Mezze and pomegranate juice

If you find yourself in an Iranian restaurant (or a Persian one as they often still describe themselves) you’ll be lucky to find much in the way of wine options and in many ways the food is better suited to the cordials or sharbats they would generally drink.

So when I visited Kuch in Bristol the other day I ordered a pomegranate juice which went really well with my plate of mezze which included felafel, kibbeh, sambosak and beetroot borani (a yoghurty beetroot dip)

Like most cordials it was slightly too sweet so if you’re making it at home I’d recommend adding some fresh pomegranate juice or maybe even a dash of lime juice but it’s much better suited to Persian food than the more common English options of apple and orange juice.

It works in Lebanese and other middle-eastern restaurants too.

Txakoli and practically everything on the Palomar menu

I think Txakoli may be my new favourite restaurant wine - or at least it is this summer. It’s a unique, sharp, very slightly fizzy white wine from the Basque region of Spain. The one we were drinking - at the Palomar in Soho - was the Agerra Txakoli which comes from the designated origin of Getariako

It went quite brilliantly with The Palomar’s food which I guess can best be described as modern Israeli but to which they give their own unique twist. It’s full of vivid and delicious flavours but the element that I think went best was the dairy one - dishes like the burnt courgette tzatziki, and beetroot carpaccio with burnt goat’s cheese (needless to say, fashionably singed not burnt to a cinder).

It was also great with the Kubaneh (Yemeni pot baked bread served with tahini & ‘velvet tomatoes’ a luxuriant fresh tomato dip that tasted a bit like gazpacho. Oh and the mysteriously but seductively spiced fish felafel

You can buy the Agerra for £13.95 from Whitmore and White in the Wirral, Cheshire. I also very much like the Flysch txacoli I recommended in my Guardian column this week.

Kibbeh and Domaine des Tourelles red

I agonised over whether this should be the standout pairing from this marvellous Lebanese meal at Arabica last week but it won by just a whisker.

The occasion was the launch of the Lebanese winery Domaine des Tourelles latest vintages including the first release of an upmarket chardonnay, Marquis de By. To be honest I was more excited by the latest vintages of their basic wines which are incredibly delicious, especially with eastern Mediterranean food.

The red, a 2011, is a warm, rustic typically Lebanese blend of syrah, cabernet sauvignon and cinsault. It’s not as extraordinary as the famous Chateau Musar but it has a similar character at half the price. Like Musar the estate is organic and uses natural yeasts but it’s not what is generally perceived as a natural wine.

It was brilliant with the slightly spicy kibbeh, a deep-fried ball of lamb and bulgur (cracked wheat) that can often be slightly dry but Arabica’s were full-flavoured and meaty, the best I can remember eating.

I also thought their basic white - an earthy slightly spicy blend of viognier, chardonnay and muscat was spot on with the starter dishes which included hummus, moutabel (smoked aubergine purée), muhammara (spiced roast peppers with toasted nuts - right), cacik (yoghurt and cucumber) and tabbouleh (parsley salad.) Chardonnay doesn’t taste like this anywhere else which is why the top end white needs time to come round.

Their more upmarket red, the 2009 Marquis de By, a smoother, more elegant blend of syrah and cabernet sauvignon, was also spot on with a dish of slow cooked shin of beef cooked in the basic red and served with nutty, smoky freekeh (green wheat).

You can buy the basic Tourelles range including a very attractive rosé from D. Byrne of Clitheroe for £8.59 a bottle. (They don't have an online shop but will send them mail order) allaboutwine.co.uk has the red at £8.89 a bottle and D & D Wines for £9.50. (See wine-searcher.com for other stockists.). Or drink it - and I’d strongly recommend this - at Arabica by whose food I was hugely impressed.

I was invited to the lunch by Domaine des Tourelles. You can read about my visit to the winery back in 2010 on my (sadly neglected) natural wine blog, Wine Naturally.

Smoked trout and a Tricycle

My problem this week is that I have a terrific wine pairing but I can't tell you about it because it's the result of a tasting I was running for Decanter magazine. So you'll have to hang on till December for that. Sorry.

In the meantime here's my second best match which is not a wine at all but a Tricycle, a refreshing apple, cucumber and mint-based soft drink I had at the Riding House Café with my daughter this week. Like many places these days they specialise in small plates so it had to take an artichoke dip, salt cod fritters and red pepper aioli, cured trout, jalapeno pepper and crème fraîche (right) and sea bass ceviche with lime and chilli in its stride.

It actually coped very well, particularly with the trout, in much the same way, I think, as a herby Sauvignon Blanc would have done. (I always find it helps to think of a vinous equivalent of soft drinks.) I've ordered that kind of drink in Lebanese restaurants before and it goes well with mezze too.

It would also be a nice summery drink to take on a picnic for non-drinking friends. Assuming we still have some summer left, not obvious from today's overcast sky :(