Krug Grande Cuvée and brioche

It’s not every week you spend the best part of the day drinking Krug (on and off) so what else could I choose as this week’s match of the week?

For the most part the pairings were predictable - luxury ingredients such as caviar, truffles, lobster (very, very good with Krug rosé) and rather too much foie gras* - but the ones that intrigued me were the less obvious ones.

Barbecue for a start - a preview of the Krug festival** at the end of July - and it actually goes surprisingly well with grilled lamb chops and corn but the top match for me were the slices of brioche we were served when we were tasting Krug Grande Cuvée earlier in the day which offset its richness perfectly without drawing attention to itself. SO much more interesting than a water biscuit ...

It made me think how sublime it would be to crack open a bottle of Krug over breakfast with a freshly baked brioche loaf some good butter and maybe a smear of home-made apricot jam. And/or a fresh peach. Gotta be tried.

* Yes I know I took a decision a while ago not to eat it but it was almost forced upon me and I wanted to see how it would match. The interesting thing is that it doesn’t hold the lure it once did. A bit like when you stop taking sugar in your coffee, then accidentally sip some with sugar in and find it cloyingly sweet. Foie gras just seems really fatty to me. Even with Krug.

** The festival takes place at The Grange in Hampshire … There is live music, there is food (top Argentinian chef Francis Mallmann is in the kitchen) and there is (obviously) Krug. Tickets are *cough* £395 a head (or £750 for two). But they do lay on a bus to take you home. Probably prostrate.

I travelled to and stayed in Reims as a guest of Krug.

Photo © Sokarys @fotolia.com

Fish curry and Gruner Veltliner

Last week I hosted a tasting for Bristol-based spice company The Spicery in which we explored a number of different wine pairings for different styles of curry - including an Indian Shiraz!

Fortunately most of the pairings worked the way I'd hoped they would but although we didn’t take a vote on it I think the one people enjoyed most was the Bengali mustard fish with a 2015 Felsner Mooseburgerin Gruner Veltliner (£11.99 from Waitrose)

You would expect a white wine to be the best choice with a fish curry of course and the level of heat was actually quite mild which didn’t present the wine with too many challenges but the grüner was just perfect with enough peppery character of its own to stand up to the spicing but not so much as to overwhelm it.

It is, I’ve remarked before, a super-flexible wine and a reliable choice to turn to when you’re confronted with spicy (but not outrageously hot) food.

For other good grüner veltliner pairings see

The best food pairings with grüner veltliner

* The image above is not the dish on the evening which was just a mini course but a similar Bengali fish curry © mitrarudra @fotolia.com

Lobster and Condrieu

The advantage of having chefs and wine merchants as friends is that you don't really need to go to restaurants*.

Last week my chef friend Chris cooked a lobster* and my wine merchant mate Raj brought along a Condrieu to drink with it. The combination was so brilliant I can’t think why I hadn’t thought of it before (probably because there are so many other delicious things to drink with lobster)

The lobster was simply cooked and served with a homemade aioli (garlic mayonnaise). Top tip - bring a pan of water to the boil, drop the lobster in it, put a lid on the pan, switch off the heat and leave for half an hour or so. Unfortunately live lobsters taste a great deal better than pre-cooked and chilled ones.

The Condrieu was a 2014 Les Terrasses du Palat from Francois Villard, a producer I visited a couple of years ago and was just dazzling, managing to combine an seductive richness with a pure mineral edge. You can buy it by the case from Raj’s R S Wines for £40 a bottle (though I think he’s now on to the 2015) or by the individual bottle from the Oxford Wine Company.

Which is pricey, but just think what it would cost in a restaurant ....

*not that it stops me. I mean I can't eat at theirs all the time 😉

Maple syrup square with Neige Noir Ambré

I’ve experienced so many terrific wine - and other drink - pairings during the past week in Canada that I think I’m going to have to devote several posts to them, not just this one. And the best - well, I’m struggling but I think it’s got to be this match which was suggested by the sommelier at Le Filet in Montreal - which is a bit ironic as their big thing is fish.

Anyway it’s a decadently fudgy (but not too sweet) maple syrup square with whipped cream and pecans which apparently they can’t take off the menu. They match it with a well chilled glass of Neige Noir Ambré a gorgeous rich apple-based digestif that almost tastes like maple syrup itself but weaves in caramelised apple, orange peel and spice. Surprisingly it’s only 18% like a pommeau - it tastes more powerful and intense than that but without dominating the dessert.

Incidentally they also have an absolute dream of a wine list majoring in Burgundy. And other dishes I tried were just stunning - but more of them anon. (Indulge me. I’m just back after a flight on the red-eye!)

I ate at Le Filet as a guest of the restaurant.