Roast pork belly and young tempranillo

This week’s match of the week isn’t a new discovery - roast meat with red wine isn’t exactly rocket science - but the fact that it was pork that was going so well with tempranillo rather than the usual lamb or beef intrigued me.

The wine isn’t labelled as rioja although both it and the winemaker Gonzalo Gonzalo Grijalba come from the region. It was named as a result of the banks turning him down for a loan. (Gran cerdo loosely translates as fat pig!)

It’s a really vibrant, swiggable red which went really well with a biiig and very delicious plateful of fennel salted pork belly with all the sides I had at The Old Market Assembly in Bristol at the weekend.

You can buy it from Buon Vino for £9.95 a bottle or from Roberson for £9.99 or £53.95 a case of six (£8.99 a bottle) which is remarkably good value for an organic wine. It would be great with a barbecue too.

For other suggestions with roast pork and other Sunday roasts see

A quick guide to wine pairings with a Sunday roast

Cold roast pork with apple and Chardonnay

I had a reminder last week of just how good Chardonnay can be with meat given the right accompaniments.

It was at a new South-African owned London restaurant called High Timber and was rather an elaborate starter of pulled shoulder of Middle White pork, served cold with balls of poached apple, apple and vanilla purée and a crisp wafer of crackling.

The restaurant owner Neleen Strauss suggested a glass of full bodied 2008 Jordan Chardonnay (Jordan are co-owners of the restaurant) which was an excellent pairing, matching the pork weight for weight and picking up on the apple and vanilla. An old vine Chenin Blanc would have been worked too - and you could of course serve those ingredients rather more simply.

I also found the Jordan Merlot a pretty good match for the cheese selection I picked out which included a Tomme Brule, a Pecorino and a Brillat Truffe (a Brie-like cheese layered with truffles) though it struggled a bit with a Fourme de Maury, a blue cheese spiked with Maury wine just as a Stilton can be spiked with port. Maury would in fact have been better.

For a full review of the restaurant click here

Roast suckling pig with Casa de Saima Bairrada Tinto

I recently went to a Portuguese food and wine evening in Bristol hosted by an enterprising wine merchant called Corks of Cotham. It featured the wines of a producer called Casa de Saima, the ports of Niepoort and an intriguing Barbeito Single Harvest Madeira which went exceptionally well with some classic Portuguese custard tarts.

The high spot though was the main course - a perfectly roasted suckling pig served with fine wafers of fried potato and a very good green salad (an accompaniment that’s too often overlooked these days).

Two wines were served with it - the basic Casa de Saima Tinto 2005 and the 2004 reserva, both based on the Portuguese grape Baga. Although the older wine was a fine match I particularly liked the juicy freshness of the younger one which paired perfectly with the delicate meat. (Subscribers can read more on pork and wine matching here.)

Apparently the estate, which is regarded as one of the best in the region, is a very traditional one where the grapes are still trodden by foot and left to ferment in lagares. As often with Portuguese wines I was struck by just how refreshingly different they were in style from the vast mass of international varietals but to give you a reference point they would appeal if you're a Cabernet Franc fan.

Roast suckling pig and amber ale

I realise this is not the first time I’ve written about the virtues of roast pork and beer but it’s such a great match (and such an underrated one) that I keep on coming back to it. This time I came across it in a splendid northern French tavern called Le Bruegel in Bergues, the highlight of what was otherwise a rather cold, miserable journey on our way back to England last week.

In this part of France, which is known as the Pas-de-Calais, beer rather than wine is the drink of choice as it is just over the border in Belgium. The restaurants too, which are known as estaminets are much more like pubs than bistros. Le Breugel, which was festively decorated with flags, lines of washing and assorted agricultural implements also had a blazing log fire which made it very cheery and welcoming on a wet winter’s night. And the portions were huge. I mean HUGE!

My cochon de lait grillé (which you can see from the picture was enough for at least three people) was wonderfully sweet and fall-apart tender with crisp crackling and needed just the refreshing bite of a cellar-cool, malty Brasseur bière ambrée as they call it in this part of the world to clear the palate for the next mouthful.

Other good matches were a sourish blonde ale with a rich dish of braised chicory and the pungent local Maroilles cheese and a citrussy ‘blanche’ (witbier) with the local speciality pot’che vleesch, a selection of boiled meats that included rabbit, pork, chicken and veal in a flavoursome jelly - served Belgian-style with chips! (I’ve also had it as a terrine)

Good as the food was I can’t really recommend an extended stay in the area which is one of the least attractive, most industrial parts of France but as it’s a mere half hour from the Channel Tunnel it makes a good - and very inexpensive - stopover for any beer-lover. (There is also a shop called La Cave du Berguenard at 2, bis quai des maçons where you can buy 120 different French and Belgian beers)