Sticky toffee pudding and 20 year old tawny port

One of the most exciting projects I’ve worked on this year is to collaborate on the wine list at Gridiron, a new restaurant from my pal Richard Turner of Hawksmoor, Meatopia and Pitt Cue fame.

Together with sommelier Lucy Ward I’ve tried to create a list that’s full of delicious rather than daunting wines divided up by style so you can easily recognise the type of wine you like or which will work with the type of food you’ve ordered.

It’s a combination of familiar names like Chablis and Chateauneuf-du-Pape and more adventurous options (such as a Canadian Gamay) but all - we hope - are wines that will make you smile.

Anyway back to this week’s match which was one we enjoyed at our opening dinner last week - the restaurant’s sticky toffee pudding which comes with a salted caramel sauce and with which we paired Quinta de la Rosa 20 year old tawny port. I'm a bit obsessed with this combination as you can see from this post a few weeks ago when I was in the Douro but the salted caramel added another dimension.

You may also find this longer post useful:

Which foods match best with tawny port

Also for other pairings with STP

The best pairings with Sticky Toffee Pudding

Gridiron is at the Como Metropolitan hotel in Mayfair.

Disclosure: Obviously I’ve been working with Gridiron but they haven’t asked me or paid me to write this post!

Caramel-flavoured desserts and tawny port

Last week I was in northern Portugal where I think it's fair to say a fair bit of port was consumed. There was one striking finding from a food and wine pairing point of view: that toffee- or caramel-flavoured desserts are a perfect match for tawny port.

First there was what was described as canary pudding a moulded sponge swimming in a luscious caramel sauce. That went brilliantly with a 30 year old Sandeman tawny.

Then a caramelised almond cheesecake which was a perfect partner for their 10 year old tawny.

We were also reminded that tawny port is a great pairing for Portuguese custard tarts - or indeed anything sugary and eggy. In fact their CEO Manuel da Cunha Guedes whisked up some egg yolks and sugar at the table, poured a dash of 30 year old port into it (the extravagance!) and handed it to me to taste. It was utterly delicious - exactly the kind of treat to get someone to make for you when you're feeling slightly poorly. Consign that to memory and you may have cause to thank me. Or, rather Manuel.

See also Which foods match best with tawny port

I visited Portugal as a guest of Sogrape Vinhos and Liberty Wines

Gruyère and 20 year old tawny port

Port and cheese is one of those combinations that hardly needs questioning but there are some variants on the theme that still have the ability to surprise as I discovered when I worked my way through a selection of Taylor's ports and Paxton & Whitfield cheeses the other day.

My favourite - partly because it’s one of my favourite styles - was a 20 year old tawny with a deeply savoury reserve (in other words, aged) Gruyère (bottom right) which brought out exotic quince notes in the wine. I also liked a salty Manchego which made the accompanying, slightly retiring 2002 Quinta de Vargellas port taste of Elvas plums.

As you’d expect a 10 year old tawny was a spot on match with a mature cheddar but more unexpectedly a very young ruby port (First Estate Reserve) went surprisingly well with a Bosworth ash log - like having a rich fruit compote on the side. The only combination I wasn’t really convinced by was a spicy 2010 late bottled vintage with a creamy Brillat-Savarin which needed a wine with more acidity.

Of course this is not typically the way you eat cheese - you’re much more likely to have a selection - and in my view the 10 year old tawny and late bottled vintage styles are the best all-rounders. But it does show that if you have a decent piece of Gruyère in the fridge you can nibble it as well as cook with it. Dry oloroso, as I discovered a few years ago, is also a good partner.

I was sent the ports and cheeses to try by Taylor's port and Paxton & Whitfield cheese.

Wine and cheese: Zamorano and Sandeman 30 y.o. tawny port

Given that it’s the run-up to Christmas I’ve been tasting (yes, tasting, not drinking!) a lot of port recently so have had some indulgent bottles to hand when the cheese comes out.

This was a chance encounter between a piece of Zamorano cheese, a Spanish sheeps’ cheese I found in El Comado, a very good new deli in Bristol's Gloucester Road and a glass of Sandeman’s 30 year old tawny port .

I normally find tawnies of this age a little on the austere side but this was indulgently sweet with flavours of ripe peach and quince along with the characteristic nuttiness. It comes in a handsome wooden box* so would make a great gift for any port-lover.

You can find it for £60 in Majestic, £61.95 South Downs Cellars, £65.99 Corks Out and £89.99 from Amazon which shows you shouldn’t assume Amazon has the discounts on wine that it does on books. A more modestly priced 20 y.o. tawny would probably give equal pleasure.

Zamorano is a hard sheeps cheese from the province of Zamora, similar in style to a Manchego but rather nuttier and fuller flavoured than most of the Manchegos you’ll find in the UK. There’s some useful background about it on the Cheese from Spain site.

I also tried it with an interesting alternative to Stilton a Wrekin Blue which I blogged about in a general moan about the cost of cheese yesterday. I don’t think it went quite as well interestingly. The Zamorano definitely had the edge.

Zamorano would, of course, go well with sherry too - a dry amontillado I suggest - or a Rioja reserva or gran reserva.

* To be fair I'm not sure that all these prices include the box. But even if Amazon's does it's still a lot to pay for a wooden box!