Nduja and a super-Tuscan red

I don’t often get inspiration from chefs when it comes to food and wine pairing - you’d think they’d be into wine but they often aren’t - but Theo Randall’s suggestion of a super-Tuscan red with his dish of roast sausages with borlotti beans and nduja sauce was spot on.

Having posted the recipe, which comes from Theo’s new book, The Italian Deli Cookbook, I finally got round to cooking it over the weekend. Although the key ingredient, nduja, comes from Calabria it was absolutely delicious with a rich, smooth 2019 Grattamacco Bolgheri Rosso from Berry Bros and Rudd, a blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot and sangiovese. Unfortunately it already seems to be out of stock* at BBR who originally sent it to me but you can find it at Majestic, tannico.co.uk or wineeye.com by the case.

Similar Tuscan reds or rich full-bodied reds from the Maremma would also work or you could go for a southern Italian red like an aglianico, primitivo or nero d’avola. (There’s an interesting post on Calabrian wine here.)

Nduja, if you’re not familiar with it, is a soft Calabrian sausage with quite a spicy chilli kick. You can buy it in many Italian delis. Waitrose now stocks it as part of their Cooks Ingredients range

* a general problem at the moment. Wines seem to be flying as soon as they come in so if you read about something you like the sound of don’t hang around!

Recipe photograph ©Lizzie Mayson

Currywurst and pils

What on earth do you drink with currywurst? Last week I was in Berlin so had the perfect opportunity to find out.

Currywurst, in case you’re wondering, is basically a large frankfurter-type sausage served with a spicy tomato sauce although many stands and restaurants have their own version. At Curry 66 in Friedrichshain they had a menu of 9 sauces, 3 of which were house sauces and the rest for for hard-core chilli sauce addicts. (I opted for the no. 3 but tried a tiny dab of the comparatively tame no. 5 which practically blew my head off). The wurst was served with an extra sprinkling of curry powder and chips with mayo and more ketchup - much nicer than it sounds, I promise!

The fresh crisp Berliner Pilsner that was on offer in the drinks fridge proved the ideal match for the sweet-spicy-salty combination. Even if I could have chosen a wine (an off-dry riesling, maybe?) I wouldn’t have been tempted - and nor would any self-respecting Berliner I’d guess.

(You can buy Berliner Pilsner in the UK from beersofeurope.co.uk. You might have to go to Berlin for the currywurst ...)

Catalan sausage and beans with southern French Syrah/Grenache

Last week’s highlight without a doubt was the meal I had with my Guardian colleagues at Brawn, Ed Wilson’s new restaurant in Columbia Road. As you may know it’s the new City outpost of the hugely popular wine bar Terroirs with a similar natural wine list which you can read about on my natural wine blog here.

Ed suggested wines to go with different stages of the meal which was served tapas-style - we must have tried practically every dish on the menu.

I loved the exuberant La Guillaume Gamay with the charcuterie and the Domaine Matassa Cuvée Alexandria, an extraordinary dry Muscat of Alexandria, with the zander boudin in shellfish sauce but the combination that just pipped the others to the post was Jean-Franois Nicq’s 2007 Domaine Les Foulards Les Glaneurs from the Roussillon, a generous spicy blend of Grenache and Syrah with the mongetes, a ribsticking Catalan dish of sausage and beans.

Although the wine was full-bodied - and funky - enough to need carafing it was still fresh enough to offset the richness of the beans. And just perfect for this freezing cold weather.

Faggots with onion gravy and Mas Belles Eaux Vieux Carignan

Faggots, which are basically a rather gamey British meatball made with pork belly and offal, are a bit of an acquired taste along the lines of the French sausage andouillette but well made, as they are when supplied by our local butcher, they can be very tasty. They need to be accompanied by onion gravy which normally leads one in the direction of a robust ale but the other night we had them with a bottle of Mas Belles Eaux Vieux Carignan 2006 which actually worked very well.

Carignan, as I’ve mentioned before, is not my favourite grape variety but well-crafted examples like this do have an appeal especially with robust gastropub dishes (braised lamb shanks and steak and kidney pie would be other apt examples).

Mas Belles Eaux is a Languedoc estate just north of Pezenas that was taken over a while ago by insurance giant AXA Millsimes who also own Quinta do Noval and Chateau Pichon-Baron.

The agency is now handled by Gonzalez Byass in the UK (+44 1707 273188) though the wine is currently in limited distribution*. At a retail price of £18-20 it may strike you as a an extravagant partner for offal of any kind but oddly it’s often the simplest dishes that show off good wines to best advantage. And there are of course less expensive Carignans and Carignan blends around to test the combination.

FromVineyardsDirect sells the less expensive Mas Belles Eaux Les Coteaux.

Image © Igor Klimov - Fotolia