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.

Grilled tuna tart and Camus Ile de Ré Double Matured Cognac

The idea of matching Cognac with any food other than chocolate is still regarded as unconventional - even more so in the case of fish - but I promise you this pairing, the first course at a lunch at Camus, would have blown you away.

The cognac was an unusual one to start with - the Camus Ile de Ré Double Matured Cognac which is produced from grapes grown on this fashionable small island just off France’s western coast, the most westerly region of the Cognac appellation.

Apparently the grapes have a higher than usual iodine content which accounts for the slighty salty, maritime character of the cognac, which was accentuated by being served frozen. (Which sounds like sacrilege but is très à la mode in the region.)

The dish was also unusual: a crisp pastry base topped with (I think) an anchovy paste, braised fennel, crushed olives and seared tuna with a sea urchin dressing and a cascade of beautifully fresh peppery leaves. Hard to describe but absolutely delicious and the most perfect match with the fragrant iced spirit.

If I come across a more clever or imaginative pairing this year I’ll be lucky.

To find out more about the Cognac pairing event I went to read my blog post.

Toulouse sausage and prawn dumplings with sweet chilli sauce and Thierry Puzelat gamay

A pretty wild combination this week at a lovely wine bar, Magnum, we went to in Toulouse on Saturday night. The owner Jérôme’s wife, who originally came from Réunion, had made Chinese-style dumplings with the local Toulouse sausage and prawns served with a sweet chili sauce. Not the kind of thing I would normally go for but he sold it so persuasively we had to give it a go and it was fantastic.

What on earth would work with that? Surely a white? Well turned out to be a red as it happened - an 11% gamay called Vin Rouge from natural wine producer Thierry Puzelat which was labelled a vin de France. It was fresh, it was light, it had no discernible tannins but plenty of flavour. It showed off all the flavours of the dumplings without losing its own. It also went equally improbably well with another excellent dish of potato pancakes topped with lumpfish roe served with a lemon cream sauce.

I’d forgotten how good gamay was with Chinese and Chinese-inspired food - a useful tip to remember for the Chinese new year next week.

Peter Gordon's beef pesto and Pencarrow pinot noir

I found myself back in an old haunt last week - Peter Gordon’s The Providores in London’s Marylebone High Street. As the bar was crowded we went up to the restaurant and treated ourselves to the à la carte*

This was a classic from Peter’s Sugar Club days - a dish of incredibly tender beef fillet with a warm chard, courgette and beetroot salad with a garlic dressing, green pesto and kalamata olives. It was great with the wine I was drinking, a bright, fruity 2011 Pencarrow Pinot Noir from Martinborough that I’d chosen as a versatile option with the myriad flavours that Peter puts on the plate but I suspect those ingredients, especially the garlic, pesto and olives would have made almost any red wine sing.

Pencarrow turns out to be an introductory range from the prestigious Palliser estate which accounts for the quality. You can currently buy it as a bin end from loveyourwine.co.uk for £10.99, on special offer from the New Zealand House of Wine if you buy two bottles, and £12.79 from Noel Young wines. (Check wine-searcher.com for other stockists.)

*Great food but not a cheap option. We spent £130 for 2 for 3 courses, 1 side and 2 glasses of wine. If you're looking for a casual supper I'd stick to the Tapa Room downstairs. The winelist in both is excellent though.