Dry or fruity? Which style of white wine pairs best with simply grilled fish?

About the last place I’d have expected to have an enlightening discussion about food and wine matching is in a fisherman’s shack called Chez Loulou down on the Languedoc coast. Actually I do it an injustice. It’s a restaurant - just - but one that relies for its appeal on fabulously fresh fish rather than fantastically skilled cooking.

The owner though, whose name I don’t yet know, has absolutely the right attitude to wine. How many restauranteurs when you order a particular wine would ask you how you like it - dry or fruity? (The wine in question being the local Picpoul de Pinet.)

When we hesitated he went on to suggest that if we were looking for a wine to drink as an aperitif we should choose a fruity one whereas if we were concerned to match the grilled sea bass we had ordered we should opt for a drier style.

Of course this advice is particularly apposite in France where, when you order grilled fish, that’s what you get. They don’t go in for veg or other accompaniments that might possibly create a bridge to a fruitier wine.

But there is a useful insight here - namely that ultra-dry whites that don’t particularly shine on their own (Muscadet being the other obvious example) spring to life when partnered with simply cooked, ultra-fresh fish. And that fruitier wines can sometimes overwhelm their delicate sweet flavour.

It also shows how deeply engrained knowledge of food and wine still is in the average Frenchman!

Although not enough to keep the restaurant going, sadly. It has closed since I wrote this post!

See also...

• 12 great wine pairings with salmon
• What's the best wine pairing for tuna? 
• When to pair red wine with fish

Image credit: Oleksandr P

What to pair with artisanal cheddar?

By artisanal cheddar, I mean cheddar that is mature, full-flavoured, and unpasteurised (learn more in this post: So what makes a great cheddar?). It isn't the easiest cheese to match with wine.

One’s instinct is to drink red but it’s a struggle. You don’t want anything too light and graceful or, conversely, too full-bodied and tannic. There can be some wild flavours in a cheese like this which I think are best matched by an equally artisanal wine - and old Syrah/Shiraz, Grenache or Mourvèdre, maybe - or a blend of all three. Or a good Zinfandel. But don’t introduce blues or smelly washed-rind cheeses to the cheeseboard as well.

Vintage port is surprisingly - or not so surprisingly - good as we confirmed at a cheese and wine tasting I conducted for Decanter last year. One associates it more with stilton but it’s equally good with a fine cheddar. But it’s not the type of wine to open with a ploughman’s or other light lunch.

That distinction goes to a traditional British ale which I’m not sure isn’t the best pairing for this kind of cheese, especially if you serve it with an onion pickle or a chutney. Something like Adnams Broadside or Young’s Special. If you find British beers too bitter a sweeter-flavoured American IPA may be more to your taste, being a classic example.

If you’re looking for a terroir-based match a farmhouse cider would be the obvious choice for an authentic Somerset cheddar, especially if you serve it with apples or an apple chutney. Personally I prefer a medium-dry style but that’s up to you.

Apple-based aperitifs or digestifs such as Pommeau and Pomona which is made by the Somerset Cider Brandy Company can also work very well. Obviously they’re more alcoholic than cider but you could serve them instead of port for after dinner drinking.

Other possibilities, less mainstream: a full-bodied oaked Chardonnay pairs surprisingly well with cheddar as does a good rich whisky like The Macallan or Famous Grouse. Sherry can also work well particularly if you serve your cheddar with nuts - I’d choose something like a palo cortado. Other possibilities would be a medium-dry Madeira or a 10 - or 20 - year old tawny port.

See also: The Best Wine Pairings for Cheddar Cheese

Image by SplitShire from Pixabay

Will and I win an award for our beer and food book Appetite for Ale!

It's an odd feeling going up to the podium with your son to pick up an award for beer writing. It’s not exactly the scene you envisage when you’re wheeling him around in his push chair. But there we were last night to pick up the oddly named Bishop’s Finger Beer With Food Award at the British Guild of Beer Writers Annual Dinner for our book Appetite for Ale (Phew - that was a mouthful!)

Actually Will is rather more used than me to picking up awards these days. The other day he was singled out as ‘the one to watch’ in the drinks category of the 2007 Courvoisier The Future 500 list having already won two other business awards this year and several for his pub the Marquess Tavern where we shot the book . (Will will probably be hugely embarrassed by all this puffery but I have to say I”m very proud of my boy)

We were interviewed afterwards and asked what the award meant to us. Well, a great deal actually. Neither of us would pretend to be beer experts so it’s great to be recognised by professionals in the field as having contributed something to the subject. And we hope the book will pull in a lot of new beer drinkers who will become as fascinated as we have been by the endless variety of flavours the beer world has to offer and how amazingly well it goes with food.

Needless to say the dinner, which was devised by TV chef (and beer fan) Brian Turner, was served with matching beers and very good it was too. Here is the menu with my comments:

Scallop mousse with smoked salmon dressing with Palm Speciale
A really lovely dish of the kind that only top chefs can produce - and rarely to this standard for these kind of numbers (a good 120 I would guess). Light as air, slightly wobbly and with a lovely sweet scallop flavour. Beer with its carbonation and hoppy bitterness cuts through the richness in much the same way as a glass of champagne.

Deus sorbet with Deus
I’m not totally convinced by the virtue of sorbets at this stage of the meal but there’s no doubt about it beer does make great sorbets. Seems a touch extravagant though to make them with Deus, the Dom Perignon of the beer world . . .

Spiced loin of Castlebridge beef, thyme braised potato, onion squash mash and curly kale
with Thornbridge Jaipur IPA
A classic beer-friendly dish that could have gone with almost any classic English ale. Here it was paired with one of my favourites Thornbridge Jaipur IPA which Willl and I also served at our Thanksgiving beer dinner

Lord of the Hundreds with fig chutney and Adnams Broadside
A model of how a cheese course should be presented - a good artisanal cheese and a big rich beer pulled together by a dollop of sweet fig chutney. Who needs cheeseboards?

Gingerbread with nutmeg ice cream and Innis & Gunn oak-aged beer
With its spicy flavours this was great idea for a dessert for a winter beer dinner (in fact we wished we’d thought of it ourselves) but the Innis & Gunn, which doesn’t seem to be quite as full-bodied as it once was, was just a bit too light and astringent for the dish. Surprisingly, the Broadside went perfectly.

What to drink with cake (updated)

A recent email from a reader asked me to suggest a wine to go with “a triple coconut cake with a tangy pineapple icing served with fresh fruit salsa that has kiwi, strawberry, mandarine oranges, blueberries and fresh pineapple in it”.

Quite a challenge (I suggested demi-sec Champagne or a peach-flavoured liqueur topped up with fizz) but it got me thinking that there are many possible pairings for cake beyond a cup of tea or coffee, particularly if you’re serving it as a dessert.

Drink Pairings for Popular Cakes

Here are my latest thoughts on what to drink with cake. Bear in mind the overall sweetness richness and density of the cake and whether there are any accompanying ingredients such as fruit or cream when you’re choosing between the options.

Plain madeira, pound cakes or almond cakes

A high quality tea like Darjeeling, a chilled 10 year old tawny port, a cream sherry or a spiced rum like Morgan’s or Sailor Jerry would be my top picks. Panettone is better with Prosecco or a Moscato d’Asti.

Orange flavoured cakes

Particularly delicious with sweet sherries. You could also try an orange-flavoured sherry liqueur (Harvey’s does one) or even a dark cream sherry served over ice with a slice of orange. A Spanish Moscatel de Valencia will work if the orange flavour in the cake isn’t too pronounced or if it has fresh oranges alongside.

Lemon cakes

Lemon can be tricky if the lemon flavour is particularly intense. A very sweet Riesling is often a good option or, if the cake is light and airy - more like a gâteau - try a Moscato d’Asti or other light, sweet sparkling wine or an elderflower spritzer. I also like green tea and Earl Grey tea with lemon flavours.

Recipe idea: Try Add Kimber’s Olive Oil Pistachio and Lemon Snack Cake with a glass of prosecco or a shot of limoncello.

Fruit cakes

A great opportunity to show off a sweet sherry or Madeira. A sweet oloroso sherry like Matusalem is delicious with crumbly, rich fruit cakes as is a sweet 5 or 10 year old Madeira. (Bual would be my favourite style here).

Photo by TalyaAL at shutterstock.com

A richly flavoured whisky aged in sherry casks - something like The Macallan - can also be great with a fruit cake. Or an Irish whiskey as you can see from this pairing of Dundee cake (above) with Midleton Very Rare. A barley wine (strong, sweet beer) works too.

Light, airy gateaux and airy pastries like mille-feuille

In general these go well with off-dry Champagne which doesn’t necessarily mean demi-sec. If the cake isn’t too sweet or is accompanied by unsweetened fruits such as raspberries or strawberries you can accompany it with a standard Champagne. (Almost all Champagnes have some sweet wine added to them at the end of the bottling process so very few are completely dry.) Rosé Champagne or sparkling wine work particularly well with berries.

If the gâteau is slightly richer and sweeter or contains ice cream you might be better off with a fruit liqueur or a liqueur topped up with sparkling wine as I suggested to the lady who contacted me. Or, if you’re feeling brave with a matching fruit beer! A peach gâteau, for example could be served with iced shots of a peach-flavoured liqueur like Archers or with a peach, passion fruit or mango-flavoured beer. (The best ones come from Belgium.)

Iced cakes such as cupcakes

The extra sweetness from the icing may strip out the sweetness of a dessert wine. I’m not sure this isn’t one for a milky coffee such as a cappucino or a latte (unless they’re chocolate in which case see below). Cupcakes are comfort food after all.

Gingerbread

One of those like-meets-like combinations but ginger wine (Stone’s is a good brand) or a ginger liqueur works well. Or even a Whisky Mac (a 50/50 mixture of whisky and ginger wine). For contrast try a liqueur Muscat or sweet sherry.

Chocolate cake

Usually needs something to cut through the richness though the sweet-toothed may go for the matching sweetness of a sweet sherry or a liqueur Muscat. Personally I like it with something bitter like a double espresso, a porter or a coffee beer .

An alternative route, particularly if the cake contains cherries is to go for deep red fruit flavours - a Late Bottled Vintage or Vintage Character port, a Banyuls or Maury from the south of France or even a chilled shot of cherry brandy (very good with intensely rich, dark chocolate cakes and puddings). 

A lighter chocolate cake like a roulade can be delicious with a cherry beer (Kriek) or raspberry beer (frambozen), particularly if it includes those fruits. Or try this fabulous pairing of a frozen milk chocolate and raspberry cake with light, sparkling Brachetto d’Acqui

Orange flavoured liqueurs such as Grand Marnier are also good with anything made from dark chocolate.

Recipe idea: Serve this chocolate and cherry roulade with a Recioto della Valpolicella 

Coffee, toffee and walnut cakes

Good with sweet sherry, Madeira and aged tawny port (a 20 year old is particularly good with coffee cake). Or an Australian liqueur Muscat which would work really well with the cake below

Recipe idea: Try Rosie Sykes delicious Queen Elizabeth Cake.

Photo by Patricia Niven

Coconut cake

Oddly coconut and Champagne have an affinity so that’s worth considering. More conventionally I’d go for a Sauternes or similar sweet Bordeaux. Or maybe try a pina colada!

Recipe idea: Try Rukmini Iyer’s Coconut and Mango Yoghurt Cake with a late harvest sauvignon

See also What wine - and other drinks - to pair with Cheesecake.

Top image ©Patrycja Jadach at unsplash.com