10 top food pairings for South African wines

If you’ve visited the Cape Winelands you’ll know what an amazing food and drink scene it has but you may still wonder what sort of dishes to order in a restaurant or to pair with South African wines at home.

Many of course are obvious. On my recent trip there was a LOT of lamb and cabernet sauvignon but you don’t need me to tell you what a classic pairing that is. Chenin blanc and Cape white blends also stood out for their versatility but the big surprise to me was how well the country’s rich chardonnays went with a lot of the food (including an umami-rich beef broth). And the new bright, juicy grenaches and cinsaults are just delicious with meat and fish alike.

So here are 10 pairings that stood out for me and which could well work for you too.

1. Croissants and vintage fizz

We all know champagne is a good accompaniment for brunch but have you stopped to analyse why that might be? The answer according to a breakfast tasting at the Orangerie at Le Lude is that croissants are brilliant with bubbly, especially if it's a toasty vintage MCC* like the Le Lude 2012 (available in the UK from Hard to Find Wines). Weekend breakfasts may never be the same again . . .

* méthode cap classique - South Africa's name for the champagne method

2. Melon salsa and chenin blanc

One of the many good matches at Creation which is known for its imaginative food and wine pairing programme was an appetiser of warm flatbreads with a tomato, cucumber and melon salsa - the melon being the element that made the chenin sing. It's not available, so far as I can make out, in the UK but you can find their very attractive chardonnay and pinot noir.

3. Lemongrass and ginger fish croquettes with sauvignon blanc

If you’re in Constantia you’ll no doubt be drinking sauvignon blanc and while it obviously goes with all kinds of seafood it was the lemongrass and ginger top notes in these more-ish croquettes at Catharina, the fine dining restaurant at Steenberg, that totally hit the spot with Cape Point's 2017 Isliedh, their top-of-the-range sauvignon blanc.

4. Watermelon and riesling

You might think of pairing the rather fancy ‘compressed’ watermelon (a bit like a fruit-based carpaccio) at Jardine restaurant in Stellenbosch with sauvignon blanc - and that would work - but, more unexpectedly, it was really good with Jessica Saurwein’s deliciously crisp Chi riesling from Elgin (which is available in the UK from Swig and Handford Wines).

5. Shellfish and semillon

Faced with a rich seafood dish my mind turns immediately to chardonnay - especially if it’s accompanied, as this glorious dish of hake and shellfish (pictured above) at Vergelegen’s Camphors restaurant was, with sweetcorn, but the standout combination for me was with the 2014 vintage of the winery’s luscious sémillon. Just stunning. (The 2015 and 2016 are quite widely available in the UK)

6. Cauliflower and chardonnay

I toyed with the idea of including the pumpkin fritters and custard we had at lunch at Rietvallei wine estate in Robertson (with the savoury dishes, not as dessert!) which turned out to be a perfect match for their 2017 JMB chardonnay but decided you might baulk at trying it out on your friends. So I’m going - among the many great chardonnay pairings I encountered on the trip - for the braiied cauliflower with za’atar, kimchi and parmesan we were served at Protegé, an excellent new restaurant in Franschhoek. It went particularly well with Chris and Andrea Mullineux’ 2016 Leeu Passant chardonnay (the '15 is at Handford Wines) which proved capable of handling a fair bit of spice. (It was brilliant with the crayfish with curried piccalilli too.)

7. Gazpacho and rosé

One of three stunning starters we shared at Babel, the restaurant at design-conscious Babylonstoren. It was actually described as a ‘chilled summer Caprese-style soup with Fior de Laatte cheese and beetroot and red basil sorbet' and was just delicious - as they suggested - with their mourvèdre rosé (and with the two starter salads we had too).

8. Seared duck and fig salad and grenache (and pinotage too, come to that)

There are not many red wine pairings in this lineup, I know (South Africa is still more of a white wine country) but the bright, breezy incarnations of grenache and pinotage they’re making up in Swartland are just as good a match for duck as the usual suspect, pinot noir. The two that particularly stood out for me at Bill & Co in Malmesbury were the 2017 Grenache and Pinotage from David & Nadia which are available in the UK from Masters of Malt or by the case from Justerini & Brooks.

9. Charcuterie and Cinsault

The most consistently smashable red I came across in the 10 days I was in the Cape was cinsault which is being made very much in the Beaujolais style. So it stands to reason it would go with a charcuterie plate like the one at Joostenberg’s very appealing bistro (they also have a great deli on site too). The wine - which is made from old vines - is released under the Myburgh Bros. label - sadly not available in the UK at the time of writing.

10. Cheese and straw wine

I had some good pairings with straw wine - the grape-based dessert at Camphors again was lovely - but the big surprise was how well it went with cheese - in this particular instance a deeply coloured 2013 Boplaas from the Klein Karoo I had at my Twitter friend @bigbigjoe's. (The cheeses were a local gouda-style cheese called Williston from Langbaken cheeses, a French Vacherrouse and a manchego-style cheese from Spain made from a mixture of sheep & goat milk.)

If you're in the Cape Winelands wineries that do pairings particularly well are Creation, Pierneef at La Motte and Vergelegen’s Camphors.

I visited South Africa as a guest of Wines of South Africa.

British pepper salami and Morgon

Usually this feature focusses on less familiar wine pairings but sometimes you can’t beat a tried and trusted combination.

This was at a British charcuterie and wine event organised by Cannon & Cannon and wine supplier Jascots (who are, by the way, a sponsor of this site and asked me along but didn’t ask me to write about it).

The wine - a really delicous 2010 Morgon Côte de Py Beaujolais from Grange-Cochard - went pretty well with all the salamis, in fact, but I particularly liked it with two that were made in London: an excellent fennel and pepper salami from former chef Hugo Jeffreys of Blackhand Foods in Hackney and a finely sliced saucisson sec from Cobble Lane Cured in Islington.

It also goes to show that just as we compete with the French on the cheese front these days we can also make excellent charcuterie - or 'British cured and fermented meats' as we must apparently call them. Whatever. They’re great and so is the Morgon match.

Game terrine and London dry gin

I’ve already written about how well game terrine pairs with oloroso sherry. Now I’ve discovered an equally good, if not better pairing: London Dry Gin.

The pâté I tried the other day - again from Stephen Markwick of Culinaria - was a hare one which was stronger than the previous guineafowl and pheasant version. It worked with a rare dry oloroso but I suddenly thought it would be interesting to see if I could pick out the juniper notes with a gin. The one I had to hand was Beefeater but any traditional London dry gin would do. (I say traditional because some newer gins like Whitley Neill accentuate other aromatic notes such as citrus.) Mine was at room temperature but I think it would be even better served cold like a frozen vodka shot. You could try the same pairing with a cold game pie.

If you want to make your own terrine - and I predict we're all going to be getting into home-made charcuterie next year - there’s a great master recipe (see right) in the book I’ve written with Stephen called A Very Honest Cook. You can still get it in time for Christmas if you ring the restaurant in time for them to catch the post today (0117 973 7999). Otherwise there’s always after Christmas . . .

Tête de veau and Côtes du Jura rouge

Last week I was travelling back through France again and encountered a number of interesting matches but the one that worked best for me was in a modern bistro by the covered market in Besançon called La Table des Halles.

As we’d already kicked off the evening with quite an extensive tasting of natural wines (about which more later this week) we simply ordered a half bottle of a local red, a Côtes du Jura Rouge Tradition 2002 from Stéphane Tissot.

It’s the kind of wine that doesn’t go down particularly well on the British market, being light and slightly sharp but it was utterly perfect with a decadently fatty dish of tête de veau (calf’s head) served warm on a mound of sliced potato and apple, and pretty good with the equally robust stuffed brioche with mushrooms and saucisse de Morteau that preceded it. A ‘food wine’* if ever there was one.

Incidentally I’d recommend the restaurant, which has recently changed hands, as a good option if you’re ever in Besançon which is a really lovely old town. Not overpriced or stuffy (unlike some of the other restaurants we checked out) and with simple, satisfying food. We stayed in a really splendid modern B & B called La Maison du Verre which was also very good value.

* By a 'food wine' I mean a wine that doesn’t taste particularly exciting on its own but springs to life with food