Spaghetti and meatballs and Nerello Mascalese

Spaghetti and meatballs is a really rich pasta dish you need to wash down with a refreshing red - preferably Italian.

In my broader post on meatballs I recommend a Sicilian red and found it again hit the spot at a preview for a new Italian restaurant Bosco in my neighbourhood this weekend.

It was a simple, young (2015) Nerello Mascalese (the name of the grape) from Cantine Paolini which despite its modest 12% cut through the rich tomato sauce perfectly and was great value at £5 a glass. You can buy it locally in Bristol from Corks of Cotham for £8.49 and from Bottle Apostle in London for £8.10 a bottle.

Although I didn’t drink it right through the meal - I confess I kicked off with a negroni! - it would also have paired well with the salume (cured meats) and cheese.

The best wine pairings with meatballs

Beetroot-cured salmon with horseradish and Furmint

It’s always good to find a new wine that will take on all comers and I think I’ve found it in dry Furmint.

It’s the same grape variety that goes to make Hungary’s luscious sweet wine, Tokaji but is also increasingly used to create attractively mineral whites that you could turn to when you might otherwise drink a dry riesling or a grüner veltliner.

This one, a 2014 Oremus Mandolas (available for £15.59 from thedrinkshop.com) is actually owned by Vega Sicilia and was listed by the glass at Corrigan’s in Mayfair where I had lunch last week.

I had a hunch it would work with my starter of beetroot-cured salmon and horseradish cream and it was absolutely spot on. I’m doing a food and wine matching masterclass at VinCE in Budapest in March and can’t wait to see what else it pairs with. Any thoughts do ping them my way ….

Incidentally the fixed price lunch at Corrigan’s is exceptionally good value at £28 for 2 courses or £34 for three. Our main course was an oxtail and cep pie (which was perfect with a 2009 Rioja from Finca Allende).

Beenleigh Blue and Monbazillac

It’s not only Roquefort and Sauternes that pair well together, other sheeps cheeses and sweet wines match well too as I discovered at the Evening of Cheese event I hosted at The Butlers Arms in Sutton Coldfield on Sunday

It was a mammoth cheesefest with FOUR courses of cheese, followed by a tartiflette! The blues were Colston Basset Stilton and Beenleigh Blue, a salty, sheeps’ milk cheese from Ticklemore Cheese* in Devon which is modelled on (though paler and less veined than) a Roquefort.

The three options were a Portuguese red called Porta 6, a 2011 Domaine de Grangeneuve Monbazillac which is a Sauternes-style wine from near Bergerac just outside the Bordeaux region and a sloe gin (one of my favourite pairings for Stilton) but it was the delicate sweet Monbazillac that really shone with the Beenleigh Blue.

The other two outstanding pairings of the evening for me were a mature Montgomery cheddar with Lagunitas IPA and Stinking Bishop with Poire William (a pear-flavoured eau de vie). Stinking Bishop is washed in perry (pear cider) so that stood to reason.

* you can buy it from the Courtyard Dairy who were one of the sponsors of my cheese e-book, 101 Great Ways to Enjoy Cheese & Wine

Coffee and cardamom buns

For a long time I’ve resisted the idea of a Nespresso machine but then a friend said she had a spare to get rid of and I’ve succumbed. Why did I wait so long? No sooner does the thought enter your mind that you might like a coffee than you can gratify it. Literally in seconds.

Less easy is finding the kind of coffee pod you like and the right way to brew it - short or long. Bizarrely the machine has decided to make espressos when you press the long switch and longer coffees when you press the espresso one. Or I’ve flicked some secret switch which has muddled it up. Whatever. I’m getting there. I like (I think) the Rosabaya de Columbia and the Capriccio but there are so many colours, strengths and flavours I’m a tad confused.

So I’ve been drinking (black) coffee with everything including the banana and cardamom buns from Meera Sodha’s Fresh India (which is only £9.99 on Amazon at the time of writing) to which I’ve become mildly addicted.

Cardamom and coffee is of course a classic combination so it makes sense to drink one with the other. Obviously it goes with Swedish-style cardamom buns too.