Match of the week
Gruyère and 20 year old tawny port
Port and cheese is one of those combinations that hardly needs questioning but there are some variants on the theme that still have the ability to surprise as I discovered when I worked my way through a selection of Taylor's ports and Paxton & Whitfield cheeses the other day.
My favourite - partly because it’s one of my favourite styles - was a 20 year old tawny with a deeply savoury reserve (in other words, aged) Gruyère (bottom right) which brought out exotic quince notes in the wine. I also liked a salty Manchego which made the accompanying, slightly retiring 2002 Quinta de Vargellas port taste of Elvas plums.
As you’d expect a 10 year old tawny was a spot on match with a mature cheddar but more unexpectedly a very young ruby port (First Estate Reserve) went surprisingly well with a Bosworth ash log - like having a rich fruit compote on the side. The only combination I wasn’t really convinced by was a spicy 2010 late bottled vintage with a creamy Brillat-Savarin which needed a wine with more acidity.
Of course this is not typically the way you eat cheese - you’re much more likely to have a selection - and in my view the 10 year old tawny and late bottled vintage styles are the best all-rounders. But it does show that if you have a decent piece of Gruyère in the fridge you can nibble it as well as cook with it. Dry oloroso, as I discovered a few years ago, is also a good partner.
I was sent the ports and cheeses to try by Taylor's port and Paxton & Whitfield cheese.
Lamb tagine with a chorizo-infused beer
It’s unusual for me to have two consecutive beer pairings as my match of the week but not surprising given that this week’s comes from an excellent beer dinner at The Bull, Highgate to mark the launch of Canadian beer and food expert Stephen Beaumont’s Beer and Food Companion
The menu was based on recipes in the book of which the most striking combination was based on a lamb tagine from chef Martin Bosley of Bosley’s Pantry in Wellington, a city which is considered the craft beer capital of New Zealand. I wouldn’t normally think of a tagine as the ideal match for beer even though the recipe includes a hefty 600ml of pale ale but the pairing with the London Brewing Co’s* Project Calavera (6.7%), an imperial mild flavoured with chorizo, cocoa, chilli and cinnamon and 'dry-hopped' with dehydrated chorizo, was just brilliant. (Beaumont also suggests Traquair House ale as a good match.)
Other pairings that worked particularly well were Alaskan Brewing Co’s Smoked porter with an oxtail soup and Stone & Wood Pacific Pale ale with a Galaxy hop-aromatized cheese - a great idea from another beer writer Lucy Saunders. You can apparently make your own quite easily with dried hops - see p 147 of the book.
I attended the dinner as a guest of publisher Jacqui Small.
*Which is based at The Bull.
Mushroom soup and Rignes Polaris Røykbokk
This was part of an expertly paired meal at a restaurant in Trondheim called To Rom og Kjøkken (Two Rooms and a Kitchen) last Saturday night.
It might seem perverse to pick out a beer when there were so many good wines on offer but the combination was perfect.
The soup was really rich and sweet - you’d almost think it had chestnuts in (maybe it did) and finished with truffle foam but the beer, a dark, smoky, savoury bock-style from Ringnes, which it turns out is part of the Carlsberg group, offset it perfectly. I’m hard pushed to think of a wine that would have worked better. Madeira perhaps but it was served as the third course of a five course menu and I’m not sure it wouldn’t have been too strong. Maybe a barbera or a nebbiolo.
It’s not the first time I’ve discovered dark beer goes well with mushroom soup - I recommended it in my book An Appetite for Ale and in the post below
Chicken musakhan and valpolicella ripasso
Not only did we celebrate the first of our Honey & Co Sunday wine clubs* yesterday but it also produced an outstanding match of the week: this savoury-sweet Palestinian chicken dish and a valpolicella ripasso.
You can find the recipe in their award-winning cookbook with you should definitely acquire if you haven’t already got it. It was my favourite cookbook last year, although I could have sworn yesterday’s version had a touch of cinnamon in it. (You could add half a cinnamon stick but the flavour should be subtle.)
It’s an incredibly moreish recipe with a touch of sweetness from the currants and pomegranate molasses which is what makes the off-dry Valpolicella, which gets its own sweetness from semi-dried grapes, chime in so well. It almost tasted like super-charged pomegranate molasses itself. I think it would work well with other middle-eastern main courses, which often include fresh or dried fruits too.
This particular wine, the Valpolicella Classico Superiore Seccal Ripasso 2013 from a producer called Nicolis comes from restaurant supplier Bibendum who provided the wines for the event. You can find the slightly older 2011 vintage from winedirect.
*Just to remind those of you who didn’t read my blog a few weeks back, I’ve teamed up with Honey & Co to run a series of pop-up wine classes and lunches once a month at their fabulous Marylebone restaurant. The next session is on December 6th and is on sweet and sparkling wines. At the time of writing I think there are a couple of tickets left but they were being snapped up pretty quickly by those who were at yesterday’s event. Call 0207 388 6175 to book.
Poached langoustines and Pierneef Sauvignon Blanc
Last week I caught up with Hein Koegelenberg of La Motte which I visited a couple of years ago when the winery was nominated Wine Tourism Champion by the Great Wine Capitals of the World (you can find my Decanter article on the experience here).
He was in London to show off his latest releases (and take in Rugby World Cup semi-final which didn't go quite as well) at Mosimann’s in Knightsbridge where we tried the wines with a menu devised by Anton Mosimann.
There were a couple of striking matches but I’m going for the first pairing of a dish of lightly cooked Scottish langoustines with lemon and fresh herbs which included (I think) pea shoots and leeks - elements that chimed in perfectly with his 2014 Pierneef Sauvignon Blanc. Those of you who follow me in the Guardian will know I’m not a massive SB fan but this wine, which as 10% semillon and is sourced from cooler vineyards in Elgin, Bot River, Elim and Napier, was wonderfully fresh and citrussy (grapefruit, mainly) rather than being pungently aromatic.
The downside is that I can’t currently find it in the UK but will add stockists as and when I find them. It’s worth trying SA Wines Online.
The other pairing that was particularly good was the Rhone-like 2013 Pierneef Syrah Viognier with some very rare highland venison and a selection of vegetables that included the normally wine-killing red cabbage. It breezed through the lot.
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