How to host a wine pairing dinner

Ollie Couillaud’s inaugural wine dinner at The Lawn Bistro in Wimbledon, west London yesterday was a masterclass in how to get it right.

First of all he only had four courses. Too many wine dinners these days have multiple small courses, challenging for the kitchen and sommelier, wearying and unsatisfying for the customer (particularly male customers, it has to be said) who want a ‘proper’ meal - and are entitled to have one for the money they’re paying.

Two wines (all burgundies) were served with every course - except the aperitif and the dessert. That gave the presenter, Master Sommelier Gearoid Devaney of Flint Wines something interesting to talk about and the attendees a chance to learn more about this complex and confusing region. They were also from different producers and vintages.

The menu was well chosen. That should go without saying but sometimes the chef’s ego gets in the way of showcasing the wines to best effect.

We kicked off with some clever ‘amuses’ including the most wicked, silky-textured chicken liver parfait I’ve ever eaten which were served with a glass of 2009 Domaine Ballot Millot Bourgogne Blanc from vineyards which border Meursault, showing how impressive basic burgundy can be in the hands of a good producer.

Next a sound choice of seared scallops and black pudding with Granny Smith apple purée and lentil and hazelnut vinaigrette - a great foil for two lovely white burgundies, a 2009 St Aubin 1er Cru Charmois from Domaine Paul Pillot and a 2010 Chassagne-Montrachet from Domaine Moreau. The Moreau was still incredibly young but opened up beautifully in the glass.

The main course of roast squab pigeon with foie gras, Jerusalem artichoke purée, fondant potato and port and orange sauce looked challenging on paper but worked amazingly well with both the 2005 Aloxe-Corton Domaine Lebreuil and 2008 Beaune 1er Cru Les Sizies Domaine Guiton that were served with it, the lighter, more elegant Beaune, surprisingly, having the edge over the richer, earthier Aloxe-Corton.

And the dessert was served simply on its own - a croustade of caramelised apples with vanilla ice cream with a show-stopping crisp pastry cone which covered it like a witch’s hat as it was brought to the table. No accompanying wine as burgundy doesn’t do sweet wines. We didn’t miss it.

The numbers were kept low (25) to give the kitchen a chance to adjust to serving banqueting style rather than the normal restaurant service and the price was a fair £95 for the quality and amount of food and drink that was served.

The guests went away asking when the next dinner would take place. Couillaud clearly has a ready-made fan base for future events.

I attended the dinner as a guest of The Lawn Bistro.

Photo by fauxels

Pairing Pinot Noir and lamb

A report on the fascinating food and wine matching workshop that was held at the International Pinot Noir Celebration in Oregon last month which showed that you can find a pinot pairing for almost any kind of lamb dish.

I was lucky to land on a subject so close to my heart as the seminars at the IPNC are often more technical in nature and this was apparently the first time they’d run one with food.

The tasting was based on four Pinots: a 2004 Domaine de L’Arlot Nuits-St-Georges 1er Cru Clos des Forêts, Pegasus Bay Prima Donna 2006 from Wairapa, New Zealand, a 2007 Dutton Goldfield Freestone Hill from the Russian River Valley in California and another 2007 Pinot Noir, the St Innocent from the Momtazi vineyard in the McMinnville AVA in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

We tasted the wines blind, then, once their identity had been revealed, the winemakers talked about them. We were presented with four different dishes to try with them which had been created by local NW chefs from different cuts of lamb and a suggested list of ‘secondary’ ingredients. These were all cooked dishes but served at (warmish) room temperature.

• The Nuits-St-Georges was paired by Kevin Gibson of EVoE in Portand with a poached sausage made from shoulder of lamb and seasoned with dried persimmon and thyme. This worked really well. The wine was the most mature of the four, delicate, subtle but intense with a fine silky texture and a delicate touch of cooked strawberry fruit: the dish quite classically French in flavour with a slight fattiness that was offset by the wine’s minerality and acidity.

• The Pegasus Bay Prima Donna was also mature for a New Zealand red but still had much more primary fruit than the burgundy and a touch of spice, matched very cleverly by chef Rene Erickson of Boat Street Caf, Seattle with some lean loin of lamb, rubbed with Herbes de Provence and served rare with a plum and preserved lemon relish and some earthy Puy lentils. This was a brilliant touch which brought out all the brightness and complexity of the wine. (Interestingly she said she’d originally thought of using blackberries or tayberries as an accent but found them too similar to the flavours in the wine)

• The third dish, from Jason Stoller-Smith of the Dundee Bistro, was leg of lamb, which I think from my rather scrawled notes had been smoked over Pinot Noir vine cuttings. It was again served rare (but had slightly dried out) and was accented with olives, mint and cherries. In my view it just slightly unbalanced the very lush Dutton Goldfield Pinot, accentuating its sweetness and oak at the expense of its acidity. (Probably the olives and the smoking) It worked better with the Pegasus Bay Pinot.

• The St Innocent Momtazi Pinot - like the burgundy from a biodynamic vineyard - was more evolved and quite funky with what winemaker Mark Vlossak described as a ‘sauvage’ character and a fresh acidity. It made sense pairing it as Cathy Whims of Nostrana in Portland did, with a braised dish of lamb shank and beans cooked with white, wine, olives, toasted cumin and cinnamon but the addition of tomato threw the pairing making the wine taste unexpectedly sweet. It was however lovely with the L’Arlot Nuits-St-Georges.

So the stand-out pairing for me was the Pegasus Bay Pinot and the loin of lamb with its original and fresh-tasting salsa which proves that contrast is sometimes better when you’re pairing than attempting to mimic the flavours in the wine.

I was also struck by the fact that the age and style of the wines was as important as their provenance. As Dan Goldfield of Dutton Goldfield put it “If it’s wild mushroom season you’re not going to be thinking about the current vintage.”

Some of the most interesting insights and tips came from the chat around the pairings and observations from the moderators, Ray Isle of Food & Wine and wine educator Evan Goldstein. For example:

• As you are cooking have a glass of the wine you’re planning to drink beside you. First it makes the process of cooking far more fun but it allows you to make adjustments along the way. Everyone’s palate is different. (Evan Goldstein)
• At table don’t hit the seasoning without tasting the food first. Salt and pepper both accentuate alcohol. (EG)
• Your cooking medium is important. Serving food raw or steaming, boiling or poaching it is not going to have as much impact as grilling or smoking it. (EG)
• Adjust your pairing to the top note in a dish. Acidity is one of the great underrated characteristics of wine and food. (Ray Isle)
• Let one thing be the star. If that’s the wine serve it with something simple. (RI)
• One of the problems in restaurants is that young cooks tend not to drink wine - they drink cocktails and beer and so don’t develop a wine palate. (Cathy Whims)
• Chefs at winemakers dinners tend to dumb down the food (Brian O’Donnell of Belle Pente. That certainly wasn’t true of the lunch we had at his winery which was cooked by the team at Beaker and Flask).
• For winemakers, there may be something in the vineyard that gives you a clue to a pairing. For instance thyme which goes great with rabbit. (Dan Goldfield)
• Pairings are seasonal. If we were doing this tasting in February it would be a very different story. (Jason Stoller Smith)

A really fun session and, for those of you in the trade, a good model for conducting a food and wine tasting.

You may also enjoy these posts: 

• The best food pairings for Pinot Noir
• Top wine pairings for lamb

Photo by Andrei Marina

Organising a wine and seafood pairing dinner

Last night we had a fun five course wine and food matching dinner at Rockfish Grill in Bristol which showed the range of wines you can match with fish. Here’s a few thoughts about how we approached it for those of you who are organising a similar event.

* The kitchen’s priorities are different from those of whoever is chosing wine. The chef wants to create a menu that shows off their signature dishes and make sure his or her team can deliver it. The wine person wants to make sure each course will work with wine. So it’s a compromise. We dropped two dishes - anchoïade on toast and ‘Bismarck’ herring with onion and dill which would have been tough on wine.

* We gave a choice of two wines for most of the courses to provide two contrasting options and allow some feedback from the guests.

* We introduced the guests to some wines they were unlikely to know such as Picpoul de Pinet. That’s the great advantage of a wine dinner - you can experiment in a way you might hesitate to do if you were ordering wine in a restaurant.

* We created two controversial (to some) pairings in the form of red wine with fish and sweet wine with cheese - both well received.

* Most of the discussion about the wines took place at the beginning of the evening. It’s important when people are going out for what can be quite an expensive evening with friends that you leave them time to talk and enjoy the wine and food. You can always go round the tables and discuss the pairings with them individually.

This is the menu that chef Mitch Tonks of Rockfish Grill chose and my pairings:

Razor clams grilled over the fire
Dartmouth crab with salad and mayonnaise
Goujons of lemon sole with tartare sauce
This choice of 3 starters was served with a Picpoul de Pinet 2008 from the Vignerons de Florensac, a simple, very crisp, Muscadet-like white and a contrasting much more complex aged Sauvignon St-Bris vieilles vignes 2006 from Clothilde Davenne. (St-Bris is just next door to the Chablis region) The general feeling was the Picpoul worked best with the goujons and crab, especially the white meat and the Sauvignon with the more robust cooked clams.

Scallops roasted in the shell with white port and garlic
We went for two totally contrasting wines with this course, Mitch’s own Tonnix, a crisp zesty Portuguese white from Quinta de la Rosa and a much richer white burgundy St-Véran Domaine des Deux Roches Burgundy 2007. The St-Véran, the more classic match, overwhelmingly proved the favourite choice but I really liked the fresh, palate-cleansing effect of the Tonnix too.

Cuttlefish braised in Chianti with borlotti beans
This robust seafood stew was a natural for red wine with the typically Italian 2005 Trescone, Lamborghini a blend of Sangiovese, Ciliegiolo and Merlot. providing a refreshing counterpoint to the red wine sauce and mealy beans. Better than any of the whites I thought.

Grilled Monkfish with fennel
A dish that worked with three of the wines: the Trescone because monkfish is a meaty fish and grilling or roasting fish makes it more likely to go with a red (a lot of guests enjoyed this); with the Tonnix (a crisp, citrussy counterpoint but with enough personality to stand up to the grilling) and the St-Véran (white burgundy is great with rich fish and especially with fennel and cream which is almost always a good match with Chardonnay)

Gorgonzola with honey
Most agreed that the sweet wine we served - Domaine la Hilaire Jardin D’Hiver from the Gers in south-west France, a blend Petit & Gros Manseng - worked much better than the Trescone with the cheese - a first experience of the combination for a number of the guests.

Mitch also served a rhubarb and campari trifle which obviously contained its own booze so we didn’t attempt to pair wine with that!

So, a good way to spend an evening with great food and wine and the opportunity to pick up a few tips along the way. Wine dinners can be a lot of fun.

If you’d like me to help your organise or speak at a wine dinner contact me on the enquiry form at the bottom of the page.

You might also like: 

• Top wine pairings with scallops
• The best wine pairings with crab
• The best pairings for prawns or shrimp

Photo by Alex Favali