Match of the week

Spaghetti with courgettes, basil, smoked almonds and Bordeaux rosé

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on June 24 2021 at 21:32

I was sent a really unusual rosé the other day from biodynamic Bordeaux wine estate Chateau le Puy, their 2019 Rose-Marie.

Unusual because it was deep pink, almost like the traditional clairet, intensely savoury and most of all because it was a whopping 15%. You could have easily drunk it with a rare steak or a rack of lamb.

In the event I had it with something rather lighter - a dish of spaghetti with courgettes, basil smoked almonds and old Winchester cheese at the hotel I was staying at last week, The Sun Inn in Dedham and it went really well with that too - the slight bitterness of the basil and the smokiness of the almonds bringing out the sweetness of the fruit.

I reckon it would also go with a cheeseboard - in fact it’s basically a red masquerading as a rosé as well it might be given that it’s £49 a bottle (from low intervention wines).

Could you pull off the same trick with a cheaper rosé? Of course you could provided it wasn’t too sweet - I wouldn’t go for a pinot noir rosé, for example but the Wine Society has a delicious dry Bordeaux rose, the Château Bel Air Perponcher Réserve 2020 (currently out of stock but hopefully coming back in as I've only just been sent it) which is a rather more modest £9.50 and 12.5%. Or a Bandol rosé which has a bit more character and structure than a typical Provençal rosé.

I ate at the Sun as a guest of the hotel and was sent the Le Puy rosé as a sample.

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