Parsley soup, snails and Muscadet!

Not the most appealing food and wine pairing you may think but I have to assure you it was delicious! It was at the newly opened Berners Tavern which is run by chef-of-the-moment Jason Atherton.

I’d dropped by for an early lunch before a tasting I was doing so decided to eat from the starter menu and it was the soup - a Caroll’s potato and parsley soup, Dorset snails, Stornaway black pudding and Breville brioche toastie, to give it its full title - that really caught my eye, not least because of the idea of eating a 70s-style toastie in a posh restaurant.

As you can see the parsley gave it an amazing deep green colour, the perfect balance to the savoury snails and black pudding. And the Muscadet - a 2010 Muscadet de Sèvre et Maine sure Lie from Domaine du Verger which they sell by the glass - had just the right crisp, clean flavour to cut through. (It would match equally well with the French classic of snails with garlic butter I reckon.)

I also tried it with a couple of oysters dressed with a Vietnamese dressing - interestingly not as good as oysters served au naturel.

By the way I’d recommend Berners Tavern if you’re looking for somewhere impressive to eat off Oxford Street. It’s not cheap but it’s one of those clever menus that has something for everyone and is an absolutely gorgeous room.

Dark chocolate and Guatemalan rum

Another good chocolate pairing this week - plain dark chocolate and delciously fudgy Cana Negra gran reserva Guatemalan rum from Marks & Spencer

It was suggested by fellow wine writer Susy Atkins of Saturday Kitchen with whom I shared a platform at the Dartmouth Food Festival this last weekend. I’ve paired cognac with chocolate but hadn’t explored rum much which, on the basis of this pairing, is a cracking match.

The extraordinary thing was that the Cana Negra, which was aged in three different types of barrel - bourbon, sherry and cognac - brought out delicious raisin flavours in the chocolate which weren’t originally there. Even though it’s strong (40%) I can imagine it being totally delicious with a dense rich chocolate tart or chocolate cake or with chocolate brownies. I suspect it would be good with Christmas cakes and other rich fruit cakes too.

At £25 it would make a super Christmas present for a spirits - or chocolate - lover.

Grilled lamb chops and ‘orange’ wine

One of the most striking things I’ve noticed during my few days in Rome this past week is how white wine seems a better match for the local food than red does. Even with red meat like lamb? Strangely, yes.

Of course I’m not talking about the largely bland local Frascati (of which there seems to be a curious dearth on wine lists) or many of the lamb-based offal dishes, come to that but the simple fried lamb chops we had at a neighbourhood restaurant called Da Cesare al Casaletto to which I was taken by local wine expert Hande Leimer (aka vinoroma*) and her husband Theo.

The wine, which was suggested by Hande, was an extraordinary ‘orange’** wine called Agano Emilia from La Stoppa in Emilia-Romagna made mainly from Malvasia Aromatico blended with Ortruga and Trebbiano. Even more surprising it came from the 2007 vintage yet was still astonishingly fresh. I’m not mad about orange wines as a rule but this was so seductively scented every sip was a pleasure.

It also paired particularly well with a speciality of the restaurant - gnocchi with a cacio e pepe (cheese and pepper) sauce and with an impeccable rigatoni carbonara. In fact it rubbed along with pretty well everything.

It’s not the first time I’ve found white wine works with lamb - sharp Greek whites like Assyrtiko are great with lamb kebabs for example - but it’s undoubtedly the most unusual pairing. As always wine matches depend on the way you handle the central ingredient.

*Hande runs wine tastings for visitors to Rome - you can see details on her website.

** orange wine is a wine made from white wine grapes using methods more akin to red winemaking including extended skin contact which gives the wine its orange colour

Paul A Young Shropshire Blue and walnut chocolate truffles with Taylor’s First Estate Reserve port

Port and stilton is one of the classic wine pairings but does it work if you pair a port with a blue cheese chocolate?

I’m pleased to report on the strength of a fascinating tasting with Paul A Young at cookery writer Thane Prince’s cookbook club at The Drapers Arms last week that it does.

The chocolate was a seasonal addition to the Paul A Young range - a gorgeous gooey Shropshire Blue, walnut and cider (I think*) truffle with the flavour of the cheese just coming through at the end. (Too often the chocolate gets lost in the cheese.)

And the port? A bit of a surprise. I’d thought a younger port might be too spiritty but the ripe berry flavours of the Taylor’s Reserve (widely available at around £12) were exactly right with the truffle - and with a beautifully crafted dark Venezuelan* chocolate bar which wore its 82%* cocoa solids incredibly lightly. Ruby port and dark chocolate is, of course, a winner too.

Two other matches stood out in the tasting: the Gonzalez Byass Solera 1847 sherry with very dry, intense cocoa nibs which brought out delicious candied fruit flavours in the wine and a lovely, apricotty Vistamar Late Harvest Moscatel from Chile (the bargain of the evening at £4.99 currently from Majestic) with the plain truffle bar.

Three wines I expected to shine didn’t do quite as well - Waitrose’s Seriously Plummy Maury which was a bit overwhelmed by the truffles, a Rutherglen Muscat (too sweet - would have been better with a pecan pie) and a Blandy’s madeira (nice but not as impressive as the sherry). The salted caramels defeated everything we threw at them. I think they needed an armagnac or cognac.

Incidentally if you want to have a crack at making a slightly simpler version of Paul’s truffles there’s a recipe here.

* There is a certain vagueness about this post. Due to extreme over-excitement about the chocolates and being pre-occupied with serving the drinks I forgot to take notes!