When should you drink Yquem?

Not a question I normally have to trouble my head about, I admit but which was prompted by an extraordinary wine dinner I went to last week at The Don in St Swithin's Lane.

It was organised by an old friend Maria Adderley who now runs a PR and events company which specialises in laying on top level wine dinners for City boys and other well heeled punters. Not only was there Yquem but Smith Haut Lafitte, Mouton Rothschild and Margaux (both from the 1995 vintage and both in magnum) and Anglus and Tertre Roteboeuf 1998. An embarassment of riches.

Anyway the Yquem issue. Whether to drink it first - with foie gras, natch - or last. It was the 1996 vintage bottled in half bottles - really spectacular even by the standards of the other wines that were presented by MW Richard Bampfield. I think that alone should have probably dictated it should have been the finale but the dish it was paired with - a creamy, caramelised foie gras ‘brulée’ (below) that was more like a pudding than a starter made it an uncomfortably rich start to the meal.

It also dictated that the second course had a note of sweetness so the switch to savoury was not too much of a shock, in this case a dish of scallops with lime and vanilla beurre blanc which was paired with the 2007 Smith Haut Lafitte and Laville Haut-Brion Pessac-Lognans. (Although I love Smith Haut Lafitte whites - the 2010 is amazing - I thought the tauter, more minerally Lavill Haut-Brion worked best but at a dinner like that you’re hardly going to quibble.)

We were on safer ground with a rack of lamb with a light rosemary jus with the Mouton and the Margaux (good to avoid an over-extracted sauce) and the cheeses stacked up fine with the Tertre Roteboeuf and the Anglus which was my favourite wine of the evening. Interestingly the cheeses were quite bland - deliberately chosen I suspect - with no stinky washed rind cheeses, strong blues or even a farmhouse cheddar to disturb the equilibrium of the wines.

To tell the truth the whole experience, while fascinating, was slightly overwhelming. It seems churlish to cavil but I think I’d have rather had one or two great wines than nine. (There was a pair of Smith Haut Lafittes in the middle which were shown on their own). Still who’s going to turn down the chance to attend a dinner like that? Certainly not me.

I attended the dinner as a guest of Wine Connections.

When food and wine matching doesn't matter

Although I make my living writing about how food can enhance wine - and vice versa - I would never want to be dogmatic about it and freely admit that there are occasions when it matters less than others.

Exactly such an occasion occurred earlier this week at a wine dinner at my son’s restaurant Hawksmoor which featured Charles Smith, of K Vintners (right) who I met a couple of months ago in Walla Walla in Washington State. Beyond saying he’s a rock’n’roll winemaker, a description I suspect he’s heard rather too many times, he’s hard to categorise but his ‘wild man’ appearance and demeanour bely the fact that he’s a serious winemaker* and winelover who produces some really top class wines.

So the times to be relaxed about trying to achieve a perfect match are:

When the wines are great.
When the wine is REALLY good you’ll enjoy it anyway pretty much whatever you drink it with. Use common sense here, obviously. I wouldn’t have fancied one of Charles’s high octane Syrahs” with a piece of seabass or a delicate risotto primavera but there would be no point in agonising whether they’d go better with beef, pork or lamb. What makes this easier is that the wines are superbly well-balanced. As Charles aptly put it “I don’t like wines that are pulled like a freight train across your palate”

* the 2008 Northridge Syrah Wahluke Slope and the 2008 Morrison Lane Syrah from the Walla Walla valley

When the food is simple
The more complicated food gets in the way of sauces and accompaniments the more potential there is for a flavour mismatch. Hawksmoor’s USP is impeccably sourced British ingredients served simply so we were served grilled Dorset Blue Lobster with butter (fantastic with the K Vintners 2009 Viognier) and great platters full of steaks, marrow bones and sides (spot on with both the Syrahs and Charles’s immodestly named Creator - a 60/40 Cabernet/Syrah blend. Infanticide really to drink them at this age but there you go. They were still great).

You could have served the lobster with a good Chardonnay with equal pleasure and the steaks with almost any good full-bodied red (that’s the joy of steak) but if I can chip in with one of my geekier observations the voluptuousness of Charles’s wines certainly helped drive through condiments like ketchup which can knock the stuffing out of less substantial wines. You wouldn't want to do that to a Hermitage.

When the food is shared, family style
This of course has always been the case with many ethnic cuisines and is becoming more and more common in modern British and New American restaurants. The bigger the range of dishes and flavours the harder it is to find a precise match.

There’s something about a big table that’s also quite loud and boisterous and doesn’t make for thoughtful contemplation of the finer nuances of food and wine pairing. What one’s looking for are generous, easy-going bottles that will take you through a meal or a section of a meal.

There are moods to be taken account of with food and wine matching just as there are with food or wine on its own. Sometimes you want to strive for a knock-out effect and sometimes you just want to sit back and enjoy the experience . . .

* Charles Smith was Food & Wine’s Winemaker of the Year in 2009. To see for yourself what I mean by rock'n'roll watch this episode of Wine Library TV.

I attended the dinner as a guest of K Vintners and Bibendum Wines.

What wine to drink with cuttlefish

Cuttlefish is a pain to prepare as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall points out in the Guardian today but it is particularly delicious to eat. It’s often partnered with robust flavours so you need to think in terms of equally intense flavoured wines.

Slow-braised cuttlefish with fennel and white wine
A recipe that uses cuttlefish ink which will give it a dramatic black colour but won’t affect the flavour overly much (apart from enhancing its fishiness). More important are the citrus and fennel seeds. I’d be thinking of a crisp unoaked dry white - a good quality Pinot Grigio or a Vermentino - a frugal choice as the recipe contains white wine itself. You could also serve a strong dry rosé like a Bandol.

Cuttlefish with chorizo and rice
Although this recipe also contains fish stock it also includes chorizo and sherry which gives it much more of a Spanish feel - and a meaty one at that. I’d be looking for a young Spanish red to drink with this like a Rioja crianza or other young Tempranillo. But again a dry wine rather than a super-ripe one (some modern Spanish reds come too much in the ‘fruit bomb’ category for this type of dish IMO).

Cuttlefish salad
Again this recipe includes orange together with chilli and cardamom which is going to give it quite a sweet, exotic flavour. I’d be looking for a fruity white or rosé with this - not too dry this time - maybe an Australian Sauvignon-Semillon blend. A ripe fruity rose (not the Provençal stye) would work well too.

Which wine pairs best with tomatoes?

Tomatoes are generally held to be a problem for wine but as Jane McQuitty robustly puts it in The Times today - nonsense!

You do however need a slightly different strategy for dealing with raw tomatoes (where I’d go along with McQuitty’s suggestion of Sauvignon Blanc) and cooked ones which are frequently combined with other ingredients such as meat and cheese and with which I generally prefer a robust not over-fruity red. However there are exceptions - cooked dishes that could equally well be accompanied by white or rosé and two of Ramsay’s recipes fall into this category.

Beef tomatoes stuffed with pinenuts, sultanas and herb couscous
Here the tomatoes are merely served warm rather than cooked down or roasted to a caramelised sweetness and the other flavourings are milder than you might think from the recipe description. A robust dry southern French rosé would hit the spot pretty well.

Roasted tomato soup with goats’ cheese crostini
If you were to serve the soup cold, as Ramsay suggests, I’d definitely go for a white and given the goats cheese crostini, a Sauvignon Blanc would be the obvious choice (even though the crostini are served warm) If you were serving the soup hot or without the crostini I’d go for a vivid young Italian red with good acidity like a Rosso di Montalcino.

Seasonal glut tomato chutney
It’s not tomatoes that are the problem here but the vinegar. All chutneys are tricky with wine. Ramsay suggests using it as an accompaniment to cheese which will offset its sharpness. Three suggestions: a rustic French red like the delicious young Vacquéyras we’ve been drinking for the past couple of days from the co-operative at Beaumes de Venise, a Southern Italian red like a Copertino or Squinzano or an amber ale or French bière ambrée.