Artichoke barigoule and grüner veltliner

So maybe Austria’s signature grape grüner veltliner is the perfect pairing for tricky-to-match artichokes?

I’ve suggested it as a good option before in this post on matching wine and artichokes and last week’s experience of trying the two together at Bristol restaurant No Man’s Grace has confirmed my view.

The occasion was the fourth dinner in a series organised by local cookbook club Eat Your Words where Bristol chefs cook a menu from one of their favourite cookbooks. John Watson of No Man’s Grace was ambitiously tackling The French Laundry Cookbook and opted to serve the very French barigoule - a dish of braised artichokes with onions, carrots and fennel - with a crisp 2014 Austrian grüner veltliner from Hopler (available at James Nicholson) which really stood up to it surprisingly well.

The restaurant is also noted for its desserts and served two as part of the dinner: a strawberry shortbread with a 2011 I Capetelli, a late harvest Garganega from Soave producer Anselmi (winedirect.co.uk) and a divinely light lemon sabayon pine nut tart with honeyed mascarpone with a 2013 Late Harvest Tokaji Katinka from Patricius (Hic wine merchants). Both were great matches but I actually preferred the fresher, sharper Capetelli with the tart.

Lotus root stir-fry and chrysanthemum tea

It seems invidious to pick out just one wine pairing from my visit to the Okanagan valley last week (of which more in due course) so I’m going for the first drink I had on my arrival: chrysanthemum tea at a brilliant Chinese restaurant called Chef Tony in Richmond, the town just next door to Vancouver.

According to local food and wine writer Stephanie Yuen who took me there it’s the perfect antidote to jetlag, a cooling tea that’s easy to digest and a recognised pick-me-up (And definitely preferable to alcohol at what would have been the equivalent of 4am back home!)

It also happened to be a refreshing pairing for the homestyle dishes that Stephanie picked from the menu, particularly this fresh-tasting stir fry of lotus root, mangetout, and mushrooms though it also went well with peashoots, a deeply savoury chicken dish and a delicous pork belly and bean cake (which was like a savoury sausage patty).

Richmond is the heart of the Chinese community in BC (over 50% of its population are of Chinese origin) and apparently has well over 500 Chinese restaurants. Chef Tony is also a favourite of another Chinese food writer Lee Man - you can see his other recommendations here.

Dassai 50% unfiltered sake with lamb cutlets with Korean spices

I imagine you all know how well sake works with sashimi but it came as quite a surprise to me - wagyu aside - how well it could handle red meat and spice

This was one of a sensational series of dishes at Roka, Mayfair hosted by premium sake brewery Dassai which brilliantly demonstrated the effect of different levels of polishing rice with different dishes. The higher levels like the Dassai 23% were best with the delicate flavour of raw fish. The extra body and structure of sakes made from less highly polished rice like the unfiltered 50% supported more robust meat dishes like this fragrant, spicy lamb

I’d not come across the Dassai sakes before and was really impressed by the quality (they’re all Junmai Daiginjo grade). And I was so blown away by the food I went back for lunch with my daughter the next day!

Roka has made a major feature of its sake list which apparently accounts for 50% of its drink sales. A number are available by the glass so it’s a good place to go and experiment. They also hold regular sake and wine pairing dinners. The next ‘sake session’ is on 5th September and costs £90 a head including sake. Ring reservations on 020 7305 5644 to book. (Yes! Quaint notion. Pick up the phone! Try it!)

I attended the dinner as a guest of Roka restaurants.

Three surefire pairings for pinot noir

Most of the time, as you’ll have noticed, I feature the more offbeat wine pairings I’ve come across in my match of the week slot. This week I’ve been reminded of the virtue of some that seldom go wrong.

All involve pinot noir, surely one of the most food-friendly of reds. The first was at a sustainability event I co-hosted for New Zealand Winegrowers. My task was to pair five different grape varieties from sustainable wineries (which the vast majority in New Zealand are) with vegetarian dishes. The glorious 2010 Felton Road Bannockburn pinot noir from Central Otago which was showing beautifully, was perfect with some creamy mushroom-topped toasts with a crisp parmesan wafer. (That vintage is available at Berry Bros & Rudd for £350 a case in bond - you'll find more recent vintages elsewhere for £30-35.)

The second was at The Gainsborough in Bath where I was tasting wines from another Kiwi producer, Gladstone in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand (just next door to Martinborough). In this instance the wine was their 2013 pinot noir, a younger, more elegant wine with incredibly pure fruit, and the food a dish of roast pork loin with mushrooms, black pudding and fresh broad (fava) beans. (York Wines have it for £17.95 which is a bargain.)

And finally - closer to home at the Three Gables restaurant* in Bradford-on-Avon - a reminder how brilliant duck is with pinot noir - the twist in this case being that the pinot was Brazilian - the impressively silky 2014 Valduga Indidate pinot noir which is currently selling off the wine list for a very reasonable £28 a bottle or £8.50 a glass. That's on sale currently at Selfridges for £14.99 and imported by Berkmanns.

Useful information, I hope, because sometimes, rather than starting with the food, you've got a special wine you want to enjoy with something that will show it at its best.

The best food pairings for pinot noir