Spiced parsnip soup with Harviestoun Bitter and Twisted

Although I’ve tasted some good wines this week it’s beer that has provided the highlights. The Magic Rock Rapture amber ale I drank at The Pint Shop in Cambridge with their awesome beer brined chicken was pretty good but it’s pipped into the ‘drink of the week’ slot by this pairing at The Hole in the Wall in Little Wilbraham

It was the first course of a tasting menu: a spiced parsnip soup with warm pork rillettes and some julienne strips of apple, a perfect contrast to Harviestoun’s Bitter and Twisted a smooth, slightly sweet 4.2% blonde ale which picked up perfectly on the sweetness of the parsnip and savouriness of the rillettes.

Soups are quite difficult to match with drinks - one liquid with another never seems entirely appropriate - but with some ingredients like root vegetables beer does a better job than wine.

The pairing was one of a number of immensely clever pairings by the restaurant’s sommelier Joel Servy who (unusually for a Frenchman!) turns out to be quite a beer aficionado, albeit the other matches were wines.

You can read more about the Hole in the Wall - a strong recommendation if you’re staying in Cambridge or want a day out of London - in my latest restaurant review here.

Fruit and flower tart with German auslese riesling

I've struggled to come up with a single pairing from last week as all the matches I was offered at the two-Michelin-starred The Ledbury were spot on but this, I think, is the most spectacular.

It was a new dessert they had just put on - the prettiest imaginable tart topped with a violet (I think) crème patissière, wild strawberries and pansies and two shining scoops of rose and violet sorbet.

A tricky match for any wine but the head sommelier Anya produced a bottle of Keller Dalsheimer Hubacker Riesling Auslese 2004 from the Rheinhessen in Germany which was light, sweet and floral itself. Just perfect.

Other good matches she devised were an Argyros Assyrtiko with a ‘royale’ of squid with cauliflower, pinenuts and sherry, a Mon Vieux Aquifer semillon from the Swartland with a dish of quail’s egg with asparagus, wild garlic, morels and Arbois and a robust Reinisch St Laurent with an amazing dish of pig’s cheek with a crunchy crumble-like topping. (I’d told her I didn’t want to drink any French wine as I drink predominantly French at home.)

This is not, of course, the cheapest way of drinking at The Ledbury - or any top end restaurant. As they know me and knew of my interest in food and wine pairing they treated me to several of the glasses but they would normally come to at least £50 if you’d had had one with each course*. There are bottles available on the list though for as little as £25 (though the best value is in the £30-50 price bracket) and an excellent list of half bottles. And the £45 lunch, which is what I went for, is incredible value for money for that quality of food and service.

* The current 2010 vintage of the auslese is on sale at Hedonism for £63.10 a half bottle so the £13 a glass the Ledbury is charging for the 2004 is not unreasonable.

Sweet herring and mackerel rillettes with an aromatic Greek white

Paris isn’t the obvious place you’d think of drinking Greek wine - in fact it’s a rare sighting in a city whose wine lists are almost 100% French. So when I came across one in a hip little bar called Clamato I was intrigued

I had trouble tracking it down but it’s called Efranor and appears to come from a winery called Sklavos in an appellation called Coteaux d’Alnos on the island of Cephalonia and is a blend of Moscatel, Vostyildi and Zakynthino.

I wouldn’t have actually guessed as the Moscatel character is not that obvious and it tastes really dry but with an exotic, slightly perfumed character (the French tasting note I found says bergamot) and an almost oily texture that was just perfect with the rillettes, an unusual combination of sweet herring and mackerel with a scattering of freshly grated lemon zest. There were some watercress leaves on the side which added a nice touch of bitterness.

Admittedly it slightly overwhelmed the other two dishes we ate - a tartare of mackerel and a dish of white and green asparagus with trout roe which went better with the crisper, more mineral Le Pont Bourceau Anjou blanc 2011 from Les Roches Sèches my husband was drinking (a Chenin Blanc). But eating small plates like this you obviously wouldn’t want to keep switching wines.

I reckon a Portuguese white like a young Douro white or a Vinho Verde would have gone with the rillettes too - or a Spanish Albarino or Godello.

Roast lamb with wild garlic risotto, asparagus and feta with a chilled Languedoc red

This match, which I enjoyed at Plateau wine bar in Brighton last week, breaks a couple of wine pairing conventions. Firstly that you match red meat with a full bodied red. And secondly that you don’t drink red wine with asparagus.

But in fact the grassy notes of the asparagus and the accompanying wild garlic risotto were just perfect with this natural, slightly mineral blend of mourvèdre and grenache called Les Fainéants produced by Opi d’Aqui just outside Clermont l’Herault. As they would be with a lightly chilled Loire Cabernet Franc. (The saltiness of the feta helped too.)

I also had a lamb tagine this week with a natural red from the Côtes du Brian in the Minervois which was an equally good match. What natural wine naysayers should at least acknowledge is that fresh-tasting reds without excessive extraction or tannin are great with food.

To read about the other restaurants I visited in Brighton click here and for a longer list of asparagus pairings, here.