Crespelle with wild asparagus and fonduta and extra dry prosecco

I’ve spent the last 3 days in the Veneto at a prosecco festival called Vino in Villa (yup, alright for some, but if it’s any consolation the weather hasn’t been as good as it has in the UK)

Anyway it’s given me the chance to run the better quality proseccos of the Conegliano Valdobbiadene region (try saying that if you’ve had a few) through their paces with different foods - mainly the sort of buffet style canapés you would have at parties.

There was one hot dish though that went particularly well - a ‘moneybag’ style stuffed pancake with wild asparagus and sciopet (some kind of wild greens, a little like spinach, for which I’ve not been able to find the exact translation) and a rich fonduta cheese sauce.

You might think that would be too powerful for a light prosecco but the extra dry style which can contain up to 17g of sugar and is generally sweeter than brut coped really well. It’s a style that’s more popular in Italy than it is in the UK but I reckon a good quality brut prosecco would match well too.

More on prosecco pairings to come.

* I attended Vino in Villa as a guest of the Consorzio Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore.

Fried chicken with Kung Fu Girl Columbia Valley Riesling

It’s not that often you find a wine that’s perfectly suited to every dish you throw at it but The Lockhart’s well chosen Kung Fu Girl riesling sailed right through our lunch there last week

The Lockhart serves southern US specialities such as catfish goujons, gumbo and shrimp and grits alongside some great deep-fried chicken. There’s also their amazing cornbread and honey butter so you have a little bit of spice and quite a lot of sweetness to contend with.

Kung Fu Girl riesling is made by the talented and quirky Charles Smith - a former rock band manager who drives a large Rolls Royce round the sleepy town of Walla Walla where he's based in Washington State. It’s a pretty floral off-dry wine that turns out to be a perfect pairing with this style of food. I’d also drink it with Asian cuisine - it’s a really affordable, versatile restaurant wine.

In the UK you can buy the current 2013 vintage from slurp.co.uk for £10.95 and £11.50 from winedirect.co.uk

You can see my earlier review of The Lockhart here.

Tonka bean ice cream and Zoco Pacharan

It’s not often I come across a drink I’ve never heard of but Pacharan or Paxtaran, a Basque sloe-flavoured liqueur from Navarra, is one of them.

According to Wikipedia it’s made by soaking sloes, coffee beans and a vanilla pod in anisette, an aniseed flavoured liqueur - the dark colour, which is entirely natural, coming from the sloes. This one, which was served at Bell’s Diner in Bristol is made by the best known producer Zoco. with a selection of home-made ice creams.

Ice-cream is particularly hard to match with wine and much better with a stronger, sweeter liqueur. The Pacharan was particularly good with a Tonka bean ice cream - a vanilla-style ice-cream that obviously picked up on its own vanilla notes but also very good with a pistachio ice-cream and toasted marshmallow ice cream (though less good with a mint one).

Do try it if you get the chance even if you don’t like aniseed, which I confess I generally don’t. The flavour is not too pronounced and the combination is delicious.

You can buy it in the UK from Beers of Europe which sells it for £18.98 for a litre bottle though it seems to be around £23-25 at merchants such as Nicholls & Perks. It would also be worth looking out for in a Spanish duty free.

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.