Match of the week
Langoustine ravioli and Errazuriz Las Pizarras chardonnay
Last Thursday’s dinner to celebrate Decanter’s 2018 Man of the Year, Eduardo Chadwick of Viña Errazuriz was a treat - a line-up of the winery’s very best wines. It was obviously sound thinking to pair two of his top reds, the Don Maximiliano Founder’s Reserve 2014 and Kai 2005 with fillet of beef but I thought the more intriguing match was the first course of langoustine ravioli with their 2015 Las Pizarras chardonnay.
Spinach and ricotta gnudi and Pecorino
“Tender little dumplings, as fragile as a pasta filling” is how Diana Henry describes gnudi in her fabulous new book How to Eat a Peach. (The word, which is pronounced new-dee means naked)
2009 Pessac-Léognan and a cheeseburger
Although I’ve visited posh St James’s wine club 67 Pall Mall several times for tastings I hadn't ever had lunch there until last week. I don’t know quite what I expected - perhaps the sort of roast and overcooked veg you’d find in a gentleman’s club but certainly not a rare burger in an airy brioche bun with perfectly cooked onion rings on the side.
Cauliflower popcorn and a Seedlip and pineapple cocktail
Most pairings focus on alcoholic drinks but it’s equally intriguing to see how a similar synergy can be achieved with an alcohol-free one.
Lamb biryani and grand cru gewurztraminer
Sometimes it’s worth revisiting your prejudices. I’ve never been a huge fan of gewürztraminer with Indian food although it’s an established pairing. It always seems to me slightly jarring, especially with tomato-based curry sauces. But this week I changed my mind.
Steak with an Old Fashioned
Red wine is such an established go to with steak that it’s hard to consider anything else as a pairing but it struck me this week after a few days tasting rum with Philippines producer Don Papa (yes, it’s a hard life … ) that dark rum might also be an interesting match.
Pork and pistachio terrine and old vine Brouilly
This isn’t the first time I’ve remarked how well Beaujolais pairs with a terrine but sometimes it’s worth being reminded what really, really works. And both were particularly good in this case - as indeed you’d expect at one of London’s best wine bars, Noble Rot.
Choucroute and Alsace riesling
I do love a tried and tested terroir-based wine match and there’s nothing better to pair with a dish of choucroute (almost Alsace’s national dish*) than a glass of the local riesling
Hake with cream and anchovy sauce and cava
It’s a pretty safe bet that if you have a wine-based sauce that an accompanying glass of the same type of wine will pair well with it so I was confident of ordering a glass of cava to go with a hake dish cooked with a cream, cava and anchovy sauce last week.
Flying fish cutters and Banks beer
A week without wine might sound like hell for wine lovers but to be honest in Barbados why would you drink anything else? Wine is expensive and there’s not much choice whereas beer is cheap and ubiquitous.
Middle eastern-style lamb with grilled vegetables and a natural red wine
We all know that roast lamb is a great pairing with red wines but the assumption is often that it’s prepared in a classic French way so it was interesting to note over the weekend that if you give it a middle-eastern spin exactly the same applies
Courgette, seed and curry leaf cake and dry German riesling
The more I taste authentic Indian food the less I think it causes problems for wine. A group of us cooked up a whole load of recipes on Saturday night including this savoury cake called handvo from Anjum Anand’s I love India.
My best wine (and other) pairings of 2017
Those of you who visit the site regularly will be aware I post a regular match of the week - the most interesting wine - or other drink - pairing I’ve come across in the past 7 days.
Christmas pudding and cognac
Sometimes the simplest pairings elude you. If you flambé a Christmas pudding with brandy why on earth shouldn’t you drink brandy - or rather cognac - with it too?
Alcester Gold cheese and truffle honey and Sainte-Croix-du-Mont
Despite the fact that white and sweet wines go just as well with cheese as red wine the idea persists that red is the better pairing
Smoked cods roe and Metissage
This week’s pairing is as much about the wine as the dish though the two went exceptionally well together.
Louis Roederer Brut with a truffle cheese toastie
This match last week at 45 Jermyn St had EVERYTHING going for it starting with a decadent toasted cheese sandwich lavishly scattered with grated white truffle. What could be better? Well, actually a glass of very decent champagne (Louis Roederer Brut premier) with it - one of those matches made in heaven where the whole is better than the sum of the parts.
Octopus with orange wine
Orange wines - white wines that are made in a similar way to a red, leaving the juice in contact with the skins - have become increasingly popular in the last couple of years, proving impressively versatile with food.
Saperavi with slow cooked wagyu beef
Continuing the exotic vibe of last week’s pairing the standout combination this week was a Georgian Saperavi with Welsh Wagyu beef!
Margaux and Turkish chicken with walnut sauce
There’s nothing I love more than a surprise when it comes to food and wine pairing and I would not in a million years have predicted that a pukka Bordeaux would go with this exotic Turkish dish.
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