What kind of food should you serve with fine wine?

Most of the time we’re pairing wine and food it’s the food that comes first but for people in the trade it’s more often about what food will flatter the wine. But how do you ensure a successful match?

I went to two top end wine dinners last week which took different approaches to the task. The first a tasting and dinner hosted simultaneously in Brussels, Hamburg and London by the Bureau Interprofessionel des Vins de Bourgogne showcased premier crus, especially Chablis, Meursault and Gevrey-Chambertin.

They decided on a four course menu with effectively two main courses - roast breast of chicken with pearl barley and vegetable risotto to showcase Maison Albert Bichot’s Domaine du Pavillon 2010 Meursault les Charmes and seared rump of lamb with borlotti bean, marrow and confit tomato cassoulet to go with a 2013 Gevrey-Chambertin Clos Prieur from Maison Louis Max.

The first course, which was paired with Nathalie and Gilles Fèvre’s 2010 Chablis Vaulorent was a a dish of very lightly cooked smoked fish with chive and lemon creme fraiche and ‘young leaves and shoots’

Picking out the flavours of the wines

Clearly the thinking had been to come up with pairings based on the flavours that could be found in or which complemented the wines. A trace of smokiness in the Chablis, for example, mirrored that in the fish, the cream offset it and the citrus picked up on the still fresh acidity of the wine. Chicken is invariably a safe bet with chardonnay so they were on solid ground with the Meursault, though the glazed shallot was an imaginative touch which particularly flattered the wine.

Interestingly a similar ingredient appeared in the other dinner, a very glamourous affair hosted in the Berry Bros & Rudd directors’ dining room. Here the caramelized note was provided by the glazed endive that was served in the first course with duck pastrami and crisp little gorgonzola fritters which picked up the rich golden character of the two 2004 burgundies they served, a La Sève du Clos Meursault from Arnaud Ente and a Le Montrachet Grand Cru from Domaine des Comtes Lafon. A particularly bold pairing that could only have come from road-testing the match with the wine or one very similar to it.

Should you save the best wine for the cheese?

Given they had both red burgundy and bordeaux to show off they went for the classic French solution of serving the burgundies - a 1999 Jacques-Frederic Mugnier Chambolle Musigny and a 1999 Gevrey-Chambertin Clos St Jacques from Domaine Armand Rousseau - with the main course (roast saddle of lamb with anchovy, parsley and mint) and the bordeaux with the cheese which I seem to recall, though things were slightly hazy by this stage, were a Rollright, a washed rind cheese made in the style of a Reblochon, a punchy Lincolnshire Poacher and a Shropshire Blue. Personally I found they didn’t really do the wines - a fragile 1945 (NO, that’s not a misprint - 1945!) Clos Fourtet St Emilion and an utterly glorious 1990 Chateau Margaux (for me the wine of the evening) many favours but what do you do? The sort of people who dine at Berry’s (mainly chaps of a certain age, I imagine) no doubt both expect cheese and to drink the best reds in the house with it. Personally I’d rather go with beef or lamb and if I had to serve cheese pick just one but again guests expect a proper cheeseboard, regardless of whether its contents detract from the wine or not. It’s a dilemma.

The burgundies did work beautifully with the lamb however.

Should you serve a sweet wine?

Desserts were also handled differently. Given that burgundy doesn’t produce sweet wine the BIVB didn’t serve anything with the refreshing lemon and honeycomb mousse they picked, which was accompanied by poached fruit, brown sugar meringue and almond brittle. It worked fine - you didn’t really need one - but an alternative might have been to serve a liqueur from the region from someone like Gabriel Boudier.

At Berry Brothers they decided to use the dessert course as a platform to show off a very special port - the Graham’s 90 Very Old Tawny Port that had been specially bottled to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday that happened to be that day (what a treat!). They boldly paired it with a chocolate delice with passion fruit curd and ginger ice cream which worked surprisingly well - it was still extraordinarily vibrant - though the cheese - especially the Shropshire Blue - would have worked too.

Apart from the use of caramelisation, one of the other interesting things I noted was the use of bitter ingredients, particularly in the main course lamb dish at the burgundy dinner which included olives, capers and preserved lemon - all of which tend to heighten the fruit in older wines. Other dishes employed anchovy, cavolo nero and rosemary to similar effect. Care was taken though not to overwhelm any of the dishes with over-flavourful vegetables or intense jus which could have knocked the stuffing out of these spectacular vintages.

Ideally you would have a run-through before a dinner of this kind but with old, rare and possibly priceless wines that might well not be possible. The key thing I think is to make sure the chef and front of house team both try the wines being poured with the food so they can consign it to their palate memories for a future occasion.

(Incidentally a neat trick from Berry Bros. They marked both the menu and the glasses with coloured dots so you could remember, in your befuddled state, which glass was which!)

I attended the dinners as a guest of the BIVB and Berry Bros & Rudd respectively.

Main image credit: Kerstin Riemer from Pixabay

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

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