Vitello tonnato and Etna Bianco

It’s not often you find a wine that sails through every dish you put in front of it but I’d say on the basis of Friday night’s Italian feast at Wild Artichokes in Kingsbridge that the Tenuta Tasca Buonora Etna Bianco 2017 would see you through almost any Italian meal.

The ‘feast’ - and it is indeed a feast - that Jane Baxter puts on during the Dartmouth Food festival is one of my favourite meals of the year - full of utterly delicious dishes you never come across in the average Italian restaurant. In addition to the vitello tonnato (veal with a tuna sauce) which was served with a cabbage and fennel salad, it also went brilliantly with a whole lot of other antipasti including trout in carpionne (a sweet-sour pickled dish) two kinds of sformato (flan), squid, a mussel and prawn black cavatelli, an incredibly moreish pasta dish of casarecci with sardines and with the main course of rabbit and artichokes too.

The wine which was wonderfully clean and linear - and only 12% - is made from carricante - you can find it for £19.47 a bottle from tannic.co.uk and £19,99 from allaboutwine.co.uk. Not cheap but fair enough, Etna is a touigh terrain to cultivate. And it really is delicious.

For other wine matches with vitello tonnato see The best wine pairings with vitello tonnato

Veal ravioli with barolo

This wasn’t the most innovative wine pairing I came across in the last 7 days but it was such a classic I couldn’t fail to make it my match of the week.

It was at TV chef Giorgio Locatelli’s Locanda Locatelli which has recently reopened after four months' refurbishment following an explosion in the basement of the Churchill hotel in which it’s located. Pasta has always been one of Giorgio’s strong suits so I’d already picked a plate of home-made ravioli with braised veal, butter and sage as a main.

The sommelier suggested a glass of barolo (the 2010 Barolo Monforte D`Alba from Azienda Agricola Giacomo Fenocchio) to drink with it which it seemed rude to resist. It was, of course, quite perfect with the ravioli though at £17.50 a glass perhaps just a leetle bit more than I should prudently have been spending.

Not all the wines are that pricey. The glass I kicked off with - a fragrant white from the Societa` Agricola Cooperativa Riomaggiore in the Cinque Terre (a blend of bosco, albarola and vermentino) was a more affordable £10 and spot on with my delicious antipasto of marinated anchovies, smoked potatoes, radicchio and salsa verde.

It’s good to see Locanda Locatelli back.

Veal chop with sage and Eben Sadie Sequillo Red

I had lunch for the first time for a while at Hix’s Oyster and Chop House in Farringdon last week where I ordered - appropriately enough - a chop. In this instance a veal chop with sage butter.

It’s the kind of dish which suggests a classic red like a burgundy but my host, Giles Cooper of Bordeaux Index, boldly picked a 14.5% 2011 Sequillo Red from Eben Sadie instead which was absolutely perfect.

Sadie makes his wines in the Swartland and is one of South Africa’s most highly regarded young winemakers. Sequillo is a big generous Rhone-ish blend of Syrah, Mourvedre, Grenache, Carignan and Cinsault and at around £17-£19 (£17.49 AG Wines, £17.50 by the case winedirect.co.uk) is a terrific buy. There’s not much left of that vintage about so snap it up. It's drinking perfectly.

There were also a couple of outstanding beer matches from the Brewers’ Association dinner I went to last Monday at Club Gascon. You can read about them here: Does craft beer suit posh food?

Cold roast veal with herbs and St Chinian rosé

It’s been so hot over the last couple of days here in the Languedoc I haven’t felt much like cooking so we raided the very good local traiteur (takeaway) in Murviel yesterday for our weekend’s eating. The highlight was some beautifully cooked rare roast veal with herbs - in the style of Italian porchetta.

I accompanied it with a tomato, rice and basil salad and a green salad (which I did manage to rustle up from scratch) and paired it with our neighbour’s very good St Chinian rosé. His estate is romantically named Domaine Belles Courbes which translates as ‘beautiful curves’. (Referring, I hasten to add, to the vineyards . . . )

He has two rosés - an oaked and an unoaked version - both based on Cinsault and Grenache (the oaked version also has Carignan). We were drinking the unwooded version which also paired brilliantly well with some French style stuffed tomatoes with sausagemeat we had the other night and - to my surprise - with some very ripe Charentais melon. (I would have thought it would have been too dry)

I didn’t think you could get hold of it in the UK but it is apparently available from a company called Wines Unfurled (www.winesunfurled.co.uk 01280 847422) for £8.99 a bottle. Here it's only 5 euros ;-)