Match of the week
Lamb biryani and grand cru gewurztraminer
Sometimes it’s worth revisiting your prejudices. I’ve never been a huge fan of gewürztraminer with Indian food although it’s an established pairing. It always seems to me slightly jarring, especially with tomato-based curry sauces. But this week I changed my mind.
I took an open bottle to an Indian restaurant* on Friday night and it actually went incredibly well (as did a Brundlmeyer grüner veltliner brought by my mate Martin).
Two possible reasons struck me - the fact that the food was relatively dry - a biryani with dal and saag paneer on the side - rather than several disparate wet curries and that the gewurztraminer was a really good one, albeit incredibly well priced from Lidl. (The 2012 Grand Cru Seinklotz from J P Muller which comes into store in 10 days time on the 26th and which you should snap up if you’re a gewurztraminer fan.) Tasting a really good example of a wine in a style you don’t normally go for can win you round.
I think it comes down to the fact that gewurz, as it’s known for short, is a bit of a Marmite wine. If you love it, you’ll like it just as much or even more with curry; if you don’t spicy food won’t make it taste any more appealing. But give it another try.
* Actually the restaurant itself is a bit of a find. It's called Vittles Curry Nights and is a cafe during the day, up the Filton end of Gloucester Road in Bristol. Nothing fancy but the food rocks!
Photo © H L Photo at fotolia.com - not, obviously, of our meal but a typical Indian spread.
Goat biryani and natural wine
I subjected myself to a somewhat daunting experience last Thursday trying to persuade a largely sceptical audience of journalists and bloggers of the virtues of natural wine. I think/hope I made some modest headway, helped by the fantastic feast laid on by chef Stevie Parle and his team at Dock Kitchen.
The highlight was a superb goat biryani topped with a salt crust and served with pomegramate seeds and coriander. It was subtly fragrant rather than spicy and seemed really well suited to the eclectic selection of bottles we had on the table which ranged from a Loire Chenin Blanc (La Pointe 1920, Les Vignes Herbels) to a cloudy but delicious Australian Pinot Noir (Domaine Lucci Wildman Pinot) the likes of which you’ve probably never tasted. More about these and the other wines on my natural wine blog shortly.
It underlined that natural wines need air and food to show at their best. Most were better a couple of hours after being opened. A couple benefited from decanting. Detractors might - and almost certainly would - say that that proves how impractical they are but you used to have to open most conventional reds such as Bordeaux well in advance.
I must say I like the quirky offbeat flavours the natural wine world offers - in the same way as I like the world of unpasteurised cheese. And the fact that all these wines were refreshingly dry rather than cloyingly heavy and sweet as so many modern reds are.
If you’re interested in natural wine there are two major events coming up in London next month: the RAW fair on May 20th and 21st and the Real Wine Fair from May 20th-22nd.
And if you feel inspired to make a biryani there’s a similar recipe (with rabbit) in Stevie’s excellent new Dock Kitchen Cookbook. And that would go with Pinot too.
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