Roast monkfish with girolles and Kalimna cabernet/shiraz

If an Australian cabernet-shiraz is the last wine you’d think of pairing with fish here’s why it worked at a recent lunch that Penfolds hosted at Trivet in London

First of all the fish was monkfish, a meaty fish that can generally stand up to red wine

Secondly it was roasted - a more robust way of cooking fish than poaching or steaming

Thirdly it was accompanied by wine-friendly girolle mushrooms

And fourthly it was accompanied by a very skilfully made red wine sauce (the most impressive thing about the whole meal was the way chef Jonny Lake who used to head up the kitchen at The Fat Duck, crafted the sauces to suit each wine.)

But maybe the most important factor of all was that the wine was 60 years old. Given it wasn’t a massively expensive wine in the first place - we’re not talking Grange - it was still extraordinarily bright. Not with its primary fruit obviously but not in any way over the hill. And it was its lovely mellowness that made it such a good match.

You can buy the most recent vintages for £32.99 a bottle from Majestic or £28.99 on their mix six deal - not bad for a wine that might last 60 years!

For other monkfish matches see The Best Wine Pairings for Monkfish

Raan and Grover Chêne

I’ve been thinking a fair bit about red wine and Indian food lately - of which more in due course - but wanted to flag up one pairing from my trip to India last week which definitely worked.

The dish was a raan or marinated roast lamb which was served at the International Vine and Food Experience I attended at the Taj Falaknuma Palace hotel in Hyderabad and the wine Indian winery Grover’s Chêne, a blend of tempranillo and shiraz. Most of Grover’s reds are made in Bangalore though they have some vineyards in Nashik which is where we had met up with them earlier in the week.

You might be surprised to discover that India produces full-bodied reds but a number of wineries do as I revealed in my Guardian column last year (and will write about again in due course)

Incidentally they served it cellar cool which was obviously welcome in the considerable heat of Hyderabad - and not a bad idea elsewhere.

You could of course serve other reds with raan such as shiraz and tempranillo from other countries including a young rioja or a malbec. Even a cabernet which I feel sometimes struggles with spicy food would work perfectly well.

If you want to give raan a try yourself here’s a delicious recipe from Meera Sodha’s Made in India (Photograph © David Loftus)

40 day aged fillet of Black Angus beef with Henschke’s 2010 Mount Edelstone Shiraz

This has been one of the most difficult weeks ever to pick my match of the week but this, by a whisker, was it.

It was part of a skilfully put together Henschke wine dinner at Allium brasserie in Bath where every dish complimented the wines perfectly.

Boldly the chef Chris Staines had decided to serve a cheese course instead of dessert in order to show off the 2009 Hill of Grace that was the highlight of the evening but as a pairing it was pipped by two other dishes, the salmon and the beef.

The salmon, which was was served blackened with wasabi oysters, pickled vegetables and ponzu jelly was matched with a very young, fresh crisp vintage of Julius Eden Valley riesling while the beef was accompanied by smoked onion, braised ox tongue and roast cauliflower - deeply savoury notes that lent the rich Mount Edelstone a velvety maturity.

Interestingly all the Henschke wines are now made from organically grown, biodynamically treated fruit - an eloquent rebuttal of the idea that all biodynamic wines are wild and weird.

I attended the dinner as a guest of Allium.

Carpaccio of venison with Mollydooker The Boxer shiraz

My match of the week is not in fact my match of the week which was some sublime sashimi and koshu at the Japanese embassy but as that pairing has featured before I’m going for my second best this week*.

It was which was one of a number of food and wine matches at the Australia Day tasting devised by chef Roger Jones who is spearheading the new Dine Australia campaign.

The dish was a carpaccio of venison (in other words raw meat) with foie gras toffee and parsnip and date mousse, designed as a pairing for shiraz. Unfortunately I didn’t spot the fact that it included foie gras which I don’t normally eat but the point was that the meat was rare and the accompaniments rich and sweet which is what you want with a full-bodied young shiraz.

The wine should have been Ben Glaetzer’s Bishop but I thought you were supposed to grab any shiraz you could lay your hands on (obviously not having the brightest of afternoons . .) and filled my glass with the 2012 Mollydooker The Boxer shiraz on a stand nearby which actually worked very well.

The other pairing of steak tartare macarons with salted caramel I wasn’t quite so keen on - just too sweet with an already super-ripe wine. So some sweetness but not too much with shiraz is the message.

See my other pairings for Australian shiraz here.