5 wine and drink pairings for roast pork belly (updated)

Pork belly has become a cheap and popular main course so what should you drink with it? It depends how you cook it. but it doesn’t have to be wine . . .

If it’s roasted you can basically go with the same kind of pairings as you would with any roast pork. For example 

*Medium-dry cider. It may not be the flashiest choice but it’s top of my list. Pork and cider go together like - well, pork and cider. Pear cider (perry) works well too, especially sparkling perry

*India Pale Ale, particularly heavily hopped American IPAs with a touch of sweetness. A brilliant match

*German riesling. Pork belly is quite fatty so the delicious sharpness of a Riesling really cuts through especially when the pork is served with apple or spiced as it is in this recipe. Alsace and Austrian Rieslings work well too

*Beaujolais and other Gamay-based reds. Bright and fruity. Just the job.

*Southern French Grenache-based reds such as Côtes du Rhône work well if you fancy a more full-bodied red.

If pork belly is stir-fried and given more of a sweet and sour treatment like this dish with ginger and plums I’d also go for a riesling  though maybe one from New Zealand or Washington State in the US. Or even a gewürztraminer (ginger works well with gewürz.)

With char siu (Chinese BBQ pork) I’d be more inclined to go for a pinot gris or a fruity red like a light grenache or garnacha.

Image credit: Pixabay

The best wine - and other drinks - to pair with macaroni cheese

The best wine to pair with macaroni cheese, or mac’n’cheese as our friends across the pond have it, depends how fancy - and how cheesy - your mac and cheese is.

With a homely old-fashioned recipe you might just want a simple glass of white wine (in general I prefer white to red) whereas with one made with a fine strong artisan cheddar or with lashings of cream and lobster you might go for something more extravagant.

Here are my top seven picks.

Chardonnay
Probably the safest bet whichever recipe you’re looking at. A light unoaked chardonnay for a simple creamy macaroni cheese, a posh white burgundy if you’re eating a more extravagant one with lobster or crab. Smooth dry Chenin Blanc works on a similar basis.

Dry riesling
Counter-intuitive but good - like crunching into a refreshing apple with your cheese. Here’s why.

St Emilion or one of the St Emilion satellites
Merlot works surprisingly well with macaroni cheese, I’ve found, especially if it contains bacon. It needn’t be Bordeaux, obviously but a young(ish) St Emilion does work well

Dry cider
Particularly good with macaroni cheese and leeks

Beer
A classic English ale like Timothy Taylor Landlord or an American-style brown ale is perfect with a very cheesy macaroni cheese.

Champagne
Really? Yes, especially if there’s truffle involved. (I tried it the other day with Heston Blumenthal’s cauliflower and macaroni cheese with truffle and it was spot on.)

Sancerre or a similar Loire Sauvignon Blanc

Not my usual go-to but great with this crab macaroni cheese from my friend Fiona Sims Boat cookbook.

Macaroni cheese is also often served as a side in a steakhouse but I’d still match the steak rather than the mac’n’cheese

photo ©Stephanie Frey @fotolia.com

What are the best wine pairings for Vacherin Mont d’Or

People occasionally ask me my favourite cheese - an impossible question but Vacherin Mont d’Or is certainly up there in the top 5.

It’s made either side of the Franco/Swiss border under slightly different names* between September and March and is a washed rind cheese with a wonderfully fluid texture. It's always presented in a box with a piece of spruce bark wrapped round it. You can serve it baked when it acquires the consistency of a fondue.

Locally in the Jura it would alway be drunk with one of the local crisp white wines. Top London cheesemonger, Patricia Michelson of La Fromagerie, recommends a vin jaune or a savagnin which is certainly the classic, on-the-spot pairing and fortunately the wines more widely available than they used to be in the UK. Vintage champagne is also an option but not always what one is looking for with cheese which leaves one with aromatic whites.

'A perfectly ripe Vacherin Mont d'Or, oozing with funky fruit aromas, is an extraordinary thing to eat with a 15- to 20-year-old auslese riesling, which by then has developed a singular smoky aroma reminiscent of kerosene' Eric Asimov of the New York Times suggested a while ago. I also very much enjoyed a Vacherin recently with Laurent Miquel's Verité, a top quality viognier from the Languedoc.

Others such as Murray’s Cheese suggest pairing it with an aromatic gewurztraminer and a dry young Alsace or Austrian riesling should be an enjoyable pairing.

Is there any red that will work? I’m not totally convinced but an Hachette book I have, Fromages et Vins, suggests an Alsace Pinot Noir or a minor red burgundy such as Hauts-Côtes-de-Nuits.

Award-winning sommelier Nicolas Clerc recommends serving the cheese with toasted hazelnut bread and adding a julienne of raw cepes "to reach another dimension of pleasure” while the late Sue Style author of Cheese: Slices of Swiss Culture suggested: Serve this delectably runny cheese with good rye or wholewheat bread or allow it to slither gently over small, waxy (or new) potatoes cooked in their skins. You could also serve a selection of fragrant smoked meats and mountain sausages.

In terms of Swiss wines Sue recommended "a Petite Arvine from the Valais (Chanton Weine in Visp make a fine one), not a flétri but a dry one: pale straw, grapefruit/lime blossom with slightly salty finish and enough acidity to cope with the luscious silky texture of the Vacherin. Or, if you prefer red, how about a Pinot Noir from either Valais (Simon Maye, Maurice Zufferey - top names from around Salgesch/Sierre) or from Graubünden (Gantenbein's is most elevated, but there are lots of other fine ones from the village of Bündner Herrschaft near Chur), or a Dole, a blend of Gamay and Pinot Noir from the Valais."

* The Swiss version is called Vacherin Mont d’Or, the French simply Mont d’Or or Vacherin du Haut-Doubs

Photo by slowmotiongli at shutterstock.com

Four favourite wine matches for coq au vin

Coq au vin (chicken in wine) is of course cooked in wine - usually red wine - so does that mean you should pair it with the wine you've used to cook it in?

So far as I can make out the original recipe comes from Burgundy though I’m sure other regions would contest this - and yes, it does make sense to drink the same or a similar wine to the one you use to pour over the chook. I'd recommend a light to medium-bodied red with good acidity.

Red burgundy
The classic match - sometimes the dish is called coq au Chambertin which really would be rather grand. No need to spend that much obviously. Use a minor red burgundy to make the dish and the best one you can afford to drink with it

Other Burgundian-style pinot noirs
Same logic. I would choose one with a bit of acidity though rather than a very fruit-driven one. German spätburgunder, New Zealand or Oregon pinot noir, for example

Serious Beaujolais
Like a Morgon or Moulin-à-Vent as you can see from this post.

A southern Rhône or Languedoc red
This will give a more rustic result but is a) perfectly satisfying and b) quite a bit cheaper than good red burgundy. Own label Côte du Rhône for example is particularly good value to cook with.

If the dish is made with white wine - such as coq au riesling in Alsace - it obviously makes sense to drink white wine rather than red.

If you want to try your hand at an authentic coq au vin here's a recipe from The Balthazar Cookbook.

For other wine pairings with chicken see What wine goes best with chicken - red or white?

Image HLphoto @fotolia.com