Celtic Promise and cider brandy

The hardest cheeses to match are washed rind cheeses - those stinky, orange rinded ones like Epoisses - but last week I found a new pairing: a 3 year old cider brandy.

It was in a great little cheese shop which has been opened in Bayswater by Rhuaridh Buchanan, the guy who used to run the Paxton & Whitfield's maturing rooms. Most of the cheeses he sells go to London’s top restaurants but he sells a limited amount, which he matures himself, from the shop. You can sample them on the spot round the small café table - there’s a small selection of wines, beers and spirits on display you can order by the glass.

Celtic Promise is a cows’ cheese which is made by John Savage of Caws Teifi in Ceredigion in West Wales to a Caerphilly recipe and is washed in cider. Although it’s not massively stinky - at least this one wasn’t - it's rich enough to defeat most wines, particularly reds, but the young brandy - a fresh, appley 3 year old from the Somerset Cider Brandy Company - was just perfect. The company’s Kingston Black aperitif would work too as, of course, would a young Calvados.

Cheeseburgers and cabernet

Last night we went round to some new friends and they made the most delicious home-made burgers.

I’d emailed beforehand to ask what we’d be eating so we could bring along an appropriate wine and when I discovered it was burgers immediately thought of cabernet sauvignon.

We took two, a dark, damsony 2012 HIP Sagemoor Farmers Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon from Hedges Family Estate in Washington State’s Columbia Valley and a 2008 Uitkyk Carlonet 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon from Stellenbosch which was surprisingly brighter and juicier despite its greater age.

Apart from a well-judged amount of cheese the burgers were simply topped with tomatoes and pickled cucumber and no raw onion (a definite plus from the point of view of the wine). We thought the Uitkyk, which is pronounced 8-cake in case you’re wondering, was marginally the better match but they were both thoroughly enjoyable. Quality cab is as good a match with a burger as it is with a steak.

By the way the Uitkyk came from our personal wine stocks but you can buy the 2010 vintage from Fareham Cellar for £10.99. The HIP Cabernet was a sample from Roberson and costs £16.95

Photo © badmanproduction

Hot smoked salmon, Korean carrots and pinot gris

This is one of those serendipitous pairings you sometimes stumble across when you rustle up a scratch meal and pair it with an open bottle in the fridge.

The hot smoked salmon came from the Co-op, the carrots from a recipe in Olia Hercules marvellous Mamushka which was my book of the month last month and the wine, a G Stepp Pinot Gris 3 from the Pfalz from a selection I was sent by Naked Wines, which is £11.49 to ‘Angels’ (i.e. regular Naked Wines subscribers) £16.99 to the rest of us.

That may frustrate those of you who, like me, aren’t Angels (I’m currently conducting an experiment to see how long it takes me to get to the top of the waiting list. I'm 6105 at the moment) but there are other dry - or dry-ish - pinot gris on the market that would do the job equally well. (New Zealand, as you can see from this post a few months back, is another excellent source.)

The Korean carrots are more like a pickle than a salad so more salty than hot. Well worth making if you have the book.

What this match underlines is that pinot gris (aka grauburgunder) works as well with smoke and pickled flavours as it does with spice, making it a really useful companion for south-east Asian, Scandi and central European food

Burrata and watermelon with Montej rosé

It’s not often that you come across a wine match that’s as successful as it’s unexpected but sommelier Ruth Spivey’s pairing of a fruity Monferrato chiaretto rosato (aka rosé) from Piedmont with a dish of burrata, pressed watermelon and pickled fennel at Arbutus the other night was spot on - and all the more impressive given that she hadn’t had a chance to taste the combination beforehand.

I’ve written about the evening - the first in a series of ‘wine wars’ where leading london sommeliers are invited to pit their wits against the restaurant’s co-owner and wine buyer Will Smith - in the wine pros section but I’ve tasted nothing better all week. The rosé perfectly echoed the fresh fruity flavour of the watermelon. It was like having liquid watermelon on the side!

I can’t find it listed by any UK retail stockist but it’s apparently imported by fortyfive10.com.