Pairings | Graves
Best food pairings with sauvignon blanc
Sauvignon blanc is many people’s favourite wine but what type of food pairs with it best?
As with other grape varieties its style varies markedly from one part of the world to the other - from the crisp minerally whites of the Loire to the exuberant gooseberry and passionfruit flavours of sauvignons from New Zealand’s Marlborough region.
Although many are interchangeable so far as food pairings are concerned others suit specific types of dishes and ingredients
Sauvignon blanc food pairing guide
Minerally sauvignon blancs
For instance: Sancerre, Pouilly Fumé and sauvignon blanc from Tasmania
This is the style I’d pair with simple, barely seasoned ingredients such as raw and lightly cooked shellfish like oysters and shell-on prawns, fresh crab and simply grilled fish such as sea bass.
They also go well with dishes that contain raw or barely cooked tomato such as gazpacho, tomato consommé or tomato vinaigrettes and young goats’ cheeses - or salads that contain goats cheese and have an affinity with fresh herbs especially dill
And this style of sauvignon is a good wine match with Japanese dishes such as sushi and sashimi, seafood-based steamed and fried dim sum and smoked salmon, particularly if the smoke is delicate.
Citrussy sauvignon blancs
For instance: unoaked white Bordeaux, sauvignon blanc from the Adelaide Hills and Chilean sauvignon blanc.
I like this more citrussy style with grilled fish , especially oily fish such as sardines and mackerel, big garlicky prawns and chargrilled squid. They also pair well with fried fish like goujons, whitebait and fish and chips and with simply grilled chicken or lamb (without a powerful marinade)
In terms of ethnic cuisines they work well with Greek and Mexican food and other fresh-tasting dishes with avocados, tomatoes, green onions, olives and sharp cheeses like feta (though be careful not to neutralise their character with over-lemony dressings)
They also pair well with cheeses flavoured with garlic and herbs such as Le Roulé and Boursin. And this, in my view, is the best type of sauvignon blanc to drink with globe artichokes.
Aromatic/grassy/’herbaceous’ sauvignon blancs and sauvignon blends
For instance New Zealand sauvignon blanc and wines from cooler regions elsewhere such as South Africa’s Elgin region
I tend to reach for these with salads especially if they contain seafood and/or ‘grassy’ ingredients such as asparagus, pea-shoots, green peppers and herbs.
You can drink them with similar dishes to minerally sauvignon blancs but where the flavours are more pronounced e.g. seafood with south-east Asian flavours such as lime, chilli and coriander or Thai fish cakes. Try them with pea soups and dishes accompanied by pea purées too.
See also The best food matches with New Zealand sauvignon blanc
Oaked sauvignons and sauvignon/semillon blends
For instance: oaked white Bordeaux and fumé blanc styles
You can drink these where you might reach for a chardonnay or straight semillon - with white meats such as chicken or veal especially if accompanied by a creamy sauce or with spring vegetables such as asparagus and peas. Pasta dishes with spring vegetables and buttery or creamy sauces work well too.
They also suit simply grilled or pan-fried salmon, scallops and lightly smoked fish such as smoked eel and trout.
Top image © HLPhoto at fotolia.com
The best wine matches for Comté
After a recent visit to the Jura I've rethought my ideas about which wines make the best wine pairings for Comté cheese.
We were guided through a tasting by flavour analyst Claire Perrot who suggested a couple of matches I wouldn’t have thought of - Champagne and Alsace Pinot Noir. And since then I've been back and tried a couple more (see my update below)
Comté is France’s most popular AOP (Appellation d’Origine Protégée) cheese by a significant margin selling about twice as much as its nearest rival Roquefort.
It’s a cooked pressed Gruyère style cheese which in fact used to be referred to as Gruyère de Comté. Individual wheels vary hugely though I found them in general more caramelly, nuttier and slightly less salty than Gruyère but less fruity than Beaufort though there will obviously be differences between winter and summer cheeses - summer cheeses being fuller-flavoured than winter ones.
The French tend to eat Comté fairly young which makes it an unchallenging partner to a wide range of wines including reds. Once it’s older, nuttier and more intense you may want to veer towards whites or some of the other suggestions below:
Local dry Arbois whites
The classic local terroir-based match. Most of the ones I tasted were a blend of Chardonnay and the local Savagnin grape which gives the wines a nutty, slightly earthy, mineral character which chimes in perfectly with the cheese. I suspect old Muscadet, which I've been tasting recently, would work well too.
Vin Jaune
Arbois’ distinctive sherry-style white is a fantastic match for 12-18 month Comtés. And on that basis so is ...
Dry(ish) sherry
Amontillado and palo cortado being the two wines recommended by the Comté website although since I’ve successfully paired dry oloroso with Gruyère I suspect it would work well with Comté too. (Sherry is more sympathetic to Comté than port, I think.)
Champagne
The big surprise. I tasted a biodynamic Champagne from Lassaigne, les Vignes de Montgueux, which was just delicious with a 15 month old winter Comté. Vintage Champagne I suspect would be fantastic with older Comtés still.
Aged or minerally Chardonnays
On the basis that Arbois wines containing Chardonnay work well others should too, particularly mature Chablis and other mature Chardonnays such as this one from Kistler that struck gold with a 56 month Comté. You wouldn’t want the oak influence to be too pronounced though.
Old white Bordeaux - an 18 year old Domaine de Chevalier Pessac-Léognan was stunning with both 2 and 4 year old Comtés at a tasting I did with affineur Bernard Antony a few years ago.
Alsace Pinot Noir
I really liked a 5 year old 2006 Schueller Pinot Noir with a fresh, milky six month old Comté but the local Poulsard grape works well too
Mature - and immature but not overoaked - Languedoc reds . . .
A surprise perhaps but I’ve drunk Languedoc Syrah - young and old - successfully with youngish Comté.
. . . and mature Spanish reds
I've had striking success with a 9 month old Comté and an 8 year old Navarra red from Chivite. Mature Rioja reservas and gran reservas of course, should work too.
So a number of different possibilities which indicates that Comté is a pretty easy-going cheese which earns its place on a cheeseboard. The common factor in the most successful pairings however seems to be age. Mature wines seem to work particularly well. The wines I’d hesitate to pair with it are high alcohol new world reds with a lot of jammy fruit and intensely herbaceous whites like New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc which I don’t think would work as well. I don’t think rosé does Comté many favours either.
September 2015. On my latest visit to Fort des Rousses I discovered two other really good pairings for a full-flavoured 3 year old Comté Juraflore: a 2002 vin de paille and a MacVin du Jura, a curious blend of savagnin juice and must and brandy which tastes like a cross between a dessert wine, a grappa and a whisky!
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