Match of the week
Grilled lamb with mustard glaze and a 25 year old Xinomavro
I’m conscious I don’t post as many red wine pairings as I should partly because I tend to drink white wine more often, particularly at this time of year but this was a really spectacular match at a Visit Greece lunch at Above at Hide last week held to promote the Greek wine trails.
The main course, a hugely clever dish from chef Ollie Dabbous was Herdwick lamb, grilled over charcoal, glazed with violet mustard (and some kind of sweet element (maybe honey, maybe fig compote) served with a grain salad and pickled vine leaves, was one of the best mains I’ve had this year.
It was boldly served with a 25 year old xinomavro from Pegasos in the Naoussa wine region which echoed the figgy notes in the dish. And it was fascinating to see how long and how well a xinomavro could age, particularly when served from such a huge and flamboyant decanter (old wines don't always stand up to being decanted). You can, rather amazingly still buy the wine from Hedonism Wines.
The other great match of the lunch was a salad of chicory and pink grapefruit with herbs and a manouri cheese and acacia honey dressing with a 2020 Gaia Thalassitis Assyrtiko from Santorini. Equally good if less surprising.
I attended the lunch as a guest of the Greek Tourist Board.
Chargrilled baby lamb, salad and Rueda
If you think of lamb you almost certainly think of red wine but in a white wine producing region like Rueda white is the normal go to.
Of course at this time of year it’s not likely to be slowly cooked or richly sauced but cooked on an open grill as it was in a fantastic family restaurant called Mesón de Pedro in the village of Matapozuelos just south of Valladolid.
One of the reasons the combination with white wine - in this case verdejo - works is that they use extremely tender milk-fed lamb (normal for this part of the world, sorry), salt it generously and serve it pink, bordering on rare.
The other is that the standard accompaniment is a crunchy salad of lettuce, tomato and sweet white onion which picks up on the fresh acidity of the wine.
Also there’s more than one type of Rueda not just the fresh, citrussy, sauvignon blanc-like styles you may be used to. The ones that are made from the indigenous verdejo, aged on their lees and which have a year or two’s bottle age - i.e. the more premium wines - work best.
Here are some other wine pairings for lamb you might enjoy
I travelled to the region as a guest of the Rueda DO.
Grilled lamb chops and ‘orange’ wine
One of the most striking things I’ve noticed during my few days in Rome this past week is how white wine seems a better match for the local food than red does. Even with red meat like lamb? Strangely, yes.
Of course I’m not talking about the largely bland local Frascati (of which there seems to be a curious dearth on wine lists) or many of the lamb-based offal dishes, come to that but the simple fried lamb chops we had at a neighbourhood restaurant called Da Cesare al Casaletto to which I was taken by local wine expert Hande Leimer (aka vinoroma*) and her husband Theo.
The wine, which was suggested by Hande, was an extraordinary ‘orange’** wine called Agano Emilia from La Stoppa in Emilia-Romagna made mainly from Malvasia Aromatico blended with Ortruga and Trebbiano. Even more surprising it came from the 2007 vintage yet was still astonishingly fresh. I’m not mad about orange wines as a rule but this was so seductively scented every sip was a pleasure.
It also paired particularly well with a speciality of the restaurant - gnocchi with a cacio e pepe (cheese and pepper) sauce and with an impeccable rigatoni carbonara. In fact it rubbed along with pretty well everything.
It’s not the first time I’ve found white wine works with lamb - sharp Greek whites like Assyrtiko are great with lamb kebabs for example - but it’s undoubtedly the most unusual pairing. As always wine matches depend on the way you handle the central ingredient.
*Hande runs wine tastings for visitors to Rome - you can see details on her website.
** orange wine is a wine made from white wine grapes using methods more akin to red winemaking including extended skin contact which gives the wine its orange colour
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