Pairings | Quady

The best food and wine pairings for Valentine’s Day

Posted by Fiona Beckett on February 12 2025 at 07:02

If you’re planning a special meal for Valentine’s Day you may be wondering which wine to pair with your menu. I’ve picked some favourite Valentine’s Day foods and suggested some matches that should work well with them.

Asparagus

If served on its own with melted butter or a hollandaise sauce a subtle, creamy white burgundy or chardonnay would be the most seductive choice. If dressed with a vinaigrette or in a salad with seafood I’d go for a crisper white like a Sancerre, Pouilly Fumé or other top quality sauvignon blanc.

Camembert

Camembert baked in its box makes a sexy instant fondue but isn’t the easiest of dishes to pair with wine (even trickier than when it’s served cold). Funnily enough a glass of champagne - or similar style sparkling wine - works surprisingly well or go for a dry white like a Chablis.

What to pair with Camembert

Caviar (or, more likely, a caviar imitation)

Dry champagne. (Vodka is arguably better but not as romantic.)

Chocolate (dark)

There are possibilities with wine (sweet reds like Maury or Quady’s seductive Elysium being good choices - see

www.quadywinery.com) but my own preferred option with dark chocolate is a frozen shot of cherry brandy or other fruit-flavoured spirit or liqueur or a small glass of sloe or damson gin. An orange-flavoured liqueur like Grand Marnier also works well.

Chocolate (white)

An ice-cold raspberry-flavoured wine or liqueur like Southbrook Winery’s Framboise from Canada. Especially if the dessert includes raspberries.

Duck

Pinot Noir. Look to New Zealand and Chile for the best value

Ice cream (vanilla)

Tricky with wine. A toffee or chocolate-flavoured liqueur is your best bet. Very sweet PX sherry can be wonderful poured over it.

Ice cream (chocolate)

Try a coffee-flavoured liqueur like Toussaint or Kahlua.

Lobster

Good white burgundy (or other chardonnay) or vintage champagne.

Wine with lobster: 5 of the best pairings

Oysters

Champagne or Chablis. Not Guinness on Valentine’s Night, I suggest.

Best matches with oysters

Passion fruit

Can be quite sharp so you need a very sweet wine to balance it. A sweet riesling or late harvest semillon or sauvignon blanc will work well. If it’s mixed with a creamy base as in a passion fruit brulée you could drink a sweet (demi-sec) Champagne or other dessert wine. Or a passion fruit flavoured beer. (Yes, such drinks exist! Try Floris from Belgium.)

Prawns/shrimp

If you’re serving a classic prawn cocktail I suggest a dry or off-dry riesling which would also work with an Asian-style stir-fry or salad. A sparkling rosé - including champagne - would be a suitably kitsch all-pink choice.

The best pairings for prawns or shrimp

Smoked salmon

Champagne on this occasion. But see

other possibilities.

Scallops

Made for top white burgundy or other really good chardonnay. Champagne is also spot on if that’s what you’re drinking.

Top wine pairings with scallops

Steak

The best full-bodied red you can afford. Whatever turns your partner on . . .

My 5 top wine and steak pairing tips

Strawberries

If served plain and unadorned, gently sparkling Moscato d’Asti or Asti is lovely or go for the luscious

Fragola liqueur. If they’re served with cream you could serve a classic sweet wine like Sauternes.

My top pairings with strawberries

Image © 9MOT at shutterstock.com

What’s the best wine to drink with Christmas pudding? (Updated)

Posted by Fiona Beckett on December 16 2024 at 08:58

There is an argument that you don’t need anything to drink with the classic Christmas pudding*, especially if you’ve sloshed brandy all over it but if you’re pairing other courses of the Christmas meal you might fancy a small glass of something sweet.

How rich is your pudding?

Which type depends on your pudding. Some are much darker and stickier than others. Basically you’ve got a choice of serving something equally intense or going for a lighter, fresher contrast.

Both options have some potential drawbacks. If you serve a rich sweet wine like a liqueur muscat or an ultra-sweet sherry like a PX you can make an already rich pudding overwhelmingly rich.

On the other hand a lighter dessert wine such as a Sauternes or a sparkling wine like Moscato, can get lost amidst all the rich spicy fruit.

In my view the type of wine that works best is a dessert wine with a touch of orange or apricot. Inexpensive options would be a Spanish Moscatel de Valencia (one of the best value dessert wines around), a Muscat de St Jean de Minervois from Southern France or an orange muscat such as Andrew Quady’s Essencia.

Better still but slightly pricier and harder-to-find would be a Passito di Pantelleria, a glorious marmaladey dessert wine from an island just off Sicily or a Hungarian Tokaji (the latter is also a particularly good match for Stilton and other blue cheeses).

And I recently enjoyed a marsala dolce which brought out all the rich dried fruit flavours in the pudding. A sweet madeira, where the sweetness is balanced by a lovely acidity, would work well too.

All these will work better if you serve your pudding with whipped cream rather than brandy butter which has a strong alcoholic flavour of its own.

If you can’t resist the brandy butter try a 10 or 20 year old tawny port which is slightly less sweet than a ruby port like a Late Bottled Vintage and I think the nutty, treacley flavours work better than brambley ones. Serve it as they do in Portugal, lightly chilled.

If you’re a beer fan you could also put a bottle of barley wine (an extra-strong ale) on the table. A classic example is J W Lees Harvest Ale.

Or serve your pud with a small well-chilled glass of Grand Marnier or other orange-flavoured liqueur.

*For those of you unfamiliar with a British Christmas pudding it’s a steamed pudding full of dried fruits like raisins, currants and figs, often with some citrus peel added.

Photo © Anna_Pustynnikova at shutterstock.com

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