Match of the week
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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.
Chocolate and orange cake and Chateau Climens
I’ve always considered Sauternes is too delicate a wine to pair with chocolate unless it’s accompanied by something like passionfruit with which it chimes in but it turns out if the wine is old enough - and good enough - it can handle even a chocolate cake.
The cake - chocolate marmalade slump cake - is an old favourite from food writer Lucas Hollweg’s Good Things to Eat and in fact I discovered I’d recommended it with Tokaji 8 years ago, back in 2014! But it was the wine - an astonishingly fresh half bottle of Chateau Climens 1989 that stole the show. With orangey notes of its own you might have thought it would be eclipsed by the marmalade and orange zest in the cake or overwhelmed by the dark chocolate chocolate but it was one of those rare combinations where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
The only problem is procuring a bottle that old at an affordable price. Even the 2010 is £60 a half bottle these days but if you can lay your hands on an equally old Sauternes go for it!
Blood orange and chocolate with Highland Park 12
It’s not often I come across such a good dessert pairing, let alone one with whisky but here’s a stellar one from L Mulligan Grocer in Dublin which offers whisky pairings with all its desserts
The one we chose was called simply 'blood orange and chocolate'. It was actually quite a complex and sophisticated combination of candied slices of blood orange, a very short, crumbly ‘double’ chocolate shortcake, dark chocolate mousse, bitter orange purée, oatmeal praline and sea salt caramel.
The whisky they paired with it was a rich-tasting, spicy Highland Park 12 which you’d have thought would be way too strong for it but was actually spot on - one of those comparatively rare combinations where each element of the partnership - food and drink - enhances the other. The bitterness of the orange, I think, particularly helped bringing out a fruity, almost orangey element in the whisky.
It goes to show there’s more potential in pairing whisky with food than most imagine.
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