Chambolle-Musigny and game

No earth-shattering revelations this week, just a reminder that mature red burgundy is a brilliant match for game.

Our cooking group cooked up a feast on Saturday including partridge salad with beetroot and walnuts and an elaborate ‘chartreuse of game, a multi-layered beauty of a dish incorporating several kinds of game (partridge, pheasant and pigeon in this case), wrapped in vegetables (multi-coloured carrots and cabbage).

Neither of the dishes was particularly ‘gamey’ but had a distinctive game character you wanted to respect so thanks to my pal chef Barny Haughton for bringing along a delicate 2000 Chambolle Premier Cru Les Sentiers from Maison Roche de Bellene which was still astonishingly bright and fresh given the vintage. Chambolle is one of my favourite red burgundies especially with lighter game like partridge.

The best wine pairing for partridge

We also had a delicious (but not particularly photogenic) dish of gnocchi with wild boar and venison ragu which went brilliantly with a 2006 Gros Noré Bandol from Provence, an exotic, dark, sensuous red and one of my favourites with richer game dishes. Unfortunately I haven’t been buying it recently so am now clean out of it - I've just had to order a case of the 2012 (from Gauntleys in Nottingham if you want to do likewise)

Top wine and beer pairings for game

Guineafowl with cherries and Beaujolais

I’ve been so busy catching up after my Alsace trip that I haven’t had much time for new food and wine discoveries but here’s one we had at Les Temps Changent in Chalons-en-Champagne, a hotel we frequently stop at to break the journey through France.

It was a guineafowl leg stuffed with a white boudin-type farce, served with a light jus and some warmed through fresh cherries and went perfectly with a half bottle of Morgon. (Which one? Afraid I can’t remember. After four full-on days in Alsace it was nice to order something without feeling I had to make notes about it.)

A word of warning though. The pairing worked because the sauce was not too intensely cherry flavoured. If that had been the case it might have stripped the cherry flavours out of the wine. Or, if the wine had been sweeter and more intense, like a New Zealand Pinot Noir, for example, it would have made the combination too sweet and detracted from the flavour of the guineafowl.

A Belgian-style cherry beer (Kriek) would also have been good.

Gladstone Pinot Noir and hare royale

My match of the week has to include Gladstone Pinot Noir from Wairarapa in New Zealand which featured in two unexpectedly good pairings at two different restaurants.

The first was at Bistro Bruno Loubet where I discovered to my surprise it was a better match for a super-rich dish of hare royale than the full bodied Argentinian red (Clos de los Siete) both I and the sommelier had thought would be the ideal partner.

The second was at Texture where it proved a surprise hit with a subtle fish dish of cod with barley risotto, prawns and shellfish jus.

The common factor? Both dishes had a umami element - the hare in its rich savoury sauce, the risotto in its shellfish jus and umami is flattering to most wines, especially Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The hare also had a sweet pumpkin and dried mandarin pure which accentuated the acidity and freshness of the wine.

It’s an interesting comment on the increasing open-mindedness of French sommeliers and restaurateurs in London that both restaurants should offer a New Zealand Pinot by the glass instead of a burgundy. That wouldn’t have been the case a few years ago.

Roast goose with Nebbiolo

As a chef friend who recently took over a farm had some geese to get rid of we had goose for our main Christmas meal this year - stuffed somewhat improbably with hay (long story. Not such a good idea!)

We picked out a bottle we’d recently bought from another friend Marc Millon who runs a small wine business called Vino importing Italian wines from small growers. It was a 2005 Langhe Nebbiolo from Cascina Fontana, a Barolo producer with whom they’ve been dealing for years. You can read more about them here
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It was just perfect with the goose, having the acidity to cut through the fat and a lovely dark, damsony flavour - still fruity enough at 4 years old to take on the accompanying red cabbage but not so intense as to overwhelm an already full-flavoured plateful. It also went very well with the pork and fennel rillettes for which I posted a recipe the other day.

I don’t know how Vino’s stocks of the 2005 stand but the 2007 vintage is currently selling in Berry Bros & Rudd for £20, quite a bit cheaper than the £33.50 you would pay for the Fontana's Barolo.