Octopus with orange wine

Orange wines - white wines that are made in a similar way to a red, leaving the juice in contact with the skins - have become increasingly popular in the last couple of years, proving impressively versatile with food.

This skin contact ribolla from Slovenia called Movia Rebula we had at Peckham Bazaar, which describes itself as a ‘pan-Balkan grill’, is a case in point. It was particularly good with the grilled octopus which was served with white tarama, capers and red onion but also sailed through the rest of the menu taking the big flavours of feta, skordalia and a pizza-like pide in its stride. (Which is impressive for a 12% wine)

Coming from roughly the same part of the world as the food it was a natural partner for these eastern Mediterranean flavours but perhaps not a wine you might pick out on a list.

The extended skin contact give orange wines red wine-like tannins and grip and an appetising savouriness but they can have an almost floral freshness that makes them a great match for seafood too.

Saperavi with slow cooked wagyu beef

Continuing the exotic vibe of last week’s pairing the standout combination this week was a Georgian Saperavi with Welsh Wagyu beef!

The beef, which is raised in Montgomeryshire, is part of the tasting menu at Ynyshir, a Michelin-starred restaurant on the edge of Snowdonia national park I enthusiastically reviewed for Decanter a couple of months ago.

It’s a regular feature on their tasting menu - on this occasion brined for 4 days and cooked for 3 (I seem to remember the chef who presented it telling us) and finished on the barbecue which gave it a slightly smoky edge which was reflected in the wine.

Saperavi is one of Georgia’s indigenous and most widely planted red grape varieties and - for the geeks among you - a ‘teinturier’, a variety which gains its colour from the flesh of the grape not just the skin.

This particular example was a 2015 from Ibereli and is imported by Les Caves de Pyrène. It’s relatively light but has sufficient character to stand up to the intensely flavoured meat.

Although Ynyshir doesn’t do pairings as such, the sommelier Amelia has a knack of picking wines that will go well with her partner Gareth’s food. Another standout - and surprising - pairing was a dish of pork belly with pickled cherries and a richly flavoured ‘natural’ chardonnay called Wind Gap from Mahle in Sonoma. (That's stocked by Roberson)

Pickled cherries, pork and chardonnay? Hard to replicate but believe me it works!

The picture of of Wagyu beef was taken by HL photo. It wasn’t the beef in the restaurant which was cooked for considerably longer. (The light was too low to take a good shot)

© HL photo at fotolia.com

Margaux and Turkish chicken with walnut sauce

There’s nothing I love more than a surprise when it comes to food and wine pairing and I would not in a million years have predicted that a pukka Bordeaux would go with this exotic Turkish dish.

I - and probably you - would more commonly stick to classics like roast beef and lamb with a bottle of Chateau Labégorce Zédé Margaux 2005 but untroubled by convention my friend had cooked an intriguing dish of chicken with a thick walnut sauce. It was the rich earthiness and slight bitterness of the walnuts that set the wine off to perfection. It became even more velvety and plummy - an absolute treat.

She didn’t have a recipe - she’d more or less made it up - but I’m thinking it’s probably quite like this recipe from Sabrina Ghayour. Anyway I’m going to try it. The only thing you’d need to be careful about is the kind of sides you put with it. We had simply cooked vegetables from the garden which I think assisted the match rather than exotic Turkish vegetable dishes and salads

Sadly the wine no longer exists. The estate decided not to bottle it separately from 2009 according to this report from Decanter but there seem to be a fair few old vintages knocking around if you can find them at fine wine retailers such as Crump. Richmond and Shaw (and I suspect traditional country wine merchants)

Goosnargh duck and elderberries with a Canary Islands red

Visiting two gastronomic restaurants that offered food and wine pairing in the Lake District last week (Forest Side and Hipping Hall) I’m struggling to pick out the stand-out match but I think it has to be the fabulous combination of the local Goosnargh duck with a wine I hadn’t tried before - the 2015 Tajinaste Valle de la Orotava from Tenerife that was served as part of the tasting menu at Hipping Hall.

The duck - which was fabulously tender - was simply served with elderberries and hay-baked turnip, the elderberries being the dominant note which chimed in with the lively peppery wine. The wine comes from an estate of the same name (Tajinaste is an indigenous flower), some of whose vineyards go back to 1914. It’s made from the local Listan Negro and retails at £15.99 from Hay Wines.

Other matches I was struck by were a white Dao with a dish of warm smoked beets and sheeps’ curd, and a delicate English white, Limney, from Davenport Vineyards with a dish of glazed monkfish and grilled cos. (Forest Side paired beetroot with an exotic Xinomavro rose from Domaine Ligas in Pella Greece)

If you're into food and wine pairing these are terrific places to visit.

I stayed at Forest Side and Hipping Hall as a guest of the hotels.