Coq au riesling and Alsace riesling

One category of wine pairings that pretty well always works are ‘terroir-based’ matches - in other words wine and food combinations that have grown up with each other - and this week’s is one of those.

The dish was on offer at the newly opened Bellanger in Islington, which has a menu with a distinctly Alsatian twist (as in hailing from Alsace rather than dog-themed, obviously) You can order it for one, two or four - an extravagant touch which I rather enjoyed. We indulgently accompanied it with pommes aligot, an outrageously rich potato purée.

Choosing a wine to go with it was a bit of a no-brainer. It had to be Alsace riesling - a half bottle of Les Fossiles 2014 from Mittnacht Frères, as we were drinking quite modestly. It matched it quite perfectly - sometimes it pays not to reinvent the wheel.

Bellanger by the way is a delight - a typical Corbin & King restaurant: wood-panelled. flatteringly lit and super-glamourous. If you like their other restaurants (The Wolseley, The Delaunay, Fischer’s et al) you'll adore it. It is comparatively pricey for Islington, though. It will be interesting to see how they get on though my friend Thane looks like she may keep it in business single-handedly.

Dry German riesling and cured salmon

Cured - or marinated - salmon is something you’ll find on a lot of menus these days but what’s the best wine to drink with it?

I hit on a great match at an excellent new pop-up wine bar called Corkage in Bath last week with a bottle of 2013 Weingut Winter Riesling from the Rheinhessen. At 12.5% it’s higher in alcohol than many German rieslings so dry and powerful enough to handle the cure without losing its own crisp citrus and passionfruit character. (It also went well with another starter of crab and egg on toast.)

I liked Corkage which is up the far end of Walcot Street if you’re wondering. It’s got a small but well-chosen selection of wines, some of which they import directly, a short menu of well-priced food, and it's really cosy and friendly. They’re there at the moment for 3 months - hopefully they’ll stay longer.

You can also buy the riesling to take away from Corkage. It's also stocked by Bottle Apostle at £12.60, £13 from the Good Wine Shop and £13.99 from the Oxford Wine Company.

Vidal icewine with feta and honey cheesecake

It’s always satisfying when a challenging food and wine hit it off and both cheesecake and icewine undoubtedly present their problems.

Cheesecake is super-rich which calls for an accompanying dessert wine with enough weight but also enough fresh acidity to balance it while icewine is so sweet it can easily feel like overkill to even try to eat anything with it.

We were determined to showcase Sarit’s incredibly delicious feta and honey cheesecake though at our Honey & Co wine club on Sunday so took a punt on a Pillitteri Vidal icewine from Canada from - surprise, surprise - Lidl as the other dessert wines we’d tried just tasted thin with it. And it was fantastic! Luscious but not cloying.

You really should make the cheesecake* which is in their first book Honey & Co: Food from the Middle East. And buy the icewine which is a bargainous £14.99.

A word of warning - I can’t guarantee that icewine will go with every cheesecake - I suspect it mightn't if it was a toffee cheesecake and probably not with a chocolate one either but you never know. You can see some of my other cheesecake pairings here - and on the Pillitteri website. (Incidentally they have icewine festivals in Canada. How fun does that sound?)

* the other dessert shown in the pic was a chocolate, orange and pecan slice which went brilliantly well with a Tokaji

Roast venison and madeira

It was a tough call coming up with a single wine pairing last week - there were so many good ones but I’m going for this combination because it’s such a cool serving suggestion.

It was at a very glitzy event hosted by Marks & Spencer and themed around clementines (featured in this course as clementine steamed dumplings though I don’t think this had a huge effect on the match)

The venison was served with a glass of madeira which I’m guessing was probably this 5 year old medium rich then a beefy stock was poured into the empty glass. (Nice idea though I don’t think it picked up quite enough madeira flavour. I think you’d want to leave half a shot in the glass to get the full effect - or make the ‘tea’ with a good slug of madeira in it.)

I also reckon it would lend itself well to roast beef. A bit like drinking a savoury hot toddy. (As an alternative to gravy rather than with it)

* Sorry about the pic. The very jazzy lighting effects meant that the original was bright pink!