Chilled cucumber and garlic soup and Chenin Blanc

On Saturday, as I mentioned in my blog, I was at a food and wine festival in Constantia, where we wandered round the impossibly beautiful Buitenverwachting estate sipping wine and grazing on upmarket canapés devised by a selection of the area's best local chefs. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon ....

The food was great, not least this chilled cucumber and garlic soup. which had a heck of a lot of raw garlic in it which made it so spicy I suspected it had also been spiked with chilli. (Apparently not but the South Africans certainly like their garlic - we had a white garlic soup the same evening in Cape Town which was equally ferocious.)

So, cucumber, garlic, dill, yoghurt (or sour cream, maybe). What do you drink with it?Something crisp, something cold, something dry . . . Could easily have been Sauvignon Blanc but I actually went for the Chenin Blanc that was conveniently to hand - a fresh-tasting, zesty 2013 Kloof Street Chenin from Mullineux up in the Swartland region which hit the spot perfectly.

Young unoaked South African Chenin pairs with very similar food to Sauvignon Blanc as you can see in this post: Which food to pair with South African Chenin Blanc.

Tuna Tataki and Grenache Blanc

Perfectly prepared Japanese food is not what you expect to find in the gastronomic desert of the Languedoc but this superb dish of rare tuna was a brilliant match for the richly textured white wine I drank at Côté Mas the other day.

The newly opened restaurant just outside Montagnac belongs to Jean-Claude Mas and is a major step forward for Languedoc wine tourism. He has installed a Japanese chef - Taïchi Megurikami - his marketing manager Brigitte told me, not to cook Japanese food but to bring Japanese influences and precision to the local cuisine.

The dish, which was part of a tasting plate of starters, was outstanding: a beautifully cut piece of tuna, served almost sashimi-rare, lightly rolled in finely chopped herbs and served with a julienned salad of cucumber and whipped cream with wasabi.

It was paired with the 2012 Mas des Tannes Reserve Blanc an unctuous, oily Grenache Blanc which had exactly the right texture and flavour for the soft, almost buttery fish.

At Côté Mas you can buy the wine from the shop and pay just 5€ corkage (or order it by the glass for 3€) but even in the UK it’s not a bad deal. Noel Young has it for £10.95 a bottle or £9.83 if you buy a case and Soho Wine Supply for £10.99.

Probably a good style of wine to pair with other Japanese dishes, I suspect.

I ate at Côté Mas as a guest of Domaine Paul Mas.

Smoked trout and a Tricycle

My problem this week is that I have a terrific wine pairing but I can't tell you about it because it's the result of a tasting I was running for Decanter magazine. So you'll have to hang on till December for that. Sorry.

In the meantime here's my second best match which is not a wine at all but a Tricycle, a refreshing apple, cucumber and mint-based soft drink I had at the Riding House Café with my daughter this week. Like many places these days they specialise in small plates so it had to take an artichoke dip, salt cod fritters and red pepper aioli, cured trout, jalapeno pepper and crème fraîche (right) and sea bass ceviche with lime and chilli in its stride.

It actually coped very well, particularly with the trout, in much the same way, I think, as a herby Sauvignon Blanc would have done. (I always find it helps to think of a vinous equivalent of soft drinks.) I've ordered that kind of drink in Lebanese restaurants before and it goes well with mezze too.

It would also be a nice summery drink to take on a picnic for non-drinking friends. Assuming we still have some summer left, not obvious from today's overcast sky :(

Cucumber fritters and Sancerre

I think I’ve found the perfect match for Sancerre - and the perfect Sancerre to drink with them!

It’s cucumber fritters, a summer speciality of my good friend Stephen Markwick of Culinaria in Bristol. They’re served in a light, salty batter with dill-flavoured cream and some lightly dressed salad leaves and flowers including peashoots and nasturtiums which Stephen gets from Arne Herbs. I’d give you the recipe but it’s part of the collection that is going into the next cookbook I’m collaborating on with Stephen which will be out this autumn. (The first being A Very Honest Cook)

The Sancerre was great too: a 2008 from Pierre Riffault of Domaine du Carroir-Perrin which was wonderfully pure and mineral with just a hint of gooseberry fruit, elegant and restrained. It came from a local Bristol wine merchant, Vine Trail and you can read the full description here on their site.

Other Sauvignon Blancs would do but the more overt styles I think would overwhelm the delicacy of this quintessentially summery dish.