Chicken, cep and tarragon pie with Chinon

Actually there are a number of wines that pair well with chicken pie, also beginning with ch - chablis, chenin blanc and champagne to name three.

But when the flavour of tarragon is as marked as it was in this pie at my local, The Clifton in Bristol, Chinon - or other Loire cabernet franc which has a fragrant herbal edge of its own - works particularly well.

The bottle was a 2023 Chateau Coudray-Montpensier that I often order in the restaurant because it’s a versatile light red that works with a wide range of different dishes.

You can buy it retail from Noble Green for £17.90 a bottle or £15.90 on a mix six deal. Vinatis which is based in France has it on offer even more cheaply at £10.09 but I haven’t used the site myself. It appears to have some pretty satisfied customers though.

See also:

Six of the best wine (and other) pairings with chicken pie 

For food matches for other styles of cabernet franc The best food pairings for cabernet franc

Kohlrabi with fig leaf oil and English sparkling wine

A really fascinating pairing from a wine dinner at Skye Gyngell’s restaurant, Spring in collaboration with Domaine Hugo (and their vegetable supplier Fern Verrow)

Domaine Hugo is a Wiltshire based producer - the French name refers back to the time its owner Hugo Stewart was making wine in the Languedoc as Les Clos Perdus. He and his winemaker Daniel Ham make mainly sparkling wine from classic champagne grape varieties but in a natural, low-intervention style.

The wine that was paired with this dish was a rich, almost floral, sparkling brut nature without any added dosage but ripe enough to have just a touch of honey - the element that chimed in perfectly with the fig leaf oil drizzling the plate.

it was a surprise as the dish - which was sensational - was all about the salt-baked kohlrabi and the herbs - but fig leaves have an exotic scent with which the wine chimed in perfectly. Figs and honey - it makes sense when you think about it but it was a very clever, intuitive pairing from Skye.

You can buy the wine, which is unfortunately not cheap, as it’s made in tiny quantities, from the Good Wine Shop for £54 but it is extraordinary. There are links to other stockists on the Domaine Hugo website

More wine dinners are planned at Spring so it would be worth signing up to their mailing list to be kept informed.

I attended the dinner as a guest of the restaurant

Assyrtiko and cold herb soup

As Greece’s best known grape variety you’d probably think of pairing assyrtiko with meze or seafood but as this week’s match of the week shows it’s good away from its home territory too.

The soup was one of a number of courses at one of my favourite local restaurants, Wilsons in Bristol. It was served cold and was light, fresh and gorgeously silky, topped with salted cream and a spoonful of Exmoor caviar. (I reckon it was both the slight bitterness of the herbs and the saltiness of the cream that made it so especially delicious. Being slightly saline itself, assyrtiko which is a sharp citrussy white in a similar register to albariño, likes salty food too.

It also went brilliantly with some goats curd tartlets and Jan Wilson’s ‘farm taco’ a crunchy little mouthful of home-grown herbs and something else delicious folded, taco-style, into a bigger leaf. Again, there was a bitter edge there but bitter isn’t bad - think dark chocolate and espresso coffee, both seductively bitter tastes.

The assyrtiko was a 2019 from Papagiannakos in Attica and I see you can buy it for £14.50 currently from Hennings wine.

For other suggestions with herbs see What wines (or other drinks) should you pair with herbs

Crab, chervil and Smederevka

There were two wine pairings in contention for my match of the week slot this week. The other being the excellent combination of mature cheddar with Washington State cabernet but that’s not rocket science and this was the more intriguing discovery.

It stemmed from the fact that I suddenly have an abundance of herbs including chervil which I’ve managed to grow successfully for the first time and am flinging into everything. It has, I’ve discovered, a wonderful affinity with fresh crab with which I was planning to do something clever but decided in the end to serve straight with a squeeze of lemon, mayo and chervil sprinkled lavishly on top.

Having tried a youngish chablis (a bit of a disappointment) and a New Zealand sauvignon blanc (too overpowering) I found the perfect match in a crisp, citrussy white called Smederevka Belo 2019 12% from Tikves in Macedonia which had marked herbal notes of its own. (Smederevka is the grape variety, Tikves is the place)

It’s great value too. You can buy it for £8.45 from the The Whisky Exchange or £48.18 for six and from a number of other indies including Noble Green.

For other crab pairings see The Best Wines to Pair with Crab

I was sent the smederevka as a sample by The Whisky Exchange.