Pairings | Roast venison
The best wine pairings with venison (updated)
What is the best wine pairing for venison? An easy answer is the same sort of wine you’d drink with beef, but I’d suggest a few modifications as the two are not quite the same. Three qualities of venison, or cervena as it’s sometimes referred to in New Zealand, particularly distinguish it from beef and should influence your choice of wine match:
- Venison is leaner
- Venison is gamier
- Venison is often combined with stronger flavours (e.g. juniper)
Let’s dive into each of these characteristics and see how they might influence the wine pairing for specific venison dishes.
For a start venison is quite a bit leaner than most beef cuts with a finer texture which tends to favour more elegant red wines such as red burgundy, barolo or mature Bordeaux - certainly when it’s served as a roast or a fillet (see this sensational match) Pinot noir is also particularly good with a venison tartare.
It is also a slightly gamier meat than beef which could lead you towards high end Rhône reds such as Côte Rôtie, Hermitage or Saint Joseph or a Bandol if it’s made into a casserole or venison stew. With more humble venison sausages try a Crozes-Hermitage.
And it tends to be combined with strong flavours like juniper or wild mushrooms which again might lead you in a pinot direction or, as I suggest with this recipe for spiced venison with wild mushroom and truffle sauce with a more vibrant Western Australian cabernet merlot blend (or a younger, fruitier Bordeaux).
I also loved this recent pairing of amarone with a dish of venison and beetroot.
With a rich foie gras accompaniment it might even pair with a shiraz as I discovered to my surprise at a Wine Australia tasting a couple of years ago.
A more off-the-wall pairing, if you’re feeling adventurous, would be a German spätlese riesling which I greatly enjoyed with a dish of rare venison at a restaurant called Zum Krug. (But most people I suspect would prefer a spätburgunder (pinot noir) if they were thinking German wine.)
Image by Natalia Lisovskaya at shutterstock.com
What food to pair with Malbec
Malbec has become so popular it may have become one of your favourite red wines but what are the best kind of dishes to pair with it?
Given most of the bottles we see come from Argentina, steak might seem the obvious answer but there are lots of other dishes it would work with too. In the Cahors region of south-west France for example it might well be paired with a cassoulet.
Generally it’s a full-bodied, generous wine which goes well with meat-based dishes but suits grilled and roasted vegetables too. It can also handle a bit of spice - try it with a chilli con carne or a kebab
Food pairings with malbec
Young, fruity malbecs
*Smoky cured beef
*Beef empanadas
*Charcuterie, especially flavourful terrines
*Chilli con carne
*Spaghetti and meatballs
*Spaghetti bolognese (made British/American-style rather than a classic Italian ragu)
*Pasta with blue cheese sauce and broccoli (as you can see from this Match of the Week)
*Fajitas
*Beef burritos
*Burgers (OK, that’s steak, I know!)
*Medium hot lamb curries like rogan josh
*Kebabs
*Roast or grilled aubergine
*Dishes with beetroot such as a salad of smoked eel, beetroot and horseradish.
Heavyweight malbecs (more expensive, full-bodied malbecs of 14%+)
*Steak, obviously and . . .
*Roast beef or venison
*Barbecued lamb, beef or pork - it particularly suits smokey, chilli-based rubs
*Lamb tagines with prunes
*Beef teppanyaki
*Steak and hot game pies
*Aubergine bakes
*Farmhouse cheddar
*Dark chocolate (a controversial one, this but some people argue that a ripe lush Malbec works well with a chocolate dessert. Not totally convinced myself.)
More rustic styles of malbec such as Cahors and Cot
*7 hour braised leg of lamb
*Lamb shanks
*Braised beef stews or shortribs especially with smoked bacon (Malbec’s also a good wine to add to a stew)
*Pot roast pheasant
*Duck confit
*Cassoulet and other pork and bean dishes
*Flavoursome sausages with garlic e.g. Toulouse sausages
*Cheeseboards (barring lighter cheeses like goats cheese and stinkier ones like Epoisses. As Evan Goldstein points out in his excellent book Daring Pairings, Malbec works surprisingly well with more mellow blues like Barkham Blue or Stilton - though not, I think, with Roquefort)
See also 10 Argentinian wine pairings that don’t involve steak
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