Seafood pizza and Craven The Firs Syrah

A full-flavoured red and seafood? Doesn’t sound like the kind of pairing that would work but as ever it depends on the wine and how the dish is prepared.

The pizza was one of a range of gourmet pizzas at a great little restaurant called Burrata at The Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock, Capetown we visited on Friday night with a couple of winemakers, Mick and Jeanine Craven of Craven Wines (Mick also makes wine at Mulderbosch) and Gavin Bruwer of B Vintners who also makes the Raats Family wines.

I ordered a di Mare (prawns, squid and chili aioli) just because I was curious to see what it was like. Thanks to the garlic it was quite punchy so easily able to handle a red.

The syrah (a 2015 and definitely a syrah rather than a shiraz) was Mick and Jeanine’s, a really delicious bright juicy example with a good whack of the white pepper and spice that characterises wines from the northern Rhône. Amazingly it was only 12.5%, which is typical of a trend to lower alcohol wines among the new generation of South African wine producers (though Mick is in fact an Aussie!). Apparently it’ll be hitting the UK sometime in the spring.

Crispy chilli lime squid with edamame bean and coriander salad and pinot gris

Having picked up a heavy cold a couple of days before flying to New Zealand last week I arrived unable to taste a thing but this delicately pretty wine from Brick Bay Winery in Matakana managed to penetrate the fog.

It undoubtedly helped to have drunk it at an outdoor table at the winery cafe underneath their pinot gris vines.

It went perfectly (I’m pretty sure) with my dish of crispy squid and edamame bean salad and I suspect would have gone equally well with my neighbour’s chicken salad*.

Although sauvignon blanc still totally dominates the New Zealand wine scene pinot gris appears to be becoming increasingly popular, not least because of its versatility with food.

* Undoubtedly true - I had a similar Asian-style chicken salad with a pinot gris at Wairau River in Marlborough which was equally good.

Salt and pepper squid with Asian dressing and Fleur du Cap unfiltered chardonnay

One of the highlights of last week’s trip to South Africa was a salt pairing dinner with Fleur du Cap wines at the Bergkelder. The chef Craig Cormack was a real salt fanatic having hunted down dozens of different varieties and experimented with matching them with different wines.

The overall effect of salt on wine is to reduce acidity and fill the wine out which is certainly what happened with the Chardonnay. Tasted on its own before the dinner it was, despite its 14.3% ABV, pleasantly smooth and creamy. Combined with the squid and accompanying rice it tasted much richer, almost Burgundian, a wine of twice the price.

The interesting issue was whether that was due primarily to the salt or the umami-rich dressing which included black sesame seeds and the sweet Indonesian soy sauce kecap manis. Probably a bit of both.

Other cleverly judged pairings during the dinner included venison with smoked salt and a salted chocolate ganache with the Fleur du Cap unfiltered Cabernet Sauvignon and flambéed bananas with cinnamon sugar, salted peanut chocolate mousse and tonka bean ice cream with the Noble Late Harvest.

Similar dinners are held on the last Thursday of each month for 290R (£16/$27 - check out the Fleur du Cap Facebook page for details ) but you can also try a selection of salt pairing canapés every weekday at the Bergkelder tasting room for an incredibly reasonable 75R (£4/$7)

Langoustine cannellonis and citrus with Pacherenc de Vic Bilh

It's always a challenge to pick a single wine with an elaborate tasting menu but the Jardins de Bouscassé 2008 Pacherenc du Vic Bilh sec from Alain Brumont we ordered with our meal at La Renaissance in Argentan last week hit the spot with almost every dish.

My favourite match by a whisker was an intricate dish of 'cannelloni' formed from pieces of squid, wrapped round some beautifully fresh langoustines and served with an intense seafood broth flavoured with pomelo and dots of mandarin and basil (I think) pure. I'm not normally that keen on the French obsession with 'sucré-salé' but the combination of fish and citrus worked perfectly with the light, lush, tropical fruit-scented wine. (There was also a hint of Sichuan pepper in the dish.)

It also went brilliantly well with the next course of John Dory with small, sweet crevettes grises (shrimps) and carpaccio of pigs trotter, an extraordinarily intense surf'n'turf combination.

I'll be writing a bit more about the restaurant in due course but it was an outstanding meal. Bizarrely it doesn't have a Michelin star.