Game consommé with a Croatian red

Given that wine dinners are all about combining food and wine it’s not that often that the resulting pairings blow you away but I was hard pushed to pick just one out of the four brilliant matches at last week’s Autumn Delights dinner at Adelina Yard in Bristol.

But I’m going for the first one because it’s unusual to start a meal with a red let alone pair a soup with it.

The dish was slightly more than a soup, mind you - a gorgeous broth with slivers of pigeon, tiny dice of celeriac and some delicious nutty grains accompanied by the MOST HEAVENLY truffle and mushroom brioche.

It was skilfully paired by clever Andy Clarke who was hosting the dinner with a Dimitri Brečević Piquentum Refosk*, an earthy red wine that picked up beautifully on the gamey pigeon but didn’t overpower it. And was impressively followed by a white wine rather than a red, a German Auxerrois from the Pfalz region with an equally gorgeous dish of red ‘carabineros’ prawns with a partridge boudin and heritage carrots.

The next course of Shropshire grouse with Tuscan stuffing and blackberry gel (and accompanying wicked little grouse pies) was back to red again - not the Tuscan red you might expect though but a vivid Samourai Shiraz from Free Run Juice in South Australia. Finally there was a glorious Malvasia called Vigna de Volta from La Stoppa which went perfectly with a dessert of pistachio cake, spiced apple, armagnac and prune ice cream.

So this wine dinner basically broke all the rules - red before white and unconventional natural wines throughout but was an absolute revelation. Great food too from the Adelina Yard team - one of whose founding partners Olivia Barry recently featured on Great British Menu. If you're in Bristol, go!

* You can read more about Brečević and this wine in Doug Wregg's blog on the Caves de Pyrène website.

Pithivier of pigeon with Hermitage jus and 2011 Château Plaisance, Fronton

Matching a rich dish like pigeon with wine is quite challenging, especially if you serve it with an intense jus like this one so should you go for something equally rich or a refreshing contrast?

The sommelier at Galvin Bistrot de Luxe went for the latter option at a dinner to celebrate the restaurant’s eighth anniversary last week, choosing a light fresh dry Fronton from south-west France instead of a similar Rhone like a Crozes Hermitage or a Hermitage itself and it was absolutely perfect.

It may have been in his mind that the dish followed on two rich main courses with equally rich wines. The first course was a velouté of Potimarron squash with ceps and chestnuts (matched with a 2011 Chateau Lamothe-Bouscaut Pessac-Léognan) and the second a lasagne of crab with beurre Nantais which was paired with a 2009 vintage of the Galvin’s own label white burgundy, which is made for them by Vincent Girardin. They were great matches too (you get three for the price of one in match of the week this week!)

The art of food and wine matching is all about balance - not only in a single dish but right throughout the meal

Pigeon 'tagine' with Jaboulet Ainé Hermitage La Chapelle 1994

I came across this pairing at Chris and Jeff Galvin’s newly opened Galvin La Chapelle in Spitalfields in the City where they have a vertical of vintages, some of which are available by the glass. As I observed in my review on decanter.com it’s not a cheap option but if you’ve never tasted an old vintage of Hermitage la Chapelle here’s a chance to do so.

I was slightly worried whether my glass of ‘94 would hold up against what was described as a ‘tagine’ but needn’t have worried. It was a most refined, subtly spiced version (see right) with a little ‘cigar’ of pigeon meat, a disc of couscous and a not too hot, slightly smoky harissa sauce.

It actually showed off the Hermitage better than our other dish of braised veal cheek whose sticky, unctuous sauce took the edge off the wine’s ‘sousbois’ character and subtle, almost figgy fruit.

I wouldn’t extrapolate from this to say that a less ‘cheffy’ home-made tagine was the ideal match for so grand a wine but it suggests a similar spectrum of Moroccan flavours would work with a lesser Rhône red such as a St Joseph or a Crozes-Hermitage, a Syrah blend from the Languedoc and also, I fancy, a Château Musar.

* I ate at Galvin La Chapelle as a guest of the restaurant.

Roast pigeon and Salice Salentino

A slightly unseasonal but absolutely delicious wine pairing from Bjorn van der Horst’s much anticipated new restaurant Eastside Inn. The talented Van der Horst used to cook at the Greenhouse and then for Gordon Ramsay at La Noisette and has now branched out on his own. I’ll be posting a full review in the next couple of days but this, for me, was the outstanding match of the meal, selected by sommelier Thierry Sauvanot, also ex-Ramsay.

The key ingredient - a highly original twist - was a gooseberry compote which really keyed into the wine, a Cantele Salice Salentino 2006 from Puglia. It lifted it above the ordinary (not that there was anything wrong with it, it’s just an inexpensive wine) and made it taste sumptuously brambly and velvety. The other accompaniments - a rich but not over-heavy jus and some girolles acted as a good supporting cast.

A lesson that you don’t necessarily have to drink great wine with Michelin-starred food if the sommelier knows his job.

My meal at Eastside Inn was complimentary