Pappardelle with beef shin and Barolo

It’s not often that I choose from a menu based on the wine I’m drinking but then I don’t often drink wines good enough to justify that - in restaurants at least where mark-ups tend to make the best wines unaffordable.

However my friend, wine merchant Raj Soni of R S Wines, had brought along such a good bottle to the newly opened Bianchis in Bristol - a magnum of Cavallotto Barolo Riserva Bricco Boschis Vigna San Giuseppe 2004 - that it would have been rude not to do it justice.

I actually chose a main course that had been cooked in another wine - a pasta dish of beef shin ragu braised in Chianti which proved to be the perfect match, intense enough to show off the opulent, silky Barolo but not to overwhelm it.

The conventional wisdom is that you should drink the same type of wine you use to cook a dish but this pairing proves that doesn’t have to be the case.