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

Image © nito - Fotolia.com

Wine (and other) pairings for peaches and nectarines

Being surrounded by peaches and nectarines at the moment has reminded me what a brilliant match they are for a glass of dessert wine. And, surprisingly, even for a red!

Peaches in red wine is a popular Italian dessert that’s easy to replicate with any light fruity red as I pointed out in this match of the week.

With other peach or nectarine puddings your wine choice depends on how sweet your dessert is, whether it’s served hot or cold and what it’s served with (a good dollop of cream always helps). A warm peach pie or a peach cobbler, for instance, needs a sweeter wine than a classic French peach or nectarine tart served at room temperature. But in truth with peaches and nectarines you can’t go far wrong.

Fresh or simply poached peaches or nectarines

Great with a light Moscato d’Asti or a still muscat like a Muscat de Frontignan. Other off-dry sparkling wines such as demi-sec champagne work well too, especially with white peaches

Peach sabayon

Can be served warm or cold and may include some kind of booze which could provide a steer (or do away with the need for an accompanying wine altogether) but Sauternes or other late harvest Sauvignon Blanc is a reasonably safe bet

French style peach or nectarine tart

Frankly any light dessert wine you enjoy - Sauternes, other late harvest sauvignons and semillons, Coteaux du Layon and other Loire dessert wines, late harvest Chenin, South African straw wine, late harvest riesling . . .

Grilled peaches or nectarines

As in this recipe with Greek yoghurt and honey. I’d go for Moscato or muscat again. Possibly even a rosé one.

Peach melba

The raspberry sauce muddles the situation here. You want a sweet wine with a high level of acidity like a late harvest riesling

Peach sorbet

Super-cold, near-frozen peach liqueurs, if anything

Hot peach or nectarine desserts like peach pie, peach cobbler, upside-down cakes or crumbles

Intense late harvest sauvignons like those from New Zealand ought to cope as should a late harvest chardonnay but I’d also consider a chilled peach-flavoured liqueur like Archers or Southern Comfort which tend to handle warm and hot desserts better than wine.

Peaches and nectarines can, of course also be used in savoury dishes, particularly salads, with rich cheeses such as burrata and with ham, pork and duck. With salads I’d be inclined to go for a lush white with some tropical fruit flavours - a Viognier or a Colombard, maybe. With ham and peaches I’d probably drink a rich beer like a saison and with duck and peaches an off-dry pinot gris.

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

Pairing wine and artichokes (updated)

Artichokes are frequently described as a “wine-killer,” but is that reputation deserved? While it’s true that artichokes can make dry white wines taste unexpectedly sweet, the problem is somewhat exaggerated.

As with other ingredients the key to finding a good pairing is looking at how artichokes are prepared and served.

The hardest way is the classic serving of boiled artichokes with a vinaigrette which defeats most wines other than very dry white wines and rosés. (Fino and manzanilla sherry are much better)

But these days artichokes are prepared in many other ways - served raw or grilled, as a pizza topping or with other ingredients such as lamb or Mediterranean vegetables. Which means you can go for wines you might not expect.

Take, for example, the innovative approach of Simi Winery in California. They found that chargrilling artichokes and serving them with garlic mayonnaise made for a perfect match with their Sauvignon Blanc. This technique, along with serving artichokes raw or paired with rare meats, can help mitigate the sweetening effect that artichokes often have on wine. it would also go with this artichoke and preserved lemon dip.

In Venice and across northern Italy, artichokes are often incorporated into creamy risottos, which pair beautifully with wines like Soave or Bianco di Custoza and, further south, with Trebbiano as I discovered from this pairing at a spectacular artichoke dinner at Bocca di Lupo in London. 

Similarly a palate coating ingredient such as olive oil, butter or an egg or butter-based sauce such as hollandaise will make an artichoke-based pairing easier. You basically play to the sauce rather than the artichoke.

If you’re dressing them with an oil-based dressing adding a little finely grated lemon peel seems to help as does wine-friendly grated parmesan or parmesan shavings or even sheep cheese as in this salad of raw artichoke and Berkswell cheese which went with a crisp citrussy white.  I’d serve a similar wine with an artichoke-topped pizza.

Strong dry rosés such as Tavel are also a good match for braised artichokes as are some orange wines as you can see from this pairing with braised cuttlefish and artichokes.

Can you ever pair red wine with artichokes? 

If artichokes and white wine are a tricky pairing, red wine is surely even more so?

Not always! About 12 or so years ago my late husband who was cooking served up that most difficult of dishes - artichokes vinaigrette (boiled artichokes with vinaigrette) and cracked open a bottle of red wine.

I thought he was mad but astonishingly the pairing worked.

The wine was a full-bodied (14%) Bordeaux blend called Quela* from a producer called Klinec in Brda, Slovenia. It was a biodynamic wine, made with indigenous yeasts from organic grapes (Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc) and aged for two years in cherry casks with the minimum of added sulphur (25mg). It had a really bright fruit character (bitter cherry and wild bramble) and must have been totally dry as neither the artichoke or the vinaigrette had any impact on it at all. It just stayed intense and vivid.

Would it work with other wines, other Bordeaux blends? Maybe not younger ones - this bottle was from the 2007 vintage - but if you were serving artichokes with lamb which is common, absolutely!

Maybe natural wines - and Cabernet Franc in particular - are the answer - provided they’re to your taste, of course. 

By the way, for what it’s worth, it was a leaf day!

Anyone else had success with red wine and artichokes?