Mature Savennières with chargrilled carrots, burnt aubergine, miso and walnut pesto

OK, this pairing at Jason Atherton’s new Social Wine and Tapas isn’t exactly easy to reproduce at home but it was certainly the highlight of my food and wine matches last week.

The dish was a clever and complicated one from the vegetable section of the tapas menu (defining tapas pretty loosely, admittedly) and one of the best vegetarian dishes I’ve had in London. There were powerful smoky notes from the charred carrot and aubergine, a rich umami taste from the miso and a generous dollop of nutty pesto - quite a lot for any wine to contend with.

It was paired on the advice of the sommelier Stefan with a flight of Savennières which he’d been instrumental in putting together because one of the wines - a 1992 Roche aux Moines from Domaine aux Moines - was his birth year (gah!). It was somewhat less youthful than Stefan but hugely interesting to try. The wine of the flight that worked best was the gorgeously honeyed, peachy 2011 Les Genets from Domaine Laureau with great acidity which held its own magnificently with the different elements of the dish.

The wine flights are definitely the way to go at Social Wine & Tapas. They offer you a chance to try some really interesting wines - served in appropriate glasses or stemware. My Savennières flight was £21 which is not cheap for 225ml of wine,, but I didn’t want to drink more than that and a bottle of the Genet would have cost £35. You can buy the wines to take away, if you like them, in the small retail shop on the ground floor.

West African pork and peanut stew with Heartland Dolcetto & Lagrein

Quite an adventurous pairing this week which you might have thought on paper wouldn’t come off. A hot, spicy pork and peanut stew and a glass of Ben Glaetzer’s bold, ripe 2010 Heartland Dolcetto & Lagrein from South Australia's Langhorne Creek.

Two things I think made it work so well - one being the peanut element which is quite wine-friendly (the stew also went with the remains of the younger Mount Pleasant Elizabeth semillon I highlighted last week which was still showing well) and the fact that at 5 years old the Dolcetto & Lagrein had mellowed out beautifully and brought a note of ripe sweetness to the party without too much intrusive oak. I bought it from my local deli, Chandos, by the way who had it as a bin end*. It’s a good time to pick up bargains like this.

The recipe is a cracking one from chef Richard Turner’s Hog and I'd urge you to make the amazing ‘Master pork broth’ on which it’s based. You can find another great recipe from the book - pot roast pork with fennel, olives and orange here.

* Kenny's Wine Store in northern Ireland also has the 2010 online for £13.49. Great Western Wine has the 2012 for £13.50. In Australia they're on to the 2013 vintage. For other stockists see wine-searcher.com

Mount Pleasant Elizabeth Semillon 2007 and roast chicken with tarragon

I never understand why retailers tell me it’s so hard to sell Hunter Valley semillon. It’s such a unique style of white wine which tastes (lusciously) of fresh pineapple when it’s young and of baked or grilled pineapple as it matures.

Maybe it’s because it aquires a slightly oily texture as it ages - a bit like a riesling but it’s also seductively rich and despite its low ABV (11%) a full-bodied enough partner for roast chicken as I discovered at the weekend. We tried it with a bird I’d roasted with tarragon and served at room temperature (delicious at this time of year). It was also perfect with a chicken pie I was trying out.

This particular vintage seems to have picked up an impressive number of gongs - it has 10 gold medals on the label yet is an incredibly reasonable £14.95 at slurp.co.uk and Hawkshead Wines. The 2005 vintage is even better value at £53.94 (£8.99 a bottle) at Tesco.

For more semillon pairings see this longer post.

Cecina (cured beef) and Mencia

Last week I was in Galicia (for three days. Without my suitcase. Thankyou Easyjet) visiting the denominations of Valdeorras and Bierzo where the star red grape is Mencia. (For years I got them confused periodically thinking the grape was Bierzo and the region Mencia but I’ve finally got it straight.)

Anyway Mencia is the most fabulously food-friendly wine, especially when it’s young and vibrant. More full-bodied (though less refined) than burgundy, riper than cabernet franc, to which it’s often likened the most helpful comparison I think is with Beaujolais which has a similar juiciness when young but can also be quite a weighty wine.

It’s particularly good with all things porky - and beefy, as I discovered from this pairing with some wonderful, home-cured, home-smoked thinly sliced beef called cecina* which was just insanely delicious. I now suffer from cecina withdrawal symptoms.

This particular combination was with Pittacum’s fresh, slightly funky (it’s organic) 2014 Petit Pittacum which is stocked by Les Caves de Pyrène at £9.10, L’Art du Vin at £11.40, and by Joseph Barnes at £11.66. A real match made in heaven. It would also be great for a barbecue.

* you can read more about cecina here