made a meal in itself.

With it we drank a Portuguese red of great personality called Cortello, a well-priced blend of Aragonez and Castelao, which comes from the Lisbon region. It was quite light but had plenty of structure to stand up to the stew. Interestingly I thought it went better than a fuller-bodied Dao of the same vintage. Saffron seems to have the effect of accentuating wood in a wine.

The wines were provided by a new Bristol wine merchant Grape & Grind run by Darren Willis who used to work at London wine merchant Philglas & Swiggott. It has a really interesting range.

Catalan sausage and beans with southern French Syrah/Grenache

Last week’s highlight without a doubt was the meal I had with my Guardian colleagues at Brawn, Ed Wilson’s new restaurant in Columbia Road. As you may know it’s the new City outpost of the hugely popular wine bar Terroirs with a similar natural wine list which you can read about on my natural wine blog here.

Ed suggested wines to go with different stages of the meal which was served tapas-style - we must have tried practically every dish on the menu.

I loved the exuberant La Guillaume Gamay with the charcuterie and the Domaine Matassa Cuvée Alexandria, an extraordinary dry Muscat of Alexandria, with the zander boudin in shellfish sauce but the combination that just pipped the others to the post was Jean-Franois Nicq’s 2007 Domaine Les Foulards Les Glaneurs from the Roussillon, a generous spicy blend of Grenache and Syrah with the mongetes, a ribsticking Catalan dish of sausage and beans.

Although the wine was full-bodied - and funky - enough to need carafing it was still fresh enough to offset the richness of the beans. And just perfect for this freezing cold weather.

Tuscan-style sausages and beans with Montepulciano

It’s been so busy the last few weeks that good pairings have been coming thick and fast but this was a great match I enjoyed at an offbeat new occasional restaurant which was launched by food and wine writer Marc Millon in Topsham, Devon the other day. (He’s also contributed a couple of pieces to this site including this wonderful piece about Bagna Cauda)

The deal is simple and great value: you get a couple of courses for £12.50 (£10 for Marc's Club Vino wine club members), wine and cheese extra. The main course was some fantastic fennel-flavoured Gloucester Old Spot pork sausages that Marc had had made to his own recipe by a local producer Jason Wise of Ark. They were served with rich mealy beans cooked with garlic, sage and tomato.

The accompanying vivid, fruity Montepulciano Rosso Madregale IGT Terre di Chieti was perfect for both the dish and the occasion. Quaffable but with sufficient personality to stand up to the punchy flavours. (Beans are in fact incredibly wine-friendly)

Marc’s philosophy is that you shouldn’t just buy wine but soak up the culture around it. To quote his website “Vino [his wine club] is for those of us who want to go beyond just drinking wine, to enhance our enjoyment, understanding and appreciation of wine by learning about the people and places where great, genuine wines come from, how wines are made, the cycle of the vineyard year, the gastronomy and culture of a region.” Amen to that!

Topsham by the way is a pretty, unspoilt little town on the estuary of the River Exe just south-east of Exeter and well worth a visit in its own right. (I was a student at Exeter rather longer ago than I care to remember and it has hardly changed) We stayed at the Globe Hotel which is a proper, welcoming old-fashioned pub.

For more information about Marc’s wines visit the Vino website. The Montepulciano sells for £6.60 a bottle or £5.70 a bottle by the case if you're a Club Vino member.