Condrieu and Cornish Brill salan

The idea still persists that wine doesn’t go with Indian food but when the flavours are subtle and the dishes presented individually you can pair some of the best wines in the world with it.

This was a dish at an amazing Indian restaurant in London called Bibi whose chef Chet Sharma has a fine dining background so it was really only the sauce they needed to take account of in their accompanying wine flight.

It was what’s called a salan which, according to Wikipedia, is “a mix of green chilli peppers, peanuts, sesame seeds, dry coconut, cumin seeds, ginger and garlic paste, turmeric powder, bay leaf, and thick tamarind juice”. I don’t know how chef Sharma made his but the peanuts and the coconut were the dominant notes. It wasn’t hot but was quite punchy.

With it we drank a glass of 2023 Condrieu Les Vallins from Christophe Blanc. A young wine but already richly expressive with a full, fruity (mainly apricot) flavour. (Condrieu is made from Viognier so if you were trying this type of dish at home and couldn’t run to Condrieu you could try other viogniers.)

You can buy it for £57 from Hedonism

For other viognier pairings see My favourite pairings for Viognier 

And for less usual ideas of what to pair with Indian food see here.

I ate at Bibi as a guest of the restaurant.

Korean Bulgogi and Mencia

Given the overall punchiness of Korean food, you might think pairing it with red wine was a lost cause but as it’s often beef you’re dealing with, especially in a Korean barbecue restaurant, don’t let that put you off.

As part of my researches into wine pairings for Korean food I tried bulgogi twice last week, once at a London restaurant called Chung’dam and the other at an excellent local Bristol restaurant called Dongnae.

It’s a dish of thinly sliced meat marinated in soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, garlic, ginger and Asian pear then grilled on a tabletop burner or over a barbecue. So it’s deeply umami rather than hot but accompanied by sides and condiments including, typically, a soybean paste dipping sauce (ssamjang), raw garlic and chilli and kimchi and other pickles which you would think would be challenging.

Surprisingly the bulgogi marinade is powerful enough that they don’t throw the wine - in the case of Chung’dam a basic South African red from Journey’s End and at Dongnae an organic, low intervention 2022 Mencia from Bierzo in northern Spain called Quite from an impressively widely travelled woman winemaker called Veronica Ortega. It was definitely the more interesting wine of the two although the good news is that most full-bodied reds will go with bulgogi.

You can buy it from The Whisky Exchange online for £25.75 and from Cave in Bristol for £27.40

For other mencia pairings see here.

Moroccan salads and vin gris

Wine is by no means served in all restaurants in Morocco so the idea of going so far as pairing it with specific dishes is equally if not more unfamiliar.

But they have a style of rosé called vin gris or gris de gris which is a versatile partner for many Moroccan dishes especially salads. It’s more like a white wine than a rosé with just the palest pink tinge.

We had a Moroccan wine, the 2023 Eclipse Les Deux Domaines made from grenache with a selection of salads including eggplant (aubergine) lemon and coriander, purslane salad and Taktouka (cooked peppers and tomatoes) at an excellent Marrakesh restaurant called Shabi Shabi.

This isn’t that selection but the light was so low I didn’t get a decent photograph of it but here’s a similar offering from the restaurant at the Musée de l’Art Culinaire Marocain which, like many Moroccan restaurants, doesn’t serve alcohol.

It would also go well with a vegetable tagine or 7 vegetable couscous.

It doesn’t seem to be available in the UK but you can find similar wines from the Languedoc in the South of France.

Deep-fried shrimp tacos and Mexican sauvignon blanc

By and large I’ve been drinking beer and cocktails while we’ve been in Mexico but I was curious to see what the country had to offer in the way of wine

So when we were at a seafood restaurant Entremar yesterday I ordered a glass of De J Rivera Mexican sauvignon blanc from Guadalupe.

Wine isn’t cheap here - a glass is around the same price if not more than a cocktail - - but it worked perfectly with the small plates we were sharing, especially the deep fried shrimp taco - one of the myriad corn-based dishes you’ll find on every menu. It even stood up to the punchy pickled chile and onion condiment we had on the side.

It’s frustrating that restaurants don’t tend to put vintages on their wine list which doesn’t matter so much in the case of cheaper wines which more people are likely to order but might make the choice of a more expensive wine disappointing.

I can’t find any UK or US stockists for this particular wine but frankly any unoaked fresh sauvignon blanc should work equally well.

For other shrimp and prawn pairings see here

and for other sauvignon blanc pairings click here