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Nigella makes Riesling fly off the shelves!

According to Tesco in the UK, sales of Riesling are up 30% since TV temptress Nigella Lawson used it to make the French classic coq au Riesling - in one programme succeeding in what a generation of wine writers have conspicuously failed to do: to make this grape variety sexy.

The only problem is that its new fans may regard it as a cooking wine to be sloshed merrily into the pan rather than a fine drink in its own right. I hope that Riesling producers will take advantage of the rare opportunity to have their wine in the spotlight to promote its virtues with food.

Apart from chicken dishes such as coq au Riesling, dry and off-dry Rieslings make a great partner for delicately spiced foods such as dim sum and Asian-style salads, smoked fish such as smoked salmon, trout and eel and delicately seasoned seafood such as prawns (shrimp) and crab while sweet or late harvest Rieslings are one of the few wines that I’ve found work well with lemon-flavoured desserts.

If you want to try the recipe that there was all the fuss about you’ll find it here. Nigella doesn’t specify what type of Riesling to use - a dry Alsace Riesling would be traditional but can be pricey so I’d go for one of the new wave of dry German Rieslings myself.

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