Pigeon 'tagine' with Jaboulet Ainé Hermitage La Chapelle 1994

I came across this pairing at Chris and Jeff Galvin’s newly opened Galvin La Chapelle in Spitalfields in the City where they have a vertical of vintages, some of which are available by the glass. As I observed in my review on decanter.com it’s not a cheap option but if you’ve never tasted an old vintage of Hermitage la Chapelle here’s a chance to do so.

I was slightly worried whether my glass of ‘94 would hold up against what was described as a ‘tagine’ but needn’t have worried. It was a most refined, subtly spiced version (see right) with a little ‘cigar’ of pigeon meat, a disc of couscous and a not too hot, slightly smoky harissa sauce.

It actually showed off the Hermitage better than our other dish of braised veal cheek whose sticky, unctuous sauce took the edge off the wine’s ‘sousbois’ character and subtle, almost figgy fruit.

I wouldn’t extrapolate from this to say that a less ‘cheffy’ home-made tagine was the ideal match for so grand a wine but it suggests a similar spectrum of Moroccan flavours would work with a lesser Rhône red such as a St Joseph or a Crozes-Hermitage, a Syrah blend from the Languedoc and also, I fancy, a Château Musar.

* I ate at Galvin La Chapelle as a guest of the restaurant.

Spicy lamb stew with Coonawarra Cabernet

I’m aware that there’s a Francophile bias to this site but there are recipes where I automatically turn to the New World. The spicy lamb dish I picked up the other night from my local restaurant and takeaway Culinaria is one of them - a hottish tagine-style dish of spiced lamb, aubergines, chickpeas & merguez sausage which was almost on the verge of being a curry.

I suppose it’s not so surprising I reached for a ripe fruity Cabernet Sauvignon - lamb and Cabernet is a classic but once spices are involved nothing is automatic.

The sauce was quite sharp though (I thought it might have included tamarind) and the wine, a 2003 Reschke Vitulus Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon (imported by H & H Bancroft and available for £12.99 from the Oxford Wine Company) neither too alcoholic (13.5% is quite modest by Australian standards) nor too heavily oaked.

It was a great combination, the supply plummy fruit adding just the right counterpoint of sweetness to the stew.

Chicken and vegetable tagine with southern French rosé

Today, as you’ll probably not need reminding, is le quatorze juillet which marks the storming of the Bastille and the start of the French revolution. These days the French are more likely to head for the beach than onto the streets as it’s a public holiday and the start of the month long summer vacation for many but it’s celebrated with street parties all over France.

Here’s an appropriately modern French pairing, which I enjoyed last week in Arles to inspire you if you want to throw an impromptu party of your own. North African food is very popular in the south of France and I ordered this unusual chicken and vegetable tagine in a Moroccan restaurant called L’Entrevue. Normally a chicken tagine has fewer vegetables but this was more like a cross between a classic chicken and lemon tagine and a vegetable couscous. It also contained chicken livers, an unusual and imaginative touch which went very well with the preserved lemons in the dish.

As it was a sweltering 33°C we automatically reached for the rosé, a pale, crisp dry style from Château Mourgues du Grès in the Costières de Nîmes region around Arles. It matched the tagine perfectly, the slight spiciness bringing out all its delicate fruit. The cuvée is a blend of Syrah, Grenache and Carignan called Fleur d’Eglantine and is available from vivinum.co.uk and Sam’s Wine and Spirits and Morrell in the US

Lamb tagine with dates, prunes and apricots and a very good Beaujolais

Now here’s an unexpected match. I would be wary of pairing a Beaujolais - even a Morgon - with something as sweet as a lamb tagine with dried fruits thinking it would make the wine taste slightly sharp but the combination worked perfectly.

The wine, admittedly, was an exceptional Morgon from an unusually warm year (2005) from a celebrated winemaker called Marcel Lapierre we visited in the village of Villié-Morgon the other day*.

He makes his wines as naturally as possible, without filtering them and frequently without any sulphur though for wines he exports he adds a touch. He also uses natural yeasts which means you don’t get any of the standard banana-y, bubblegummy aromas and flavours you do with more commercial wines from the region.

The wine we tried was in perfect balance - ripe but not oversweet, dense but supple, refreshing, as wine always should be, but with plenty of backbone and personality. It reminds you, if you need reminding, of all the virtues of Beaujolais and how versatile it is with food.

* Sadly, Marcel died in 2010 though the estate is still being run by his son Mathieu.