The best food pairings for Mencia

When I scoured the website for existing pairings with mencia I was amazed how many dishes I’d suggested it with. It really is an incredibly versatile food wine.

For those of you who are not familiar with it it’s a grape variety which is grown in the Bierzo and Ribeira Sacra regions of north-west Spain and produces a vibrantly juicy red that reminds me of Beaujolais with a dash of Loire cabernet franc.

Top food matches for mencia

Cecina

Cecina is a really delicious deeply savoury cured smoked beef from the same region as mencia and goes brilliantly with it as you can see from this match of the week. So does chorizo and rough country hams

Almost any kind of grilled meat especially pork and lamb

Which makes it a good wine for a barbecue. That also applies to spiced meat like kebabs or these seftali

Hearty stews

The Spanish are not renowned for their vegetarian dishes so I’m thinking meat here. Robust dishes of pork and beans for example.

Empanadas

Again from the area they have these delicious tuna and red pepper pies called empanadas. Mencia would be good with the smaller Latin American version too

Sheep cheese

Mencia is a good all-rounder with cheese but especially hard sheep cheeses which are what you tend to find in the area.

Warm salads

I suggested mencia as a pairing with this warm lamb salad with a pea, mint and feta cheese dressing. It would be great with other warm salads too.

Pizza and pasta

Almost any kind of pasta with a meaty sauce. Spaghetti and meatballs for example. It’s the perfect pizza wine too.

Roast turkey

I know there are a lot of other great pairings for roast turkey but a vibrant mencia works surprisingly well with all the sides as I discovered one Christmas.

The best wines to pair with crab

Crab is one of the most delicious kinds of shellfish and the perfect foil for a crisp white wine. But there are other crab dishes that pair better with a fuller-bodied white or even a red.

In this post I’ll dive into my top wine pairings for different preparations of crab, including popular dishes like 

• Dressed crab
• Crab bisque
• Thai crab cakes
• Deep fried softshell crab

As always, it’s not just about the crab but how it’s prepared and the other flavours involved...

Top wine pairings with crab

Dressed crab

You want to be able to taste the delicate meat so I’d suggest a classic Chablis or fine white burgundy such as Puligny-Montrachet. (The same would apply to fresh crab sandwiches or a simple crab salad though I might well pick a Sancerre or Pouilly Fumé for the latter, especially if it included asparagus. See also this match with 17 year old Muscadet!)

Linguine with crab

Quite a spicy recipe that usually includes garlic and red chilli and occasionally lemon. You could drink a citrussy (rather than a herbaceous) Sauvignon Blanc or a dry Kabinett Riesling with it but I’d go for a good quality Pinot Grigio, Soave or Albariño.

Crab bisque

Rich and luxurious this recipe normally contains cream and cognac as well as having a dominant flavour of brown crab meat - a good opportunity to crack open a seriously good barrel-fermented Chardonnay with a couple of years’ bottle age. White Rhône and Languedoc blends of Roussanne, Marsanne and Viognier work well too.

Thai crab cakes

My choice would depend on whether I was having these as a snack on their own or as part of a Thai meal. If it was the former I’d go for a dry Riesling or a Loire Sauvignon Blanc. With the latter I’d look for a wine with slightly more sweetness such as a Pinot Gris or a spätlese Riesling. Witbier is the other great pick as you’ll see from this Match of the Week.

Maryland crab cakes

The classic American crab cake, much richer than the Thai ones, but with a spicy kick. Unoaked or lightly oaked Chardonnay would be the safe choice but I’m not sure I wouldn’t reach for an Albariño.

Crab, saffron and leek quiche

Saffron is the key in this Rick Stein recipe. I love Viognier and Viognier blends with saffron-infused dishes so I’d go for that.

Deep-fried soft shell crabs

Sometimes these are served with a strong punchy dressing but I think, if you want to appreciate the delicate flavour of the crab, it’s better to serve them relatively simply. As with other deep-fried foods they go fantastically well with champagne and other sparkling wines.

Crab in black bean sauce

Always a tricky one as black bean sauce is so pungent but I came across a brilliant match at the Four Seasons hotel in Park Lane where chef Tak of Lung King Heen, the Cantonese restaurant at the Four Seasons Hong Kong was cooking for a week to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

His version was the best crab in black bean sauce I’ve ever eaten - deep and aromatic in flavour, sweet but not cloying. It was matched with a decent but not exceptional Mud House Pinot Noir from New Zealand and the pairing was spot on. I suspect you’d need a fuller, richer Pinot with most commercial black bean sauces.

Image by Larisa Blinova at shutterstock.com

 

The best food pairings for Grüner Veltliner

Winemakers like to tell you that their wines go with everything but in the case of Grüner Veltliner, Austria’s best known white wine, it’s true.

Short of Sunday roasts and large juicy steaks you can pair it with practically anything.

There are of course different styles but the one you’re most likely to come across is the crisp, fresh young style that typifies most inexpensive Grüners. What makes them distinctive is a herbal note and a distinctive white peppery twist.

In Austria they would be widely drunk with cold meats, salads, light vegetable dishes and fish - think the sort of dishes you would serve with a sauvignon blanc or a riesling. Further afield they’re a great choice in Asian or Asian-fusion restaurants especially with Thai and Vietnamese food

Asparagus

Austrians love asparagus - there are whole asparagus menus in the spring and early summer. It’s mainly white asparagus served either in a salad or warm with hollandaise but you can equally well drink it with the green variety. See also this match with asparagus soup.

Artichokes

Not many wines pair well with artichokes. Young fresh dry Grüner is one of them

Smoked ham, especially cut wafer thin as the Austrians do it

Smoked fish like smoked salmon or trout. Even smoked eel though I think riesling is better

Raw fish such as sushi, sashimi, carpaccio and tartares - especially with Asian seasoning like ginger or wasabi as you can see from this post.

Salads

Especially seafood salads with an Asian twist and salads with apple, kohlrabi or cucumber

Dishes with herbs

Grüner has a herbal edge itself and pairs beautifully with dishes that contain herbs especially dill, tarragon, mint and parsley. So salads as above, or chicken with a herb crust for example.

Light vegetable dishes such as braised fennel a courgette/zucchini gratin or a vegetable-based quiche. (Like an asparagus one, obviously)

Leafy greens especially cabbage, sprouts and kale. Think 'green wine, green vegetables'

Spicy but not over-hot south-east Asian dishes with ginger or galangal and lemongrass. Like dim sum, light stir-fries and mild Thai curries. Grüner is especially good with Vietnamese food particularly summer rolls and noodle salads.

Fried foods, schnitzel being the obvious example but you could happily drink Grüner with fish and chips or even fried chicken.

Fresh cheeses like goats cheese, young pecorino or mozzarella.

You can also pair Gruner Veltliner with many seafood and vegetable-based pasta dishes or risottos though for preference I'd go for an Italian white and I don’t think Grüner works with cooked tomato sauces.

Richer styles match well with roast pork or veal especially with a creamy sauce but not with an intense meaty ‘jus’.

Image © Pixelot - Fotolia.com

The best food pairings for Xinomavro

With its vibrant acidity, unusual aromatics, and loud flavour profile Greece's Xinomavro is not for the faint-hearted but it makes an ideal food wine. The best pairing, as so often, depends on the style says Peter Pharos.

Traditional Xinomavro

Traditionally, Xinomavro has given red wines that, while relatively light bodied, are almost aggressive in their youth, with rough tannins and intense acidity that can easily take more than a decade to calm down.

It is no coincidence that Nebbiolo is often used as a simile when the grape is introduced to foreign audiences. Xinomavro’s aromatics, however, are very different. Particularly in Naoussa (or, more correctly, Naousa) in central Macedonia, arguably its finest terroir, they show notes of olive paste, sun-dried tomato, and dried herbs.

Macedonia includes two other well-known Xinomavro terroirs, Amyndeon and Goumenissa. These higher altitude zones tend to give gentler, and a tad sweeter, aromatics, with strawberry and raspberry notes, but maintain the fierce acidity when young and benefit from decanting.

The star of the Greek Orthodox Easter table, whole lamb roast on a spit, is the mother of all pairings for this traditional style, but any type of roast lamb is an excellent match, especially if garlic and herbs are involved.

Imam bayildi by Didebashvili.GE at shutterstock.com

On the vegetarian side, aubergines are an exceptional match, in almost any form. Imam bayildi, loved in Greece almost as much as in Turkey, is a classic. Other options include baba ganoush, ratatouille, or its Greek take, briam.

Bringing together lamb and eggplant, as in the Turkish Hünkar BeÄŸendi, also works very well. I would, however, steer clear of moussaka. Despite the insistence of many Anglophone recipes, this is typically prepared not with lamb, but with a sweet-ish beef mince sauce, and a rich mornay-like topping, which results it a rather dissonant combination.

High quality traditional Xinomavro with fifteen years of age or more, meanwhile, is a thing of wonder. The fierceness of youth translates into an ethereal wisdom and delicate, elaborate aromatics. A (French-trimmed) rack of lamb with baby potatoes (or, even better, Jersey royals) and some delicate greens is an excellent combination. (As is grilled lamb with a mustard glaze which featured as a pairing for a 25 year old xinomavro in this Match of the Week. FB)

 If you are out for a more adventurous pairing, I particularly like it with grilled octopus.

Top producers for traditional Xinomavro include Dalamara (especially the Paliokalias label, though it has seen a vertiginous price rise the past decade), Markovitis, Kelesidis, Boutari, and Artisan Vignerons de Naoussa, while in Goumenissa Tatsis do an excellent job. Macedonian powerhouse Kir-Yianni produce Ramnista, which is remarkable value for money, and whose style is nearer to the traditional, though it has turned more immediately approachable in recent years. I also love Melitzanis but, unfortunately, this is rarely seen abroad.

New Wave Xinomavro

photo by Slawomir Fajer at shutterstock.com

There are few people that have changed the profile of a variety singlehandedly, as much as Apostolos Thymiopoulos did with Xinomavro. His various bottling, from the instant classic, premium Earth & Sky, to the entry-level Jeunes Vignes, to the newer Naoussa Alta, pioneered a new winemaking take on the grape.

Fresh, vivacious, fruit-forward, and drinkable on release, but without losing trademark the Xinomavro aromatics in the process, they were a huge success on the domestic market and helped substantially to increase the visibility of the grape internationally.

This more approachable style also expands substantially the culinary possibilities. I’ve had Thymiopoulos’s wines with anything from aubergine and ricotta involtini to Iberican-style cod and potatoes in various tomato-based sauces with great success.

With Xinomavro being increasingly planted around Greece (or at least north of Athens), many newer producers, such as Oenops, seem to aim for this style.

In the top terroirs, meanwhile, most producers today follow a middle-of-the-road take. Not the dusty, traditional Xinomavro, but perhaps not as fruit-forward as Thymiopoulos either. In Naoussa, this would include producers such as Karydas, and most Xinomavro-based wines of Kir-Yianni, including the premium, Barolo-esque Diaporos, In Amyndeon, Alpha Estate’s Hedgehog and Barba-Yianni offer an excellent balance between strength and freshness.

Finally, in the last great Xinomavro terroir, Rapsani, in Thessaly, near Mount Olympus, Thanos Dougos follows the local tradition of blending it with the lesser known Krassato and Stavroto for his excellent Rapsani Old Vines. Blending with international varieties is also not unknown.

These wines are perhaps the most versatile of all. While roast lamb and aubergine are still hard to beat as food matches, the more tempered style means more options, from both Greek and international cuisines. 

Giouvetsi, a Greek orzo casserole, which can be made with anything from lamb, to beef, to octopus, is a firm favourite. I was more surprised with how well it worked with Bekri Meze, a wine-braised pork stew. Beans, especially white, are also a great match. I love it with Gigantes (baked giant beans – available in Greek delis such as Maltby and Greek), but Xinomavro’s robustness means you can throw much spicier fare at it. There are few spur-of-the-moment oddball pairings I’m as proud of as matching a bottle of Oenops’s wild Xinomavraw with Punjabi rajima and rice.

Recipe: Norma alla greca

photo by Ale02 at shutterstock.com

We drink a lot of wine from southern Italy in my household, and we eat a lot of pasta alla Norma, the Sicilian aubergine-based classic. We also drink a lot of Xinomavro, but it is not a good match: Norma seems to be a tad too delicate for Xinomavro’s aromatics. I developed this twist on the Norma as a response.

Ingredients (serves 2)

250g wholewheat pasta (I particularly like wholewheat casarecce)

1 small aubergine

1 small clove of garlic, finely chopped

1 level tbsp tomato paste

50 ml of dry red wine

400g can of chopped tomatoes

½ teaspoon of dried basil

pinch of chili flakes, or to taste

a bit of all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon of dukkah (optional)

crumbled feta (to serve)

fresh basil (to serve)

Method

Slice the aubergine (if desired, peel first) in 2 cm rounds. Season and dust with flour then fry in olive oil, in medium-high heat until golden. Drain on kitchen paper.

Wipe the pan clean with kitchen paper and add a spoonful of olive oil in medium heat. Add the garlic and fry for 30 seconds. Dissolve the tomato paste in the red wine (it is better to do this in advance), then add to the pan until the wine evaporates. Add the tomatoes, then add salt, pepper, dried basil, and, if using, the chili flakes and dukkah. Leave on medium-low heat for 10-15 minutes.

While the sauce is bubbling, cook the pasta in plenty of salted water. Remove two minutes before al dente, reserving some of the cooking water. Bring together the sauce, pasta, aubergine, and a bit of the cooking water.

Serve with crumbled feta and fresh basil.

See also The best food pairings for assyrtiko

Top photo by Irik Bik at shutterstock.com