Indian veggie food and sauvignon blanc

After a lively discussion about what to drink with curry on my #weekendwinematching slot it was good to discover a new angle on pairing wine with Indian food.

I was making a couple of dishes (with friends on Zoom) from Roopa Gulati’s excellent new India: The World Vegetarian which included paneer with spinach and Punjabi cauliflower with ginger. These are much lighter and fresher than the kind of heavily sauced Indian recipes you would find in the average curry house and I was thinking they might go with a dry rosé but in fact they absolutely sang with a bottle of 2018 Chateau Bauduc sauvignon blanc I had open after an online tasting earlier that day.

Makes sense when you think about it. You could have easily have added a squeeze of lemon to either dish and the refreshingly citrussy sauvignon had a similar effect.

The following night I tried three other dishes from the book - bhel puri, aubergines with a very garlicky tomato masala and a lime dal which went brilliantly well with a juicy, smashable Beaujolais that my local wine bar Kask is selling on tap which proves you can drink light dry wines with spicy food - although neither meal was that hot.

I still like aromatic wines (and beer, of course) with Indian food but it’s good to know they’re not the only option.

What wine to pair with curry: my top 5 picks

* weekendwinematching is a fortnightly live discussion on my @winematcher Twitter feed. Follow me to keep track of when the next one is!

Chardonnay and charred aubergine with coriander chutney

When I think of coriander I rarely think of chardonnay - more like a sauvignon blanc or a riesling - but the tasting sponsored by Wine Australia at Imbibe the other week before last really surprised me.

The event pitted Master Sommelier Clément Robert against Master of Wine Sam Caporn each of whom chose an Aussie wine to go with one of three dishes prepared by Roger Jones of The Harrow at Little Bedwyn.

Admittedly aubergine is quite a rich, savoury vegetable but it was the pungent Indian style coriander chutney that really made Sam’s match with the 2016 Petaluma Piccadilly Valley chardonnay from the Adelaide Hills sing.

Why did it work so well? I think because of the maturity, quality and luscious creaminess of the chardonnay (the current vintage costs £27.80 from Corking Wines), the fact that the dish was cold and that there was a good dollop of yoghurt on the side. (Dairy often assists a wine match particularly with chardonnay.) The slight nuttiness and smokiness of the aubergine also helped but it wouldn't necessarily be the easiest pairing to pull off at home if you didn't have Roger there to cook it for you.

It is worth trying oaked chardonnay with Indian food if you're in a restaurant though. It goes particularly well with creamy curries such kormas and butter chicken

See also The best food to match with chardonnay

Scallops, nduja and Frappato

Last week I went to a wine dinner hosted by the Sicilian wine producer Donnafugata at Luca in London. They’re best known for their fabulous passito di Pantelleria dessert wine, Ben Ryé, but in fact it was the cleverly partnered dry wines that stole the show.

I’m picking - with some difficulty - as my match of the week a dish of scallops with the 2017 Bell’Assai Frappato, a charming light graceful red from the Vittoria region. What clinched the match - although it could probably have stood up on its own - was the nduja (spicy Calabrian sausage) purée and nutty Jerusalem artichokes that went with it.

I also loved the bold pairing of a white wine - the Vigna di Gabri - a blend of the local ansonica and catarratto with chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and viognier - with a pasta course of rigatoni with braised lamb and olives (lamb and white wine can work surprisingly well) and the pitch perfect match of the dark savoury 2014 Mille e Una Notte (nero d’avola, petit verdot and syrah) with a dish of ox cheek, caponata and grilled radicchio. The bitterness of the radicchio with the sweetness of the ox cheek was an inspired combination.

Oddly the Ben Ryé (we drank the 2015 vintage) went best with a bergamot sorbet rather than the Sicilian lemon tart for which it didn’t have quite enough acidity but all in all a really impressive hit rate. Good work, Luca!

Incidentally I drank the Frappato again yesterday with a dish of chicken chermoula to which it stood up equally well so it can obviously take a fair bit of spice. It’s just gone on sale in Oddbins at £28 although an online company called Tannico seems to have it for £19.70. Incidentally they recommend you drink it cool at 14°-16°C.

For other scallop matches see Top Wine Pairings with Scallops

I attended the dinner as a guest of Donnafugata and Liberty Wines.

Cauliflower popcorn and a Seedlip and pineapple cocktail

Most pairings focus on alcoholic drinks but it’s equally intriguing to see how a similar synergy can be achieved with an alcohol-free one.

Last week I tried out the new vegan menu at the Ravinder Bhogal residency at The Perception bar at the W hotel and wasn’t really in the mood for wine so we chose the ‘soft’ option on the cocktail menu, a cocktail called Naked which was based on the non-alcoholic ‘spirit’ Seedlip Spice 94. It wasn’t actually vegan as it contained egg white but wasn’t billed as such either (there were vegan wine options). Other ingredients were lemon juice, pineapple juice, peach purée, ginger & lemongrass and a walnut garnish.

Being refreshingly fruity and not too sweet it actually paired well with almost all the dishes we tried but particularly with what has already become the most talked about dish on the menu - the cauliflower ‘popcorn’ with Thai basil tempura and a black vinegar and chilli dip. Appropriately enough as it's the perfect bar snack.

I also particularly liked it with the summer rolls, the beetroot and walnut kibbeh and the tempura inari. (Ravinder, who owns the restaurant Jikoni, is playing with a wide palette of Asian flavours not just Indian ingredients in this pop-up).

You can eat her vegan menu at The Perception which is just off Leicester Square until the end of June. I ate there as a guest of the W hotel.