Match of the week

Lamb mechoui and 2007 Chateau Musar
This, I think, was the standout pairing from our Honey & Co wine club on Sunday and a great illustration of the difference a dish can make to the way a wine tastes.
The wine was the 2007 vintage of the legendary Chateau Musar from the Lebanon, a wine which was showing its age when we tasted it on its own but was utterly transformed by the spicy, slightly gamey meat which revived the lovely sweet mellow fruit in the wine and made it taste velvety and delicious. The dish also included pulses in the form of a broad bean & mint mashawsha or hummus - another factor in the success of the match. Pulses can be as flattering to wine as meat.
We have one more Honey & Co event on May 8th which will focus on Southern Italian and Sicilian food and wine* then break until the autumn but I hope to be doing another couple of events at other restaurants over the summer. if you’d like to be on my events mailing list email events@matchingfoodandwine.com
*currently a sell-out but do call Honey & Co and ask to be put on the waiting list in the event of any cancellations

Tuscan bean soup and Sangiovese
Last week I was on an assignment in Tuscany for a couple of days. It was pretty hot but that didn’t discourage the Tuscans from serving the kind of food they enjoy all the year round - namely substantial bean and chickpea soups.
They’re particularly good because they make them from scratch from the best quality pulses which gives them a rich, sweet, mealy texture that is a quite marvellous foil for the local wines, which are almost all based on Sangiovese. Chianti is the best known of them but we tried others such as Montecucco and Morellino di Scansano. They all share the typically high acidity of inexpensive Italian reds which makes them taste slightly thin on their own by modern standards but absolutely perfect with lighter dishes such as soup and pasta.
More on this tomorrow!
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