Match of the week

Wagyu beef sliders and Lanson Extra Age champagne

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on December 8 2014 at 13:53

Steak isn’t the first ingredient you might think of pairing with champagne but if it’s ground wagyu beef, served in a bun with a quality glass of fizz in a glitzy Park Lane restaurant you might just have to force yourself.

Of course it may just have been the feelgood factor that made the marriage work. The restaurant was Wolfgang Puck’s Cut and the sliders one of his signature dishes (served as an amuse rather than a starter or main).

The champagne was also a bit out of the ordinary - an extra-rich bottling Lanson created for the restaurant trade which is blended from older vintages from grand-cru and premier cru vineyards - so in effect a vintage champagne but not from a specific year. There was definitely an umami thing going on with the beef, the cheese and the fizz.

It also went really well with a warm lobster club sandwich reinforcing my conviction which I wrote about a couple of months ago that you should drink great wines with fun food.

Although the Extra Age is mainly focussed at the trade it’s currently on offer in a gift box at Ocado for £44.99, £44.49 if you buy 2 bottles from drinksdirect.co.uk or £51.95 from champagnedirect.co.uk - not at all a bad price for a wine of this quality.

I ate (and obviously drank) at the restaurant as a guest of Lanson

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