Dom Pérignon rosé 2002 and sweet shrimp

I was in two minds about making this my match of the week because I’m not sure that the new DP vintage rosé - like many great wines - doesn’t taste better on its own.

But chances are if you’ve got a bottle you might want to accompany it with something and one of the courses we had at the international launch in Istanbul last week had the sort of flavours that I’d look for if I was ever in a position to repeat the exercise at home.

It was, in fact, two dishes - one of Iskenderun shrimps (a local delicacy) with chestnut chips and baked squash which brought an unusual note of sweetness to the party. Then, in a separate bowl, a shrimp’s head - roasted I’d say - served with a pool of an intensely dark fishy broth that tasted a bit like an armoricaine sauce.

And what of the wine? What does the 2002 DP rosé taste like? Well, it’s hard to divorce it from the circumstances and location in which we tasted it which was, of course, the object of the exercise. It was unexpectedly rich - something you might expect from a 2003 but less from a 2002 vintage though Dom Pérignon’s chef de cave Richard Geoffroy said ’02 was a riper year. I could pick up spice - mainly saffron - though that may have been auto-suggestion and a touch of rose. On the other hand maybe the exotic character of the wine inspired the venue.

Most remarkable of all though was the colour - a rich bronze which turned almost to orange in the sunlight, reflecting the vivid red hair of one of the journalists sitting opposite me at the tasting. I remember thinking they should have got Christina Hendricks to promote it but I guess Johnnie Walker got there first.

I don’t know at this stage what it will cost retail - my guess is slightly more than the £250 the 2000 vintage is currently selling for. Older vintages are over £300. So you might as well go for broke and drink it with a couple of lobsters. And maybe a glamourous redhead . . .

Fried acedias and Hidalgo Pastrana Manzanilla Pasada

Last week I was in Sanlucar, the Spanish town in the south of Spain where they make manzanilla, so what else could my match of the week be but a sherry?

We visited Bodega Hidalgo to select a sherry for Sam and Eddie Hart’s restaurant Fino which celebrates its 10th anniversary this March (about which more in due course). Afterwards we went to a tapas bar with the owner Javier Hidalgo and tucked into an amazing array of incredibly fresh fish and shellfish.

We drank Hidalgo’s basic La Gitana manzanilla with the cold dishes then the slightly more complex, textured manzanilla pasada from the Pastrana vineyard which was particularly good with the fried and grilled fish tapas especially some small fried soles called acedias, some grilled corvina, a similar fish to sea bass, which was served with a crunchy cabbage salad and skate in a seville orange sauce.

I love sherry on almost any occasion but there’s absolutely nothing to compare with drinking it on the spot with the local produce.

Both sherries are really good value - La Gitana is about £5.49 a half bottle and the manzanilla pasada pastrana around £13.75 though just £9.99 a bottle if you’re smart enough to be a member of the Wine Society.

Tunworth cheese and Hubert Lignier Charmes Chambertin

Whenever I see a producer is about to pair their best wine with cheese my heart sinks, particularly if the cheese is ripe and the wine red. But on this occasion - a tasting and lunch at the Quality Chop House - it worked.

The wine was a sublime 2007 Charmes-Chambertin grand cru from Hubert Lignier that had all the qualities you want from a great burgundy - beautiful pure fruit, a silky (actually more velvety in this case) texture and a long luxuriant finish.

Amazingly it retained all those qualities when partnered with a gooey Tunworth (left of picture) a Camembert-style cows’ cheese from Hampshire - though not quite as well with a Sainte Maure goats’ cheese (right).

How come? Well, although the Tunworth had the mushroomy flavour of a fine Camembert - or Brie for that matter - it didn’t have its pungency. It was more creamy than buttery. And the wine was very intense. I’ve paired ripe pinots before with Brie in particular and they’ve worked - and lighter burgundies which haven’t. I wouldn’t have wanted it with the Burgundians' favourite Epoisses though.

For interest, the courses which preceded it were a very good house terrine and a Barnsley chop with buttery mash, both good simple foils for a lovely selection of Lignier’s Morey-Saint-Denis and Gevrey-Chambertin.

Homemade Dundee cake and Midleton Very Rare whiskey

What do you eat with a great bottle of Irish whiskey? Fruit cake might seem a bit frivolous to some and even brand you as, well . . . a bit of a fruitcake, but I can highly recommend it.

The whiskey was a Midleton Very Rare, bottled in 2005, belonging to our neighbour a few doors up. She’d been agonising whether to drink it or sell it. Without sounding self-interested it was hard to advise but she happily came to the conclusion that she would crack it open and invited us round to try it.

But what to nibble with it? Remembering the rich flavours of the only other time I’d drunk it I suggested fruit cake so we had a late tea at 7pm digging into her 82 year old mother’s homemade Dundee cake the recipe for which apparently came from a Creda cookbook (Creda being a popular oven range back in the '60s.)

The whisky was utterly delicious - better than I remembered, or maybe a better bottling. Super-smooth, rich, but not too rich with a dash of vanilla and complex fruit cake flavours of its own. At only 40% it didn’t need any dilution. Happily I don’t think our neighbour regretted opening it which was fortunate since it’s now fetching up to £200 a bottle.

You could obviously drink it - or that style of whisky - with Christmas cake too so maybe one to remember for next year.

Photo updated on 13/3/22 ©TalyaAL at shutterstock.com