News and views
Pairing oysters with sake and other seafood
Shirley Booth explains the different grades of sake and why it goes so well with oysters and other seafood.
10 things you possibly didn’t know about champagne
We are all familiar with the pop of the cork, the seductive stream of bubbles and the heady sensation as you take your first sip, but how much do you really know about the world’s most romantic drink ?
3 inspirational Indian food books
The British love affair with Indian food is longstanding but these three very personal books take our knowledge to another level. Ishita DasGupta takes a look at them.
Which BBQ book to buy this summer
Barbecue, as you may have observed, has become big business not only in terms of increasingly flashy bits of kit but a whole raft of books telling you how to up your grilling game. I got blogger and instagrammer Dan Vaux-Nobes, aka Essex Eating, to take a look at three of the titles that have been released his summer. Here's his verdict on which to choose.
When to pair red wine with fish
Few people now throw up their hands in horror at the idea of matching red wine with fish. But how many realise just how often you can pair the two?
Introducing Eat This, Drink That
Many of you will have already discovered my new subscription newsletter Eat This, Drink That and might be wondering where the idea came from and how it fits in with Matching Food & Wine.
How Greeks celebrate Easter: the feasting after the fast
No-one who hasn’t experienced a Greek Easter can imagine the scale of the feasting. Wine writer Ted Lelekas tells all about "the most lavish and important meal of the year".
Pairing wine with Chinese cuisine
I’ve written before about pairing wine with Chinese food - and so have some of my contributors but here’s a slightly different way of going about it that may help you decide which bottle to choose and make your pairings more successful. It involves deciding which flavours are predominant in a dish or selection of dishes.
Chinese New Year is a celebration of feasts and family
In this post from the archives food, drink and travel writer Qin Xie explains what the Chinese drink with the most important feast of the year and what goes down well in her own family.
20 Christmas wine pairings to learn by heart
One of the most popular posts I’ve ever written on this site was one called 20 food and wine pairings to learn by heart - an easy reference guide to commit to memory.
What to drink in a heatwave
With temperatures well into the 30's this week it's not a bad idea to cut down on the alcohol. Here's how to make your drinks a little less boozy
Which tea to drink for the Chinese New Year?
Chinese tea on the face of it would seem the perfect drink to welcome in the Chinese New Year but it’s slightly more complicated than that as Lu Zhou and Timothy d’Offay of Postcard Teas explain.
What to drink with a kebab - and it's not lager!
Inspired by the British Kebab awards Zeren Wilson wonders what the perfect wine pairing is for a kebab and comes up with some surprising conclusions.
10 wines I enjoyed in 2019 that I'd like you to try too
Why do we enjoy making (and, hopefully, reading), lists? I guess for some, like the “top-5” obsessed staff at Nick Hornby’s imaginary record store in High Fidelity, the idea of selection and hierarchy has inherent merit. For others, it can be the idea of taxonomies: putting some order into the chaos. Probably for all of us, the opportunity of thinking back to what we have experienced is what makes a landmark special. So, with the New Year approaching, I thought back to the wines that marked 2019 for me.
All you need to know about hangovers
In his latest guest post GP Jonathan Tricker explains why we get hangovers, how to avoid them and how to get over them.
Matching Korean food with wine
A post from the archives, but an excellent one: food and wine writer Marc Millon, author of Flavours of Korea suggests what to pair with your favourite Korean dishes.
10 tips for cold weather drinking
With temperatures falling well below freezing over the coming week it’s a timely reminder that matching drinks is not just about flavour but temperature and alcohol levels too.
Must grouse wine matches be classic?
I’m always in two minds about whether to write about the beginning of the grouse season. After all only a tiny number of people will be sufficiently interested - or well-heeled - to bag the first birds that arrive on restaurant tables this evening.
How to pair beer and food
I was recently asked the question: "What am i looking for when matching beer and food? Do I want a beer with a similar taste or should I be looking for a contrast?"
What sort of wine to buy in a bin end sale: 12 tips to help you bag a bargain
If friends and family have drunk you out of house and home over the holiday you may be looking to top up your stocks at this time of year, especially as many merchants have bin end or clearance sales. But is buying wine that way a good idea?