The best wine matches with salt cod

Salt cod, a popular Good Friday dish in parts of the Mediterranean, is cooked many different ways which suggest different wine pairings.

Bear in mind that like other salty foods it will have the effect of making wines taste sweeter than they are so drier wines with good acidity work best. In general I’d go for a crisp white like a picpoul or an albarino but there are occasions when a red or rosé will work just as well.

Brandade de morue

This southern French salt cod purée works well with crisp dry whites such as Picpoul de Pinet, slightly earthier whites like a white Côtes du Rhône or a dry southern French rosé

Salt cod croquetas or fish cakes

As you’d expect, very good with chilled fino sherry and albarino but more surprisingly also with savagnin from the Jura

Fried salt cod with garlic-pepper sauce

An ice-cold vinho verde, according to Portuguese-American food writer David Leite who has a particularly good collection of salt cod recipes on his website Leite's Culinaria. It might also work with a grüner veltliner as did this salt cod tartare

Portuguese style baked salt cod with cream (bacalhau com natas)

Also often paired with vinho verde but I’d go for a young Douro white with a lick of oak or - less conventionally - with a white rioja.

A robust dish such as a salt cod stew with tomatoes and peppers (ciambotta) can actually take a full-bodied red, especially if it includes chorizo. See this pairing with a super Tuscan and this match with a Languedoc cabernet/merlot blend.

For more wine pairing ideas with salt cod check out Catavino

Image © uckyo - Fotolia.com

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