Match of the week
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Satay and aromatic whites
What do you drink at those restaurants that have multiple small plates - I.e. most restaurants these days?
Well it depends on the dominant style of the food. Spanish tapas and middle eastern mezze being different from predominantly Asian-inspired dishes.
It was the latter I came across at Square Bistro in Lisburn in Northern Ireland last week: a couple of dishes in particular - the lobster with pickled cabbage, apple and ponzu and salt and chilli prawns with satay and charred lettuce with roast peanuts - hit the spot with a wine from Australian producer Peter Lehmann called Layers.
It was an off-dry a blend of semillon, muscat, gewürztraminer and pinot gris - a ’21 vintage but still tasting fresh. The advantage of having multiple grape varieties in the blend is that no one variety dominates (muscat and gewürztraminer being particularly prone to do that) so will rub along with anything a bit spicy. Not that these dishes were hot.
You can buy it for £12.75 from Define fine wines in Birmingham although the more current 2022 vintage is £16.50 (at Alexander Hadleigh). Serve well chilled.
If you like satay see also this recipe for Five Spiced Smoked Tofu nuggets
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Seabream carpaccio with blood orange and Hugel Gentil
If you’re pairing a wine with a raw starter like carpaccio you might think your choice needs to be dictated by the fish but as with other ingredients it depends what else is on the plate.
As part of a tasting menu at Caper and Cure in Bristol it came with oyster, mayonnaise, smoked caviar, mooli and blood orange but it was the orange in particular that kicked it into touch with the 2021 Hugel Gentil we had ordered.
‘Gentil’ is an unusual wine from Alsace - a officially recognised category of wine which has to be at least 50% Riesling, Muscat, Pinot Gris and/or Gewurztraminer (this version from Hugel also contains a significant amount of Sylvaner).
It’s not as heavily scented as gewürztraminer or as sweet as muscat but definitely aromatic yet it worked really well with the dish. It also matches, as you might expect, with many Chinese, Indian and Thai dishes.
You can buy the 2022 vintage from Tanners for £15.20 or from Taurus for £15.49.
I was invited to Caper and Cure for the launch of their new menu but contributed towards the cost of the meal and the wine.
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Petit Munster and Gewürztraminer
Sometimes Match of the Week is not so much about an undiscovered pairing but one that’s executed in a particularly inventive way. Which was absolutely the case at a dinner at Monica Galetti’s restaurant Mere last week with the famous Alsace producer Famille Hugel.
She paired a cheese course of Petit Munster, a washed rind cheese from the same region, with toasted rosehip bread and gewürztraminer jelly with a magnificent 2012 Grossi Laue Gewürztraminer. The cheese was perfectly matured but not over-ripe and the touch of sweetness in the accompaniments were just enough to enhance the opulence of the wine.
You can still buy the 2012 from Hedonism in London for £48.40 which is obviously not cheap but you could obviously substitute a less expensive gewürztraminer, though ideally with a couple of years bottle age. And you can find Petit Munster in good speciality cheese shops like the Fine Cheese Company
I also loved a dish of stonebass with razor clams, monks beard, fennel and wild garlic with Hugel’s 2014 Jubilee riesling - again quite bold flavours to partner with a mature wine but the riesling stood up to it.
For other gewürztraminer pairings see The best food pairings for Gewürztraminer.
I attended the dinner as a guest of Mere.
Pumpkin gnocchi and gewurztraminer
I’ve always thought of gewürztraminer as a bit of an inflexible wine - brilliant with spicy food. rich patés and pongy cheese but not much else. However it went brilliantly with several dishes at my local, Bellita in Bristol the other day including a classic Italian dish of pumpkin gnocchi with sage and brown butter.
It wasn’t from Alsace though which may have made a difference but part of a new range of Tasmanian wines from Aldi of all places*. It’s made by an outfit called Artisan Tasmania and costs a relatively hefty (for Aldi) £10.99 but not as much as the chardonnay and pinot noir in the same range which are £16.99.
That said it’s delicious - not as heavily scented and drier than its Alsace counterparts (it’s 13.5%) but a lovely aromatic counterpoint to the rich, slightly sweet pumpkin sauce. It was also very good with a dish of heritage carrots with goats yoghurt and harissa so I guess that’s the sweet/spicy element it loves working again.
Anyway it’s a wine worth looking out for when it becomes available (online only, curiously) on October 1st.
For other wine matches with gnocchi see The best kind of wine to pair with gnocchi
*Just to clarify it isn't on the Bellita wine list just a sample owner Kate Hawkings - also a wine writer - had been sent to try by the supermarket. And even if she could put it on her list she wouldn't. All her wines are made by female winemakers!
Lamb biryani and grand cru gewurztraminer
Sometimes it’s worth revisiting your prejudices. I’ve never been a huge fan of gewürztraminer with Indian food although it’s an established pairing. It always seems to me slightly jarring, especially with tomato-based curry sauces. But this week I changed my mind.
I took an open bottle to an Indian restaurant* on Friday night and it actually went incredibly well (as did a Brundlmeyer grüner veltliner brought by my mate Martin).
Two possible reasons struck me - the fact that the food was relatively dry - a biryani with dal and saag paneer on the side - rather than several disparate wet curries and that the gewurztraminer was a really good one, albeit incredibly well priced from Lidl. (The 2012 Grand Cru Seinklotz from J P Muller which comes into store in 10 days time on the 26th and which you should snap up if you’re a gewurztraminer fan.) Tasting a really good example of a wine in a style you don’t normally go for can win you round.
I think it comes down to the fact that gewurz, as it’s known for short, is a bit of a Marmite wine. If you love it, you’ll like it just as much or even more with curry; if you don’t spicy food won’t make it taste any more appealing. But give it another try.
* Actually the restaurant itself is a bit of a find. It's called Vittles Curry Nights and is a cafe during the day, up the Filton end of Gloucester Road in Bristol. Nothing fancy but the food rocks!
Photo © H L Photo at fotolia.com - not, obviously, of our meal but a typical Indian spread.
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