Parma ham and figs with Malvasia

I’ve always tended to go for Prosecco with Parma ham but last week I found an even better wine pairing - Malvasia.

I was actually in Parma on a two day press trip looking at both parma ham and parmigiano reggiano (aka parmesan cheese) which gave me a chance to taste ham of a quality we rarely get in the UK. The best, which we ate at a lovely traditional restaurant called La Greppia, was 33 months old and came from a top producer called Pio Tosini.

The owner, Maurizio Rossi, buys the hams at 14 months, takes delivery of them a few months later then ages them for a final few months in the restaurant cellar. They are, of course, freshly sliced which makes all the difference.

The taste and texture of the ham were so sweet and delicate that it was obviously critical that whatever wine we drank with it shouldn't overwhelm it. Maurizio, who has an 800 bin cellar, suggested a bottle of the Lamoretti Colli di Parma Malvasia 2008, a deliciously aromatic white with an almost peachy flavour. It was good with the ham on its own but absolutely stellar when it was combined with fresh figs - one of the best pairings I’ve come across this year.

The following day we tried some more ham (at a different restaurant) with the sparkling version of the same wine which was also good. It also went well quite well with parmigiano reggiano but there are more rewarding matches for that, I think, about which I’ll be writing in due course.

* You can buy Pio Tosini's ham from Natoora in the UK and - would you believe - from Amazon in the US!

* I travelled to Parma with the Discover the Origin campaign.

Warm fig and almond pudding with Château Coutet Barsac 1996

I think I’m a bit fixated with figs at the moment. Last week’s match of the week involved them and so does this week’s but it’s a totally different affair.

This is a dessert I had at Bordeaux Quay in Bristol on Friday on the eve of the annual Organic Food Festival. It was a bit like an Eve’s pudding - cooked fruit with a sponge topping - with a modern twist. The ‘sponge’ I think included semolina and I suspect the figs were cooked with red wine.

It was paired on the menu with a glass of Vidal Ice wine from Canada but our host, BQ's chef Barny Haughton, treated the table to a bottle of Château Coutet Barsac 1996 which was quite perfect, with that distinctive, sensual, slightly musky taste of noble rot and faint whiff of grilled hazelnuts. It would, of course, have tasted wonderful with all kinds of dishes - a classic apple or pear tart, poached peaches or nectarines, foie gras or Roquefort but this was a really glorious pairing.

Figs, blue cheese and Maury

We’ve been feasting on figs from our neighbours' fig tree in Grau d’Agde down in the Languedoc this weekend - all the more satisfying as I gather that back home Waitrose is currently selling them at 99p each.

Mostly we’ve just been eating them as they are: freshly pulled off the tree they need little adornment but I did try them with some thinly sliced bread and a decadently gooey cream cheese I discovered called Cancoillotte which was pretty good.

The dream combination though I think would be a ‘tartine’ or crostino smothered with some soft blue cheese - maybe Fourme d’Ambert, maybe Gorgonzola dolce - topped with a sliced or quartered fresh fig, a trickle of pomegranate molasses and a small chilled glass of Maury, the port-like sweet red wine from the Roussillon. Late summer bliss.