The best wine pairings for mangoes and mango desserts

Mango is often incorporated into drinks but what should you pair with it if you are eating it as a fruit or an ingredient in a savoury dish like a salad?

Mango has a natural affinity with citrus, especially lime which makes riesling a natural go-to for any mango-based salad or dessert. With a dessert like this luscious chilled rice pudding with alphonso and lime syrup from Yotam Ottolenghi I’d serve a late harvest or young auslese Riesling or a citrussy late harvest Sauvignon blanc

New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc with its passionfruit flavours would be a good match for salads which feature mango - as would a Colombard or Colombard-Chardonnay blend with its own tropical fruit flavours.

Richer slghtly sweeter styles of Chardonnay match with savoury mango dishes like this opulent dish of chicken supremes with mango and cream, again from Ottolenghi.

With spicier mango dishes I’d try an off-dry Pinot Gris or, particularly if there was a ginger note*, Gewurztraminer. Come to think of it, a late harvest gewurz would be pretty sensational with a mango dessert too.

* As author and sommelier Francois Chartier points out in his book Tastebuds and Molecules ginger has an affinity with mango and consequently with gewurztraminer.

Image by candoyi from Pixabay

The best wine matches for Manchego, Berkswell and other hard sheep cheeses

Hard sheep cheeses are the winelover’s friend.

Nutty, tangy and savoury, they show off a good red like no other cheese which makes them a great choice if you’ve picked a serious wine with your main course.

You can also pair them with sweet wines, and with sherry and other fortified wines. Here are the pairings I think work best:

Mature Spanish reds especially Rioja and Valdepeñas (the latter comes from the same region as Manchego, La Mancha). Other oak-aged tempranillos too.

Mature Bordeaux

Reds from the south-west of France - an area which specialises in sheep’s cheese - often served with a cherry compote. Madiran, for example. Sweet wines from the same region such as Jurançon and Pacherenc-du-Vic-Bilh also work well

Mature Chianti - especially with aged pecorinos

Sherry, especially dry amontillado, palo cortado and dry oloroso. Aged tawny ports are also good - see this post on Zamorano and 30 y.o. tawny

Aged oaked white rioja - its nuttiness compliments sheep cheese perfectly as you can see here

Orange wines. Maybe not your cup of tea but their quince-like flavours are brilliant with sheep cheese (think membrillo)

Younger, fresher-tasting hard sheep cheeses are good with a crisp dry white such as albarino or vermentino

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The best wine matches for sardines

Freshly caught grilled sardines are a treat at this time of year but how easy is it fo find a wine that will go with them? Look to the French and Portuguese for inspiration!

In the Languedoc, for example ‘sardinades’ - big communal feasts with chargrilled sardines as the centrepiece - are regular features of the holiday season accompanied by the local crisp Picpoul de Pinet.

In northern Portugal, you may be surprised to find they often drink red wine with them - the local dark frothy Vinho Verde - though white Vinho Verde, which also has a slight spritz, may be more to your taste as might its more upmarket manifestation alvarinho - the Portuguese cousin of Spain’s albarino

Other crisp white wines will work equally well - simple sauvignon blancs (especially from Bordeaux or the Loire), Muscadet, the sharp, lemony Basque wine Txacoli and assyrtiko from Greece though I’d personally steer clear of off-dry and aromatic wines such as riesling and pinot gris (sardines will make them taste sweeter) and oaky whites such as chardonnay.

And a good dry Provençal or Portuguese rosé will suit sardines just fine ...

Photograph © anjokan

Which wines pair best with eggs?

Eggs are supposed to be one of the trickiest ingredients to pair with wine but I’ve never entirely got it myself. More to the point do you want to drink wine with eggs at breakfast or even brunch, the time you’re most likely to eat them?

If you do, read on ...

Here I’m talking mainly about dishes where eggs are centre stage rather than the myriad dishes in which they play an essential but supporting role like quiche, meringues and soufflés. For example poached eggs (often with an egg-based sauce like hollandaise), scrambled eggs and omelettes.

Bear in mind that the addition of other ingredients makes a difference - how much depends on whether they overwhelm the essential egginess of the dish. Smoked salmon with scrambled eggs not so much, the peppery sauce of shakshuka a lot.

These are the wines I think pair with eggs best:

Champagne and other sparkling wines

My number one choice both in terms of compatibility and occasion though I’d go for a lighter style rather than a rich toasty one (unless truffles and/or chips are involved as in this sublime dish last year). Chardonnay-based sparkling wines, also known as blanc de blancs are perfect. Personally I think prosecco is a little sweet but up to you. I’d prefer a crémant or cava.

Smooth dry white wines

Think basic white burgundy and other unoaked chardonnays, Alsace pinot blanc, dry chenin blanc and Soave. Those wines would also go with omelettes and frittatas and with that retro (but rather delicious) classic, eggs mornay (eggs with cheese sauce).

What to drink with an omelette or frittata.

With a richer dish such as eggs benedict you could up the oak a bit and go for a more full-bodied chardonnay

The best wine pairings for eggs benedict

Inexpensive claret

Once you introduce meaty elements such as bacon and sausages you might feel more inclined to drink a red. Nothing too fruity, I suggest (think about the combination of raspberries or cherries with eggs. Not so appealing, huh?) but a simple young red Bordeaux works surprisingly well.

Robust southern French or Spanish reds

Good with eggs and chorizo, shakshuka and other dishes where tomatoes, peppers or pimenton are involved.

Red burgundy

Red burgundy works with a very specific dish from the region called oeufs en meurette where the eggs are cooked in a red wine sauce. Not my top choice otherwise.