Gorgonzola dolce and La Stoppa Ageno 2005

I’m a bit obsessed with orange wine* at the moment. It seems to go with so many things not least blue cheese as this match with gorgonzola at Le Baratin in Paris underlined.

It may of course have been the age of the wine which was nearly 10 years old and from an unusually warm vintage that gave it an extra richness. It’s made from Malvasia, Ortrugo and Trebbiano and comes from the La Stoppa estate in Emilia Romagna (You can read US importer Louis Dressner’s interview with the owner Elena Pantaleoni here. As you can see (right) it was an incredibly deep colour and tasted (most deliciously) of dried apricots and quince.

The Gorgonzola was creamy and not too strong - a surprising cheese, admittedly for a French restaurant to be serving but Le Baratin - one of my favourite Parisian restaurants - is quite unconventional despite describing itself as 'traditionnell'.

The Solent Cellar has the 2007 vintage of the Ageno for £24 and Wine Bear for £25.33. The more recent 2009 vintage is stocked by Ottolenghi at £26.50 with 10% off if you buy a case of six

You can see my review of Le Baratin here.

* for those of you who aren't familiar with the term an orange wine is a white wine that is made by leaving the juice in contact with the skins as you would a red which give the wine its deep orange (or sometimes lighter than orange) colour.

Wild asparagus and Istrian Malvazija

This week’s wine pairing couldn’t be anything else but Istrian having spent three days in this northern part of Croatia last week. Surprisingly it turns out to be a great gastronomic destination - not from the point of view of fine dining but of respect for local traditions, ingredients and grape varieties.

We went during the wild asparagus festival, a month-long promotion called Days of Istrian Asparagus which lasts till the beginning of May. It has a stronger, slightly more bitter, herbal taste than the green asparagus we get here and is served with eggs, a rolled pasta called pljukanci and as a risotto (right. You can see a couple of the egg dishes here)

The most widely available white wine in Istria is malvazija (Malvasia) so that’s naturally what the locals drink with it. Most commonly it’s a fresh crisp, aromatic white with an attractive floral character although there are older vintages made with extended skin contact which have richer, more complex flavours, better suited to the region's other great speciality, white truffles‘.

There are apparently some 30 different types of Malvasia, mainly across the Mediterranean according to the quaintly translated website Vinistra which contains more than you probably ever need to know about the variety

For a list of producers contact Pacta Connect who import Istrian wines into the UK and hosted our trip. They’re bringing over some of their producers to the Real Wine Fair in London this May.

Parma ham and figs with Malvasia

I’ve always tended to go for Prosecco with Parma ham but last week I found an even better wine pairing - Malvasia.

I was actually in Parma on a two day press trip looking at both parma ham and parmigiano reggiano (aka parmesan cheese) which gave me a chance to taste ham of a quality we rarely get in the UK. The best, which we ate at a lovely traditional restaurant called La Greppia, was 33 months old and came from a top producer called Pio Tosini.

The owner, Maurizio Rossi, buys the hams at 14 months, takes delivery of them a few months later then ages them for a final few months in the restaurant cellar. They are, of course, freshly sliced which makes all the difference.

The taste and texture of the ham were so sweet and delicate that it was obviously critical that whatever wine we drank with it shouldn't overwhelm it. Maurizio, who has an 800 bin cellar, suggested a bottle of the Lamoretti Colli di Parma Malvasia 2008, a deliciously aromatic white with an almost peachy flavour. It was good with the ham on its own but absolutely stellar when it was combined with fresh figs - one of the best pairings I’ve come across this year.

The following day we tried some more ham (at a different restaurant) with the sparkling version of the same wine which was also good. It also went well quite well with parmigiano reggiano but there are more rewarding matches for that, I think, about which I’ll be writing in due course.

* You can buy Pio Tosini's ham from Natoora in the UK and - would you believe - from Amazon in the US!

* I travelled to Parma with the Discover the Origin campaign.