Match of the week

Two exciting new pairings for asparagus

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on April 29 2021 at 08:17

I’ve been thinking about the tricky subject of wine with asparagus for long enough to have come up with a number of different pairings but I came across two this week that were really a bit of a revelation.

The first was part of a meal at The Cauldron in St Werbergh’s, Bristol which is running a pop-up outdoor (covered) chef’s table called The Table* at which chef Henry Eldon serves a number of delicious courses from his wood-fired oven. One was a dish of chargrilled Wye Valley asparagus with ‘last year’s’ strawberries’, a fruity note which was perfectly echoed by the fresh tasting Corsican rosé from Domaine Vico TV presenter Andy Clarke had put on the wine list which, in a nice local touch, is sourced entirely from Bristol merchants and importers. The strawberries, which were lightly pickled (I think), created the bridge to the wine that made it particularly successful but dry rosé is pretty nice with asparagus anyway.

The other - also from Corsica - was the 2020 Sartène Blanc, a fabulously fragrant vermentino from Domaine Saparale, part of a line-up of spring and summer wines I tasted with Jason Yapp from Yapp Brothers and which we then again enjoyed with asparagus, this time with extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice and seasalt. Possibly one of the best asparagus pairings I’ve come across, I reckon because, as with the first pairing, the asparagus was served with olive oil rather than butter.

You can buy it from Yapp’s for £18.25 - which is not cheap but well worth it for a really lovely white that I suspect it will only get better over the summer

For other asparagus pairings see also Top wine pairings with asparagus

Unfortunately the Table is booked solid until July but follow them on thecauldronrestaurant on instagram to find out when the next booking period opens

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