Cherry, pistachio and coconut cake and Seifried 'Sweet Agnes' riesling

Until last night I was confident what I was going to make my match of the week, this week - the unlikely but delicious combination of a Langhe Nebbiolo and Berkswell sheep’s cheese but last night I was blown away by this pairing.

The cake was one I’d been eyeing in the new Honey & Co cookbook, my favourite cookbook of the summer so far, having spotted it in their charming London café. It was as good as it looked - with a lovely flavour of cherry and coconut.

We cast around for something to drink with it and came up with a medal winning 2012* Seifried ‘Sweet Agnes’ late harvest riesling from the Nelson region of New Zealand, a really lovely, light (11%) graceful wine I’ve enjoyed before with desserts. You can buy it in several independents (check wine-searcher.com for outlets), branches of Laithwaite's and at selected branches of Waitrose and online at Waitrose Cellar for £13.99.

I’m also thinking a sweet red would be possible - a recioto della Valpolicella for example - or a cherry liqueur like Guignolet. Maybe even a Japanese plum wine …

Anyway the recipe is great. I’ll see if I can persuade the publisher Salt Yard to let me share it on the site but you should in any case buy the book.

* The current vintage is 2013

Wagyu beef tataki and ginjo sake

We get so used to thinking of red wine as the only pairing for beef that it’s good to be reminded there are other options. Especially when it comes to Japan’s fabled Wagyu beef which is all about subtle tastes and textures.

I was at an event at the Japanese embassy yesterday which marked the fact that authentic Wagyu can now be imported to into the UK again which was celebrated by an impressive line-up of dishes from some top London chefs

This was my favourite dish which came from Umu in Mayfair - a fabulous dish of charcoal and straw- (yes, straw!) grilled Wagyu tataki with a summer vegetable terrine and sesame sauce. The beef was grilled over charcoal and then rested on Himalayan salt blocks.

I simply don’t think the usual full-bodied red you’d drink with steak would have done it justice. Possibly a good red burgundy but I loved the match with a cool Dewazakura Oka ginjo sake which showed off the luxurious texture of the meat, didn't overwhelm the vegetable terrine (a lovely accompaniment) and picked up on the sesame sauce. A total treat.

Smoked haddock and leek risotto and Albarino

If you were thinking of a wine pairing for risotto you’d probably reach for an Italian white such as a Pinot Grigio but Spain’s famous Galician white Albarino works equally well as I discovered the other day.

Mind you it wasn’t a conventional risotto, more like a creamy risotto-like kedgeree with smoked haddock - and fish is almost always a good pairing for Albarino. The saltiness of the fish in this case hit it off perfectly with the bright crisp wine - a 2012 Condes de Albaret. Although you might have thought that the deep fried egg (see the crisp little ball in the centre of the dish) might have affected the wine choice it was the haddock that was the key to the match.

It was a while since I’d been to the restaurant, Les Deux Salons, a modern brasserie just off Trafalgar Square and forgotten what a useful place it is for a quick lunch in that part of town. (They do a very reasonably priced two course prix fixe menu from 12 noon to 6.30pm) I also like the way they serve almost all their wines by the 250ml carafe as they do in their two other restaurants Arbutus and Wild Honey.

Asparagus salad and Grüner Veltliner

I’ve been in Vienna for the past few days so couldn’t really avoid eating asparagus. Not that I wanted to. Austria’s white asparagus is one of the highlights of the spring and early summer so we grabbed any opportunity we could to wolf it.

This was a salad at a very cool café called Meierei which specialises in dairy foods so the asparagus was combined with fresh cheese, tomato and a milky dressing and some puffed up pork crackling a bit like posh Quavers. Really delicious. We drank the restaurant's own Grüner Veltliner with it. I can’t give you any more detail as they don’t put their winelist on their website and infuriatingly I didn’t note it down but it was a crisp, fresh youthful style - a 2013 I seem to recall.

We could have also drunk riesling with it - it’s a toss-up whether you should go for Grüner or Riesling with asparagus depending on your mood and the way it’s prepared. But if you go to Vienna don’t miss it.