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Will Studd's tips for matching cheese and wine

Will Studd's tips for matching cheese and wine

Those of you who are lucky enough to live in Oz have the enticing prospect of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival coming up next month - a two week extravaganza of feasts, workshops and tastings with some of the country's top foodies and wine experts.

I thought the rest of you who, like me, are shivering in the Northern hemisphere (will the weather EVER warm up?) might like the chance to vicariously enjoy a couple of the sessions in the 'Perfect Match', a weekend of seminars on food and wine pairing.

First, I put a few questions to cheese expert Will Studd of Cheese Slices who is hosting a wine and cheese seminar with Steve Flamsteed of Giant Steps/Innocent Bystander in the Yarra Valley.

So, Will, what should we be thinking about in wine terms when we're matching cheese?

Cheese and wine matching is all about taste and texture and is usually based on finding a complementary or contrasting balance of flavours and textures. There are no firm rules and you can have a lot fun trying the myriad of possible combinations but the starting point is always to look for similarities of character and strength.

Can you give some examples of the styles of wines that work best with individual cheeses?

Goat’s milk cheeses are extraordinarily versatile in matching with wine. The lingering, creamy flavours of a fresh goat cheese go particularly well with sparkling wines or fresh, crisp whites such as Sauvignon Blanc with a dry finish. Pinot Gris is particularly good with creamy surface-ripened goat cheeses matured under a wrinkled geotrichum rind, while semi-hard and mature goat cheeses are more at home with juicy, fruity reds with soft tannins such as Pinot Noir and Merlot and even robust aged reds.

And some of the ones that don't hit it off so well?

Regrettably countless bottles of expensive red wine are ritually wasted on cheese matching, perhaps because cheese is often served at a time in the meal when red wine is still on the table. This is particularly the case in Australia where red wines often contain a lot of tannin. This astringent substance is a natural enemy to the creamy, lactic flavours of many locally soft surface mould-ripened cheeses and blue mould-ripened cheeses which tend to be high in fat leading to nasty bitter, angular, hollow, metallic or even mousy flavours.

Are there other ingredients/sides you can bring to the party that makes a pairing more likely to work?

Light sourdough bread or crispy baguette are the ideal accompaniments with cheese - bread, wine and cheese are the holy trinity in France.

Apples are great for cleansing the palate when tasting different types of cheese. There's an old adage which says ‘Buy on apples and sell on cheese', the idea being that, while apple cleanses and sharpens the palate, the fatty coating of cheese can easily hide imperfections in wine. By offering potential customers cheese when they were tasting wine, a wine merchant could make the wine seem smoother and richer than it really was.

Surprise me with a match I'd never think would work and tell me why it does

2 year old Cravero Parmigiano Reggiano is a great companion with an Australian sparkling burgundy (not sure you're allowed to call it that these days, Will ;-)

The effervescent sparkling acidity of the wine slices through the fine crumbly texture of this hard cooked cheese emphasising both the condensed caramel sweetness and the heady perfume in the wine.

Will Studd and Steve Flamsteed's The Classic Wine and Cheese is on at 10am-11.15am on Saturday March 9th. Lucky you if you can get there . . .

 

How many calories are there in wine?

How many calories are there in wine?

There’s been a huge focus on calories in the last couple of weeks - whether wine should be labelled with calories and whether we’re counting them the right way. For once I’m inclined to agree with the Department of Health which says it sees little benefit in revising the system according to this recent report in the Guardian.

"The difficulties of implementing a change to the current system of calculating energy content would far outweigh the minor gains in accuracy from such a change and would offer little practical assistance to consumers" a statement says.

However you measure it though there’s no getting away from the fact that wine is calorific - the higher the ABV or alcohol content the more calories a glass will have. Add that to the trend to bigger glasses - 250ml is now routine in many bars and restaurants - and it’s easy to consume way more than you think.

The calorie counters are not particularly helpful on this point giving the calories for a glass of red wine without specifying the ABV and, on one site I spotted, for a 175ml glass of champagne when most glasses only hold 125ml.

The most useful site is drinkaware.co.uk which has a unit calculator to help you work out the content of specific wines some of whom I guess must pay to be featured. The figures are also slightly confusing. A named brand can have a higher calorie content than a generic wine at a particular ABV. That probably reflects the amount of residual sugar left in the wine, an issue I’m trying to clarify with the website.

Here are some examples:

125ml glass of 12% champagne e.g. Bollinger = 95 calories or 1.5 units (which, let's face it, is rather good news)

175ml glass of Dry River Pinot Grigio at 12.5% = 158 calories or 2.2 units

175ml glass of Montana Sauvignon Blanc at 12.9% = 130 calories or 2.3 units

175ml glass of a 14% white = 140 calories or 2.5 units

175ml glass of Campo Viejo Rioja (13%) = 119 calories or 2.3 units

175ml glass of The Boulders Reserve Shiraz (14%) = 175 calories or 2.4 units

175ml glass of 14.5% red = 140 calories or 2.5 units

To rub it in, if you drank 2 ‘standard’ 175ml glasses of a 12% Merlot like Tierra del Rey - in other words just under half a bottle - that would be 319 calories and 4.5 units. If you drank 2 glasses of the Boulders Shiraz that would be 375 calories and 5.2 units. Add a glass of Sauvignon Blanc to that (which many wouldn’t regard as excessive for a night out) and you’d have topped 500 calories - 25% of the recommended daily calorie intake for women.

The message if you're watching your weight is clear: that unless you go for low calorie wines, which are about as appealing as low calorie cheese, we should drink rather less and become more aware of what we're drinking. So I’d be in favour of putting the calories in wine - and other drinks - on back labels. It might do more to address the binge-drinking culture than heavy propaganda about how bad alcohol is for us all.

What do you reckon?

PS I've just discovered there are only 70 calories in a manzanilla sherry though the suggested amount is 50ml rather than the more common 75ml which would make it 105 calories a glass. Still, not a lot compared to some other wines.

Does great wine need to be aged?

Does great wine need to be aged?

It’s been an article of faith as long as I’ve been writing about wine that you need to age the best wines in your cellar. We sniff at consumers who buy and crack open a first growth as unsophisticated but maybe they’re the ones who know best?

The event that prompted this thought was a Chateau d’Yquem lunch at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal this week where we were served the 2011 vintages of their dry white ‘Y’ and Yquem itself. One follower on Twitter dismissed it as ‘embryonic’ but I was bowled over. The 2011 'Y' had a luxuriant taste of white peaches, far more seductive than the tricky, slightly oily 1996 we were served with the main course. And as for the 2011 Yquem (right) - it was like drinking a plate of the most perfectly ripe apricots and tropical fruit. Sheer nectar.

The sip of 2011 Le Pin I tasted from the barrel last November was equally delicious - soft, velvety and caressing. Who is to say that’s ‘too young’? Many of its purchasers will drink it the moment it comes onto the market.

Increasingly I enjoy the bright fruit flavours of exuberant young Rioja rather than the wood-dominated character of many gran reservas, and the ‘live’ character of many young organic and biodynamic reds. Age may bring complexity but not necessarily charm.

And there’s something so pure and pristine about a new release of Loire Sauvignon, Chablis or Grüner Veltliner that inevitably gets lost a couple of years down the line.

True it doesn’t always work. The leanness of a young red burgundy can take years to turn into silky sweetness, tannic young Bordeaux can be very unforgiving, and young riesling challengingly sharp and one-dimensional. But there’s a middle way between age and extreme youth. The off-dry Grosset riesling I flagged up the other day as the perfect match for Sichuan food was fantastic 3 years on.

The truth is that a lot of consumers don’t necessarily want complex flavours, a fact that ‘new world’ producers - redundant description but you know what I mean - have been quicker to latch on to than many of those from the classic wine producing regions. Fellow wine lovers will be familiar with the anxiety about bringing out a treasured old bottle for friends who are not as obsessed about wine as they are in case they find the flavours weird rather than wonderful.

The truth is there’s no right or wrong about it. You should drink your wine when you like depending on your palate, the food, the occasion and your bank balance - the ideal solution being to have a case of the same wine to dip into and enjoy at various moments over the years. Unfortunately in my case - and that of most of you, I suspect - that’s not going to be Yquem . . .

What do you think - should great wines be drunk young or should you hang on to them?

 

 

German wine and Scandi food - natural born partners

German wine and Scandi food - natural born partners

Scandinavian food is becoming increasingly popular but what type of wine should you drink with it? Lucy Bridgers reports on how German wine fares.

With their clean, pure, precise flavours and geographical proximity, German wine and Scandinavian cuisine sounds like an obvious partnership, but until recently, one I hadn’t had the chance to try. That was until earlier this week when I was invited to do just that by Wines of Germany at their Scandinavian supperclub led by cook, food anthropologist and author Signe Johansen of Scandilicious.

We kicked off the evening with some tasty canapés: spiced Norwegian veal and lamb meatballs, mini toast Skagen topped with prawns, caviar and lemon mayonnaise and with goats cheese, pomegranate and vanilla salt. Two Mosel Rieslings and a Pfalz Pinot Noir were served with these: Dr Loosen Urziger Würzgarten Kabinett 2011, Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt Riesling Trocken 2011 and Palataia 2011.

The versatile Von Kesselstatt worked with all the canapés, especially the mini toasts and made a mouthwateringly fresh, zesty aperitif. The Urziger Würzgarten (‘Spice Garden’) was more fleshy, spicy and honeyed which chimed nicely with the sweetness of the prawns. The Palataia Pinot Noir selected to accompany the meatballs was a good match, but lacked the appetizing zip of the Rieslings at this stage of the meal.

The starter of cured salmon with wild dill pollen, Peter’s Yard sourdough crispbread, Scandinavian pickles and horseradish crème fraîche was served with Weingut Winter Riesling Trocken 2009 (Rheinhessen) and Balthasar Ress Hattenheimer Schutzenhaus Riesling Kabinett 2011 (Rheingau). The Rheinhessen, deeply coloured with lush peachy fruit, yet dry, stood up magnificently to the spicy horseradish and pickles and had enough weight on the palate to balance the richly textured sashimi-grade fish (the ABV was a full-strength 13%). In contrast, the lighter and more traditional Rheingau (10% ABV) was overwhelmed by the dish.

The main course, a wintery spread of braised finnbiff (Norwegian venison) with mushrooms and pearled spelt, salt-baked celeriac, beetroot salad with fruit vinegar and seasonal greens was served with two Pinot Noirs, Peter & Peter 2011 (Pfalz) from Zimmermann-Graeff & Muller and Meyer-Näkel Spätburgunder Blauschiefer 2010 (Ahr). Both showed well with the earthy flavours of the dish, but the complex, Burgundian Meyer-Näkel was a more memorable partner than the easy-drinking and juicy Peter & Peter.

After a refreshing palate cleanser of blood orange sorbet, we were served a two-part dessert of rhubarb and almond torte and freshly baked citrus and nutmeg madeleines with Studert Prüm’s Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese 2009 (Mosel) and Schloss Johannisberger Riesling Spätlese 2011 (Rheingau). Neither wine was obviously sweet, but they worked brilliantly with the desserts which were far from sugary themselves. The vibrant, almost tropical Schloss Johannisberger was a particular treat with the torte, its tingling acidity beautifully highlighting the rhubarb.

With such a range of styles now being produced in Germany – drier whites and an increasing proportion of reds – it was fascinating to experience their renewed versatility with food. (Historically in the UK German wines were more highly prized than French).

And, as expected, there is a great synergy between Scandinavian cuisine and German wine. It’s perhaps not surprising that Germany’s most important export markets include Sweden and especially Norway where they are market leaders.

Lucy Bridgers attended the event as guest of Wines of Germany

 

Kate Goodman: the new Jilly Goolden

Kate Goodman: the new Jilly Goolden

The reaction of many people to the news that the new BBC Food & Drink show was to be co-hosted by Kate Goodman would have been Kate who? I confess it was mine.

You might have expected one of the up and coming young wine writers to be standing alongside Michel Roux when the show relaunches next month. Instead it will be a 38 year old wine merchant from Manchester.

So before she goes on air what can we find out about her?

* She's much more down to earth than Jilly Goolden - there’s that friendly northern accent for a start and no flowery language. A Portuguese red is simply described as ‘an elegant red from the Dao region'. No wheelbarrows full of ugli fruit for Kate, clearly.

* She runs her own wine business Reserve Wines in West Didsbury

* According to her website her 'wine heaven' is Côte Rôtie and "the Northern Rhone in general especiall opulent Viogniers and Grenache". And her wine hell is Cava (it'll be interesting to see if she finds one to recommend!)

* Very good news, this: She’s a real enthusiast for food and drink matching - not just wine. Her recommendations include soft drinks and tea too. In the first programme she suggests spiced apple juice and cider with Michel's roast pork and crackling. I'm certainly with her on that. You can read about her philosophy of food and wine matching here

* She’s married to a digital entrepreneur and publisher called Kenny (how do I know this? A bit of detective work on Twitter ;-) And has a 17 month old daughter called Lottie (this I discover from the February issue of BBC Good Food)

Want to catch a glimpse of her? Check out this clip from the BBC Breakfast show or tune into Reservewines YouTube channel to see her in action a couple of years ago. Maybe more Gary Vaynerchuk than Jilly Goolden and just look what happened to him . . .

 

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