Rabbit stew and 2011 Henri et Gilles Buisson Saint Romain ‘Sous Roche’

This isn’t the first time I’ve singled out pinot noir as a good pairing for rabbit (see here for one back in 2011) but it’s good to be reminded what an adaptable wine a relatively modest red burgundy can be.

This was a bottle we bought direct last summer when we stayed at the Hotel les Roches in Saint Romain, one of our favourite places to break our journey through France (see others here). It’s the kind of wine that doesn’t really stand out in a tasting, especially if it’s just been released but greatly improves with a couple of years maturity* and with food.

The wine, which comes from a domaine that dates back to the 12th century, comes from an organically tended vineyard of 50 year old vines. It was delicate and pretty with lovely, juicy but not oversweet red berry fruit and a fresh acidity that made it a good match for this classic French bistro dish - which is one of my husband’s specialities. It was made with a full-bodied red (and a dash, he later told me, of 20 y.o. tawny port!) but the dish, although intensely flavoured, ended up tasting quite light, showing off the taste of the rabbit. With a richer sauce I’d have probably gone for a more robust red from the Languedoc or Rhône.

It’s not widely stocked in the UK. PM Wine has the 2009 for £22.85 and fine wine specialist Christopher Keiller, the 2013. In France you can buy it online currently from Vins et Millésimes for 17.10€ (£12.44) which is not bad as I remember we paid about 15-16€ from the cellar door. In the US you can buy it for $31.99 (£20.59) from Chambers Street Wines. For other US stockists check wine-searcher.com

*they actually recommend you don’t drink it until 3 years after harvest.

Braised rabbit and Château Fond Cyprès Syrah de la Pinède

Most of this past week has been spent in Paris where almost every wine match is a good one. There’s been a lot of Beaujolais - and other Gamay - drinking and a fair amount of crisp dry whites such as Aligoté - but the pairing I’m going to pick is a Syrah I didn’t know with a stonking great plateful of braised rabbit at the legendary Baratin.

What’s clever about the cooking there is that it’s classic bistro food but with a wonderful lightness of touch. The rabbit wasn’t overwhelmed by the red wine it was cooked in merely anointed with it so you still had a sense of the delicacy of the meat. There was apparently a touch of cocoa in the sauce though I didn’t pick that up.

I was having an equally robust dish of roast pork with sauce pibil - a Mexican way of cooking with orange juice and annatto seed, as I later discovered. Again, not hot, not overly smoky, just incredibly delicious. (The chef Rachel Carena originally came from Argentina.)

We were looking for a syrah and settled on this one on the recommendation of the gaffer Philippe Pinoteau who selects the largely natural wine list. It’s a vivid, life-affirming young syrah called Syrah de la Pinède (the 2011 vintage), made on an organic estate called Château Fond Cyprès in the Corbières. One of their wines, Hope là, is imported by Naked Wines - not to universal appeal judging by the comments on the site but then natural wine isn't everybody's cup of tea. Maybe it needed decanting as Le Baratin did ours.

Syrah has a delicious savoury edge that works really well with dishes like this. It doesn’t even need to be French though almost invariably is in Paris ;-)

Rabbit ballotine with Domaine Lucci Wildman Pinot Noir

If i'm asked what my favourite wine is I usually say I don't have one as there are always moments when I fancy one wine more than anything else. But Pinot Noir has to be up there, especially a glorious, hedonistic Pinot like this Domaine Lucci Wildman Pinot which is one of the most delicious wines I've tasted all year*.

It doesn't look much admittedly. It's a natural wine so it's unfiltered and slightly cloudy with a pale almost brownish tinge to it that almost looks as if someone's poured a dash of milky tea into the glass. But the aroma and flavour are just sensational - sweet, scented, heady, silky - everything you expect from great red burgundy.

The match was at a natural wine dinner at Bell's Diner which was presented by my husband, a great natural wine aficionado. He suggested rabbit as the ideal match to the chef Chris Wicks and he came up with this delicious ballotine, stuffed with walnut and ginger and served with carrot, wild mushrooms and a pure-tasting not excessively sweet plum pure which provided the link to the dish. (Apologies for the very blurry photo.)

Like duck, rabbit is a pretty sure-fire match for Pinot.

*available for £22.80 a bottle by the case (mixed or unmixed) from Les Caves de Pyrne and £30 from Bottle Apostle.

New season's olive oil and vino novo

Last week I went on a flying visit to Tuscany to take part in the olive oil harvest and had the rare treat of being able to sample oil that has just been pressed. As you can see from the picture, it’s an incredible colour - literally deep olive green and has the most fantastic grassy flavour.

The family who make the oil - the LoFranco family of Fattoria La Vialla - throw a weekly feast for the visiting pickers during which the oil is liberally poured on everything from toasted bread to pasta to grilled meat (rabbit with fennel in this instance).

To go with it they pour a wine called Vino Novo, the wine from the new harvest which is only drunk during this period. Unlike Beaujolais Nouveau it’s not subject to carbonic maceration but simply siphoned direct from the tank. It was made from Merlot and wasn’t much more than 12% I would guess - deliciously light and gulpable with a bright fruit character that balanced beautifully with the slight bitterness of the oil. I can’t think of another wine that would have suited it better.