Match of the week

Whitebait and Muscadet-sur-Lie

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on July 29 2013 at 07:49

Regulars may have noticed a distinct French bias in my matches of the week and have wondered why this is. The truth is that my husband is an unreconstructed Francophile so French wine is mainly what we drink at home and what we order if we’re out together.

No surprise then that the wine we chose to drink at our local seafood restaurant, Fisher’s in Bristol last night was a Muscadet* and that it proved a sufficiently good pairing to make my match of the week. (There was also a fair bit of rosé drunk in France last week which hit the spot with most of the things we were eating . . .)

Whitebait has quite a strong oily taste so is normally coated with a spicy chilli-spiked batter but this was served conservatively seasoned so needed the lemony sharpness of the Muscadet to give it a kick.

Looking at other possibilities outside France I’d go for Albarino (always good with seafood), Vinho Verde (goes with sardines so why not whitebait?), Austrian Gruner Veltliner, Hunter Valley semillon, verdelho, more minerally sauvignon blancs and almost any kind of crisp, unoaked Italian white.

Only I probably won’t get the chance to try them out ;-)

* We were so tired after travelling all day I forgot to check the producer but Fisher’s website shows the Domaine de la Tourmaline 2010. I suspect it was a more recent vintage. Majestic is selling the 2012 for £6.99 at the moment.

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