All the world’s major cities have more than their fair share of Italian restaurants, and London – with more than 2,000, according to one recent estimate – is no exception. But over the past 36 years Italian food has had a disproportionate influence on the dining scene here, thanks to one restaurant, The River Café, which opened on the banks of the Thames in Hammersmith in 1987, and placed the same importance on wine as it did on food.

It also spawned a whole generation of entrepreneurial young chefs who adopted the philosophy and set up their own restaurants in the River Café mould. Most notably Jamie Oliver, but also including Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Sam and Sam Clark, Stevie Parle and Theo Randall.

None of them were Italian, and neither were their River Café mentors Ruth Rogers and the late Rose Gray, two women who were just passionate about Italian food. Nor indeed was another ambassador for regional Italian cooking, Angela Hartnett, who came to fame through the Gordon Ramsay stable (but at least has an Italian grandmother). The only Italian to dominate the London scene in quite that way has been Giorgio Locatelli, who opened his eponymous restaurant Locanda Locatelli in 2002.

Wines to match

Maybe it’s because they were outsiders that these chefs appreciated just what simple Italian food had to offer without having the desire to reinvent it. Coincidentally, the wine offering at many of these establishments was moulded by another outsider, Canadian David Gleave MW, who used to work for Italian importer Enotria before setting up his own business Liberty Wines, and who has consistently championed the huge diversity of Italian wines.

These pioneer restaurants were fortunate to have been established when they were. Today’s restaurateurs are no less interested in wine, but are having to operate under far greater constraints, not least the crippling expense of trading in central London. This has led many to focus on just pasta or, even more profitably, pizza, and high-margin cocktails rather than wine. But there are still some real gems with fantastic wine lists out there, so treat yourself at one of the best London Italian restaurants you may not have heard of.

Bocca di Lupo

12 Archer Street, W1D 7BB
Nearest tube: Piccadilly Circus/Leicester Square

Savvy Italophiles cherish the knowledge that there is a small oasis of civilisation in the midst of the West End theatreland madness – Jacob Kenedy’s small convivial restaurant Bocca di Lupo. Kenedy, one of those rare chefs who is genuinely interested in wine, spends time in Italy sourcing bottles for his imaginative, regionally based wine list, picking up ideas for dishes along the way. The seafood risotto I had there recently was inspired by a summer trip to Campania.

Although the compact dining room is cosy, it’s more fun sitting at the bar to watch the kitchen at work and the food going out at the pass. Great for a pre-theatre drink and a snack.

Don’t miss Kenedy’s regularly changing themed menus that make the most of seasonal ingredients such as artichokes and truffles.

Brutto

35-37 Greenhill Rents, EC1M 6BN
Nearest tube: Farringdon/Barbican

Credit: Paul Winch-Furness

A new restaurant from Russell Norman (ex Polpo) is always newsworthy, but this self-consciously kitsch Farringdon trattoria extends his usual territory – beyond the cicchetti bars of Venice – to Florence. It’s a homely menu full of hearty rustic dishes like pappardelle with rabbit and sausages with lentils, accompanied by hearty Tuscan wines (although there is also bistecca alla Fiorentina if you feel like splashing out). No culinary fireworks, no wallet-busting wines, just a really fun place to hang out with friends – though be warned, it can be noisy. Oh, and there’s Chianti in fiaschi (the straw-covered bottles).

Don’t miss Kicking off with one of Norman’s excellent £5 Negroni cocktails.

Eataly

Broadgate Circle, 135 Bishopsgate, EC2M 3YD
Nearest tube: Liverpool Street

If Las Vegas created an Italian deli it would look something like Eataly, a mind-blowingly huge selection of every type of Italian food and drink you can imagine, with walls full of different wines. You will probably be so exhausted going round it you’ll need a pitstop, which is the main reason to eat at one of its three restaurants and bars. These are not, I think it’s fair to say, in the same league as the rest of the restaurants in this line-up. So why am I including Eataly? Because you can buy one of the excellent bottles and take it into a restaurant for a modest corkage fee, and if you stick to salumi, cheese or pizza you could spend a very congenial couple of hours doing your midweek shopping. And it’s an extraordinary experience.

Don’t miss The opportunity to shop for your next dinner party.

Enoteca Turi

87 Pimlico Road, SW1W 8PH
Nearest tube: Sloane Square

Around for more than 30 years, Enoteca Turi only recently moved to its current home in Pimlico – but it fits it like a glove. It’s highly personal and quite charmingly old-fashioned. When I visited, a slightly doddery octogenarian was being escorted to the door on the arm of one of the waiting staff with a cheery ‘See you on Saturday’. The other draw is the quite exceptional wine list, clearly a passion of the owner Giuseppe Turi and something that no restaurant starting from scratch these days could possibly afford. If you were dining alone it would keep you happily engrossed throughout the meal. Traditional dishes like calf’s liver and rabbit in porchetta are also matched with wines on the list.

Don’t miss The chance to dive into some stellar old Barolo wines.

Luca

88 St John Street, EC1M 4EH
Nearest tube: Farringdon/Barbican

An unlikely offshoot of London’s famous Clove Club in Shoreditch, Luca combines a top-end fine-dining restaurant with an exceptionally cosy trat-style bar. With a great list of its own, the restaurant is very focused on wine lovers. Let them know what you want to drink in advance and they’ll make sure it’s perfectly served – or bring along your own bottle for a corkage charge of £35. The food is more Britalian than classic Italian: pretty and light, although pasta is a particularly strong suit. I could eat the celestial crab cacio e pepe every day. Skim through the wine list (which comes on an iPad) for a suitable match. There’s a particularly good selection by the glass.

Don’t miss The addictive Parmesan fries (with a glass of Franciacorta).

Manteca

49-51 Curtain Road, EC2A 3PT
Nearest tube: Old Street

Credit: Anton Rodriguez

One of the leading lights of the new breed of natural wine bars and restaurants but with an Italian twist and the USP of an ‘in house’ salumeria (ask for a seat opposite the slicing machine so you can watch the action). There are also lots of other fashionably on-trend features such as house-made ricotta, home-made sausages and hand-rolled pasta. It’s a very short stroll from Old Street station in the lively Shoreditch/Hoxton area, and the excellent Passione e Vino is almost next door if you want to do a bit of a natural wine crawl. (Manteca also offers more classic wine dinner options, too.)

Don’t miss The house Mortadella.

Murano

20 Queen Street, W1J 5PP
Nearest tube: Green Park

Credit: John Carey

Angela Hartnett has become such a familiar face on our screens that it’s easy to forget she’s also a successful restaurateur. Murano in Mayfair is her original – and most expensive – restaurant, but it’s not in the least bit stuffy and, unusually for an Italian restaurant, offers both vegetarian and vegan menus. For those who don’t want to stick to Italian wine there are plenty of other options, including a significant amount of Burgundy, though by-the-glass is definitely not the way to go here. Dive into the less familiar byways of the list – including a surprisingly large selection of sweet wines – and there are some much more affordable picks.

Don’t miss Hartnett’s pied de mouton mushroom risotto (part of an innovative vegan set lunch).

Theo Randall at the InterContinental

1 Hamilton Place, W1J 7QY
Nearest tube: Hyde Park Corner/Green Park

Credit: Chris Terry

If you don’t fancy schlepping over to the River Café’s somewhat out-of-the way Hammersmith location (or don’t fancy its prices), you could do worse than try its former head chef Theo Randall’s restaurant at the InterContinental on Hyde Park Corner. Hotel restaurants aren’t always the most exciting venues but this is an elegant, quiet, central spot with very accomplished cooking and a more than decent wine list (an advantage of being part of an international hotel chain). The pasta is particularly good, as you’d expect from a River Café alumnus.

Don’t miss The excellent monthly regional menus. The weekend brunches are great value, too.

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The post A taste of Italy in London appeared first on Decanter.

Entering the Bubble Room at J Vineyards & Winery in Sonoma’s Russian River Valley, diners attending the Shifting the Lens dinner encountered a sensory experience different from a traditional wine pairing meal. The table linens were a brightly coloured orange and pink print, colourful flowers floated in water as centrepieces at each table and the wafting aromas of Indian cuisine filled the room. This was a far cry from the usual understated tasting environment expected in the wine industry.

Chef Preeti Mistry is partnering with J for Shifting the Lens, which spotlights diversity through a series of wine-pairing dinners. Mistry paired Indian-inspired dishes with classic Russian River Valley still and sparkling wines from the extensive J portfolio for the event.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for two J Vineyards wines from Brianne Cohen

A new approach to pairings

Chef Preeti Mistry at Shifting the Lens. Credit: Nikki Ritcher

J, founded by Judy Jordan in 1986, was one of the first California producers to make still and sparkling wines. The depth of the J portfolio – which includes over 30 wines – lends itself to experimentation and pairing potential for Shifting the Lens, which launched in 2022 with three chefs.

London-born Mistry grew up in the US. Mistry is Indian and identifies as queer. They are a James Beard Foundation nominee and Top Chef contestant. Mistry trained at Le Cordon Bleu in London and had two acclaimed Bay Area restaurants: Juhu Beach Club and Navi Kitchen. In 2020 Mistry and their wife moved to a cabin in the woods in Guerneville rural Sonoma, where they eventually met the team at J.

Mistry and the J team created the dinner series as a mutual idea and vision. Mistry’s role was to focus on recruiting chefs cooking non-European cuisine who also had a sensibility for social justice and change. Mistry says: ‘We want people who are about something. Who have a distinct point of view and have something to share and bring to the table in these conversations.’

Mistry created a five-course culinary experience that included Indian-inspired dishes and farm-to-table ingredients – two things that are not mutually exclusive. At Mistry’s two Bay Area restaurants, they went to farmers’ markets twice a week, had relationships with multiple farmers, and made most menu items from scratch – all things that epitomise farm-to-table.

True farm-to-table

Credit: Nikki Ritcher

Mistry shares that in an unaired scene for Parts Unknown, filmed at Juhu Beach Club, Anthony Bourdain exclaimed: ‘THIS is the real farm to table’, after meeting one of the service staffers who was also a grower/producer that Preeti sourced from. Mistry continues: ‘There’s this deep assumption that if you’re cooking European cuisine in a nice enough environment, they must use the best (farm-to-table) ingredients. But someone like myself has to shout it from the rooftops to get people to believe the same thing.’

At the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in late January, it was reported that by 2040, 55% of 30-year-olds in the US will identify as multicultural (Census Bureau US). The importance of diversifying who drinks and learns about wine is not lost on Mistry, as the food world is in the same predicament. According to Mistry: ‘The larger dining world hasn’t made itself welcoming or inclusive. You’ll get left behind if you don’t meet the basic expectation of having a more “poly-cultural” outlook with your wine, brand, or experiences.’

In crafting their Shifting the Lens menu, Mistry aimed to create pairings to make you think and to question assumptions. Trial and error reigned in the tasting trials. Mistry and the J team wrote up pairing ideas, and not one made the final menu. ‘My goal is to create an experience where you taste two things together and get to another place. A third place,’ Mistry says.

‘People assume you don’t drink red wine with Indian food,’ comments Mistry. ‘I want to dispel this myth that there are these prescribed rules about what you’re supposed to have with certain cuisines.’

One of the highlights of the dinner was a single-vineyard Pinot Noir paired with an eggplant biryani dish. Mistry felt a structured Pinot Noir could hold up to the myriad of Indian spices in the dish: ‘For me, it’s about adding another dimension to the dish and creating another experience.’

Shifting the Lens – seeing themselves

Mistry reinforces the idea that people want to see themselves. ‘When I grew up in the eighties, I didn’t have high expectations because we literally didn’t exist in the media.’ Millenials and Generation Z expect to see a representation of themselves. ‘I now expect to see the companies I want to champion doing good things. I want to see my values represented and mirrored in some way.’

Next up for Shifting the Lens is a second series of culinary experiences with Mistry and two other chefs. First up in May, chef Tu David Phu, an Oakland-born first-generation Vietnamese-American whose family hails from the island of Phu Quoc, the birthplace of fish sauce in Asia. His family has produced small-batch artisanal Phu Quoc Fish Sauce, considered the Champagne of fish sauces, since 1895.

Chef Ana Castro will join the Shifting the Lens family in September. Ana was raised in Mexico City but resides in New Orleans, where she runs the restaurant Lengua Madre, showcasing Mexican cuisine but with a southern American sensibility.

Two J Vineyards wines to try

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Five classics for red wine with steak

• • Cabernet Sauvignon
  • Malbec
  • Grenache / Shiraz blends
  • Syrah / Shiraz
  • Sangiovese

An evening with a succulent, juicy steak and a delicious bottle of wine is one of life’s great pleasures, at least for meat lovers.

It’s always fun to experiment when it comes to wine and food pairing but here are some go-to styles and things to consider if you’re preparing a special steak dinner.

Red wine with steak

Malbec red wines have become a classic match with steak, largely thanks to the Argentina-led reincarnation of this grape variety on the global wine stage plus also the country’s reputation for high quality beef.

Malbec’s lush dark fruit and natural tannin are considered to match-up well with a good steak in general, but some experts suggest searching for fresher styles.

‘I tend to choose a ‘new wave’ Malbec, one with less oak, fresher fruit and better acidity,’ said South American wine expert and journalist Patricio Tapia, when regional chair for Argentina at the Decanter World Wine Awards.

‘Especially ones coming from places like Altamira and Gualtallary in the Uco Valley, towards the Andes Mountains.’ he added. ‘Always keep in mind that the main task for a glass of wine is to refresh the food.’

Cabernet Sauvignon wines, with their blend of dark fruits, tannin and naturally high acidity, are another classic choice if you’re looking to pour a full-bodied red.

‘A powerful California Cabernet Sauvignon with a grilled steak is pretty hard to beat,’ said wine expert Karen MacNeil in her 10 rules to food and wine pairing.

More options for red wine with steak

‘I’d urge people to look beyond the traditional matches of Malbec or Cabernet Sauvignon with steak,’ Peter Richards MW told Decanter.

‘How about a nice lively Cabernet Franc? Or may even a Carignan, Cinsault or cool-climate Syrah? Even a full-bodied but elegant rosé can work well on a warm day,’ said Richards, who is DWWA regional chair for Chile.

He said he enjoyed red wines that have body and texture but that could also refresh the palate during a steak dinner. ‘The risk with steak is to think big meaty flavours equals big wine.’

Does Pinot Noir go with steak? 

Most Pinot Noir wines tend to sit at the light to medium-bodied end of the spectrum, and its profile is often therefore paired-up with lighter meats.

Yet Pinot Noir’s natural acidity and bright, red berry fruit can work with your steak dinner, depending on the style and the cut.

In general, think about trying this with leaner cuts, such as fillet, cooked rare to medium-rare.

‘I don’t normally think of Pinot Noir as a match for steak, but the best pairing by far, when the meat was cooked rare, was a classically silky, seductive Daniel Rion, Vosne-Romanée 2001,’ wrote food and wine expert Fiona Becket after tasting several fine wines with steak for Decanter magazine back in 2007.

How to cut it: Do you want a wine with ribeye steak or fillet?

‘The easiest way to pair wine with beef is to think about matching the flavour intensity of your wine with your beef,’ said Mark Quick, wine director for Hawksmoor steakhouse restaurants, in this in-depth article on pairing wine with beef.

Consider the fat content in your meat, for example. ‘More fat equals more intense beefy flavour,’ said Quick, speaking to Decanter in December 2020.

In her 2007 article on pairing different cuts, Beckett said a ribeye steak with relatively high fat content worked well with a Côte-Rôtie from the Syrah stronghold of the Northern Rhône, and also a SuperTuscan – ‘both generous, ripe and full-bodied.’

She also recommended riper, more fruit-driven styles of red for steak cooked well-done.

Sauce matters

‘Sauces and sides will also be just as important when it comes to the choice of wine,’said Richards. ‘Creamy sauces like béarnaise can go well with an oakier wine. Syrah can work well with peppercorns.’

White wine with steak

Why not ignore the raised eyebrows and forget the long-established mantra that a steak dinner is no place for white wine?

Discovery is, after all, one of the most exciting things about the wine world. In an article from our archive, Matthieu Longuère MS, of Le Cordon Bleu London, talks about possibilities for pairing white wine with steak and other red meat.

Options range from a mature white Rioja to thinking about how to subtly adapt the meal to suit other styles, such as Pinot Grigio, he wrote.

Wine with steak: Recent reviews by our experts

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One of my very favourite times to be at Borough Market, on the south side of London Bridge, is first thing on a Saturday morning. That’s when the locals come to do their food shopping, armed with empty shopping bags that will be full to bursting when they finally leave the Market gates. It’s a scene replicated at food markets across the country and around the world: shoppers making the choice to swap the relentless beeps of a supermarket checkout for a trader’s big smile and perhaps a bit of banter, too.

At a (Borough) Market stall you can pick up and squeeze or smell the fruits and vegetables; ask the fishmonger what is best that day; seek the butcher’s advice on the different cuts of meat you can see right there in front of you… They’re the conversations where discoveries are made about seasonality, provenance, production and heritage. All things that matter for sustainability, for preserving food traditions, and simply for their sheer deliciousness.

Those values lie at the heart of Borough Market and also the pages of Borough Market: The Knowledge. Its chapters are like every conversation you might have at a market stall: packed with trader knowledge, skills and tips. There’s everything from filleting a fish, to varieties of honey, fixing Martinis and so much more; plus 80-odd recipes that spring out of the knowledge and the glorious seasonal produce with which the market abounds. Because fundamentally our book – like our Market, and like all good markets – is about finding the joy in food.

Loaf-baked whole cheese with girolles recipe

Camembert is just one of many soft cheeses that would work well for this – I’d be just as happy with a Vacherin Mont d’Or or Epoisses. Whatever cheese you choose nestles within a whole loaf and is then baked for tearing and sharing, its flavours layered up with garlic, mushrooms, honey and wine.

Serves 3-4 as a main or 6 as part of a feast

Preparation time 20 minutes

Cooking time 25 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 round baking cheese such as Camembert (about 250g-300g)
• 1 round sourdough or cob loaf
• 1 garlic clove
• 30g butter
• 25g small girolle mushrooms
• 1⁄2 tsp herbes de Provence
• 2 tsp honey
• 50ml white wine or vermouth

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C.
2. Cut the top rind off the cheese. Then cut the top off the loaf and pull out enough of the crumb inside that the cheese can sit comfortably in the loaf.
3. Peel the garlic and cut into slivers. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a low-medium heat. Cook the mushrooms until just softening, then add the garlic slivers and stir in the herbes de Provence. Take off the heat and stir in the honey and the wine. Mix well and season lightly.
4. Sit the loaf on a large piece of foil on a baking tray. Spoon the mushroom mix over the top of the cheese, then spoon the rest of the juices over, allowing some to go over the outside of the bread too. Push at the garlic pieces so they sink into the cheese a little. Wrap loosely in the foil and bake for 20 minutes. Increase the oven temperature to 190°C, open the parcel up just enough to reveal the cheese, and return to the oven for another five minutes to finish off.
5. Cut or tear the loaf into wedges and serve while the cheese is still meltingly hot.

Angela Clutton is a cook, presenter and awarded food writer. Her first book The Vinegar Cupboard (Bloomsbury Absolute, 2019) won several awards, including ‘Debut Cookery Book’ at the Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards 2020. Angela has written for a range of national publications, and broadcasting includes the Channel 5 Inside… series. She presents Borough Market’s Borough Talks podcast series, and is host of the Borough Market Cookbook Club (boroughmarket.org.uk).

Borough Market: The Knowledge by Angela Clutton was published in October 2022 and is available through Amazon UK

The wines to drink with loaf-baked whole cheese with girolles

There will definitely be two views on what to drink with this dish – the white wine with cheese camp, and those who always prefer a red. The fact that the dish has white wine in it might incline you toward the former, and given that the dish contains honey it will have an added touch of sweetness, so I’m tempted by the idea of a Vouvray or Montlouis from the Loire, or an old-vine South African Chenin Blanc. A Chablis with a bit of bottle age would work pretty well, too.

The mushrooms would go with either white or red, but might incline you towards a Pinot Noir; nothing too rarefied, I’d suggest – this is a hearty dish. Maybe something from the Auvergne rather than Burgundy, although I can imagine it being pretty delicious with an Oregon Pinot Noir. The other option would be a cru Beaujolais, maybe from the warmer 2020 vintage than the cooler, lighter, 2021 – and a Côte de Brouilly or Juliénas rather than a Fleurie. Think the rustic rather than the floral side of Beaujolais.

By Fiona Beckett

Wines selected by our Decanter experts

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The post A perfect pairing: Loaf-baked whole cheese with girolles appeared first on Decanter.

Wine with lamb at a glance

Search our expert reviews to find a great wine

Which wine goes well with lamb?

Many reds from the classic grape varieties are wonderful if you’re looking to pair wine with lamb.

We’ve focused on reds below, but white wines can also work with red meat.

When matching wine with lamb it’s important to pay close attention to the cut of meat you’ve acquired, plus how you are going to cook it and serve it.

Below, we’ve looked at the three most popular ways to cook lamb.

Pinot Noir with young lamb – served pink

Lighter, tender lamb meat demands a wine that will not swamp and overpower the delicate flavours and sublime texture. If you do reach for a full-bodied red, you run the risk of ruining your meat.

A fresher style of Pinot Noir from cooler climate regions can combine lovely red berry fruit balanced by earthy notes, fine tannins and good natural acidity.

Those searching for value in Burgundy could look to lesser-known areas on the up.

They include Rully, where the reds have been stepping out of Chardonnay’s shadow, or Fixin at the northern end of the Côte de Nuits, where Charles Curtis MW argues you can still find value. Fresher styles from Givry further south  in the Côte Chalonnaise should also appeal. Some top producers have outposts in these regions.

Beyond Burgundy, you have a wealth of options. This could be a chance to see why German Pinot Noir continues to gain plaudits, or you could look to Oregon in the US.

There are many other Pinot regions to explore, including:

• Yarra Valley or Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, Australia
• Walker Bay in South Africa
• Russian River Valley, Anderson Valley or Santa Barbara County in California
• Willamette Valley in Oregon

Rosé wine with lamb

If you don’t fancy a delicate red, this is your chance to reach for a weighty rosé such as Tavel or Bandol from the south of France.

Don’t believe friends who say rosé wines don’t go with food.

Alternatively, how about upping the tempo with a vintage rosé Champagne? Pink, tender lamb and a top rosé Champagne is something everyone must try once.

Cabernet Sauvignon wine with lamb roast – medium to well done

This is a classic. The meat will be richer in flavour and not quite as tender, so a roast like this can handle a fuller-bodied red wine.

Bordeaux blends are made for roast lamb. The young Cabernet Sauvignon-dominant wines of the Bordeaux Left Bank are brimming with cassis fruit, backed by a splattering of spiciness and – in the best versions – well-judged oak.

You could try a vintage likely to be more approachable at a younger age, such as 2011, 2007 or 2006 perhaps. So-called ‘second wines‘ from recent top vintages are also worth a look.

Great vintages like 2000 or 1996 could also make a memorable occasion, if you’re lucky enough to have them.

A wine like this will take the meat to an extra dimension, and the bolder tannin levels in your glass should also make the lamb meat feel more tender.

Good Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blends can be found across the globe, too, of course.

The regions to look out for are:

• Hawke’s Bay – New Zealand
• California – USA
• Coonawarra & Margaret River – Australia
• Stellenbosch – South Africa
• Argentina and Chile – South America

If you’re not keen on Cab, go for a good Rioja Reserva with some bottle age, or look towards Syrah/Shiraz.

A Northern Rhône Syrah will enhance your roast lamb. Some wines will offer a touch of pepper spice in the glass that can also work beautifully with the texture of the meat.

Châteauneuf-du-Pape or Brunello with shoulder of lamb

If you’re slow roasting a shoulder from an older lamb, you’ll be cooking with a lot more fat content on the meat, which holds and seals in the flavour fantastically.

That pronounced gamey flavour to your roast means that we’re looking for a wine with that great balance of tannin, acidity and a little bottle age to draw out the flavours.

Grenache-based with a few years of bottle age would fit the bill.

This is classic Châteauneuf-du-Pape territory in the Southern Rhône, although you could also look to South Australia’s McLaren Vale or some of the great-value Grenache-Syrah-Mourvèdre (GSM) blends in Languedoc-Roussillon.

If none of these sound appealing, how about Spain’s Ribera del Duero region?

A young-ish Brunello di Montalcino from Tuscany can also offer a lovely mix of bright red fruit, acidity, tannin and herbal notes. Rosso di Montalcino is another great option.

A well-balanced Brunello will have the tannin to soften the meat and enough natural acidity to cut through those extra layers of fat. This can be a truly sumptuous match.

Château d’Issan’s head chef Frédéric Braud shares his deceptively simple recipe for seven-hour roasted leg of lamb, plus his pairing suggestions. 

Once you’ve made your choice, don’t forget to think about the serving temperature of your red wine. 

Best wine with lamb: Recent reviews by Decanter experts

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Pairing wines with Japanese curry

Curry was brought to Japan from the UK in the mid-19th century. Though it started as a military food, in the 20th century curry powder became available in many grocery stores in Japan.

The locals enjoyed curry not only with steamed rice but also with noodles. Gradually, they developed their own methods for preparing these dishes.

In the beginning, they blended curry powder with flour, making a yellowish curry roux, which in most cases wasn’t spicy. Later, the solid blocks of curry roux that we find in shops today were created. The convenience and varied spiciness of these boosted their popularity in ordinary households in Japan and overseas.

The spiciness of the curry roux, the vegetables, seafood or meat used to cook the curry sauce – as well as the choice of toppings – are the key factors to consider when deciding on the perfect wines to pair.

The most common Japanese curry dishes are plain curry roux made from vegetable and pork stocks, seafood curry (curry sauce with seafood chunks inside) and curry
with katsu toppings.

For plain curry, a spicy, fragrant Gewürztraminer is my top choice. Its aromatic, exotic fruits are in good synergy with spicier versions of curry roux too. For seafood curry, the minerality of seafood and the cooking oil (butter or olive oil) match well with a creamy, oaked Burgundian Chardonnay.

If you prefer topping up your curry with crunchy katsu, go for Cabernet Sauvignon-driven reds, especially those from Bordeaux’s Left Bank – well-structured tannin tends to work well with the oiliness of the deep-fried topping, whereas the elegant acidity functions as a palate cleanser.

Credit: Stefen Tan on Unsplash

Soba and udon

Japanese soba and udon are popular noodle dishes, with the umami flavour in the broth or dipping sauce playing a key role in shaping their flavours. Soba noodles are made of buckwheat and are thinner than udon noodles, which are made of wheat. Both varieties can be served hot or cold.

Made using ‘dashi’, the Japanese soup stock extracted from seafood and kombu (dried kelp), the soup and the dipping sauce served with soba and udon usually contain plenty of umami and mineral flavours.

Pinot Noir, especially a classic from Burgundy, is my go-to option for plain soba and udon with no toppings (‘kake’ or ‘mori’). Koshu from Japan could be another good option due to its delicate flavour profile, which matches very well with the umami-rich dashi flavours.

Your toppings of choice can also influence the taste, leading to different pairing options. If you add sweetened fried tofu (‘abura-age’) to make ‘kitsune soba (or udon)’, then the sweetness of abura-age tends to match better with aromatic whites such as Gewürztraminer or Pinot Gris from Alsace, Viognier from the southern Rhône, German Kabinett Riesling or Spanish Albariño.

Mixed tempura (‘kakiage’) is another popular topping for soba and udon. If that is your preference, opt for fino Sherry, which works in perfect harmony with the additional richness and crunchy, nutty flavours of the tempura crust.

You can even choose curry sauce to season your soba or udon – again, aromatic whites would guarantee a good match with its spiciness.

Credit: Masaaki Komori on Unsplash

Ramen

Ramen is thought to have been brought to Japan from China in the middle of the 19th century (the original Chinese name ‘拉麺’ literally means ‘pulled noodles’). However, the soup-infused noodle dish has largely taken influence from Japan and nowadays, almost every region has its own distinctive ramen style.

The flavour of the Ramen broth, therefore, holds the key to the perfect pairings and the four major broths are shio (salt), shoyu (soy sauce), miso (fermented soybean paste)
and tonkotsu (pork bone).

In many cases, dried seafood is used for making the stock for shio ramen. To match well with the saltiness and minerality of the soup, I would go for a crisp Koshu, a nutty fino or an oaked Chardonnay from the Old World, ideally with some lees contact for texture. Consider those from Burgundy, Italy, Spain or Eastern Europe.

With shoyu ramen, the combination of dashi and soy sauce makes the umami flavour sing on your palate – and there is nothing better than choosing an elegant Burgundian Pinot Noir to match.

For miso ramen, my top choices are fino Sherry or again, Burgundian Pinot Noir due to the creamy, yeasty and umami flavours of the miso paste.

The richness and oiliness of tonkotsu ramen would benefit from reds with higher tannin. Therefore a Cabernet blend from the Old World such as those from Bordeaux’s Left Bank, the Languedoc and the rest of Europe should do the trick. Syrah from the Rhône, Tannat from south-west France, Spanish Tempranillo, Italian Nebbiolo or Aglianico are also valid options.

Credit: Mae Mu on Unsplash

Sparkling wines: The all-rounder choice

If you love sparkling wines, then good news – they tend to work with any of the fulfilling rice and noodle dishes mentioned above. The refreshing character of the bubbles helps to moderate any extreme flavours, be it curry spices or oily soup, while refreshing your palate.

You won’t go wrong with Old World offerings such as brut Champagne, Cava, Franciacorta, Prosecco or indeed an English sparkling wine.

Generally speaking, I would always recommend fruit-restrained and mineral Old World wines over fruit-driven wines from the New World to pair with classic Japanese dishes. The delicate Koshu wines from Japan match well with them for the same reason – not only because they share the origin.

Don’t forget to order wine next time and enjoy the harmony between wine and these hearty ‘wa (和)’ style dishes.

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Anyone who has spent time in the Rioja region will be familiar with its main speciality: grilled lamb cooked over an open fire made from vine cuttings. It’s extraordinarily good – the meat is young and tender and harmonises perfectly with the local Tempranillo-based wines.

But although the region’s food is traditionally quite simple, rustic and based on a wealth of good local ingredients, there’s more to it than meat (though the suckling pig is delicious and there is always jamón too). Fish from the coast finds its way into the markets and restaurants, particularly hake, tuna and salt cod – the basis for another trademark speciality, bacalao a la Riojana.

Vegetables and pulses are abundant, and in many cases preserved so you can eat them year-round. Artichokes, asparagus and cardoons are incorporated in a wonderful spring vegetable stew called menestra, often offered as a vegetarian option, although it generally includes ham – which the locals seem to reckon doesn’t count.

There is also a multitude of dried beans that form the basis of the region’s hearty stews or can be served as simple sides with fish such as hake (see recipe below). Although pork fat was traditionally the cooking medium (according to Claudia Roden’s The Food of Spain), olive oil is ubiquitous these days.

The cuisine is also spicier than you might guess from the simply seasoned lamb. Many dishes are flavoured with paprika (pimentón) which comes in both sweet (dulce) and hot (piccante) versions and finds its way into the tasty local chorizo sausages. Riojanos also love to use garlic – there’s scarcely a recipe without it alongside the omnipresent tomato.

Tapas culture is strong here, and most bars offer tapas, including mushrooms (my favourite) – the only dish they serve in Bar Soriano in Logroño (see recipe below).

Sheep’s cheese is the most widely available cheese, though there is a local goat’s cheese called Camerano that’s well worth looking out for if you are visiting the region. But the great thing is that you can easily eat like a Riojano at home. Give it a try!

Hake with garlic chips and white beans

Credit: Louise Haywood-Schiefer

Hake is Spain’s absolutely favourite fish, made extra delicious with a scattering of crisp garlic chips and creamy white beans. Perfect with an oaked white Rioja.

Serves 2

Preparation time 5 minutes

Cooking time 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 3tbsp + 1tsp olive oil
• 5 garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced
• 50ml oaked white Rioja
• 50ml fish or vegetable stock
• 1 handful flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped
• good pinch dried chilli flakes
• 2 x 175g hake fillets
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1⁄2 large jar (600g) Spanish white haricot beans
• 1 sprig thyme

Method

1. Drain the beans and put them in a saucepan with the thyme and 50ml of water.
2. Heat through, stirring until the water is mostly evaporated and the beans are creamy. Keep warm while you cook the fish.
3. Warm 3 tbsp of olive oil in a small frying pan over a moderate heat. Add the sliced garlic cloves and once they begin to colour turn the heat down and cook until golden and crispy, taking care not to burn them. Remove the garlic ‘chips’ from the pan with a slotted spoon and keep warm.
4. Pour the wine into the pan, let it bubble up and then add the stock, parsley, a pinch of sea salt and chilli flakes. Simmer for a couple of minutes then pour into a small bowl.
5. Wipe the pan with a paper towel and add 1 tsp of olive oil. Season the hake fillets lightly with salt and pepper and place each fillet skin side down in the pan. Fry for 3-4 minutes until the skin is crisp and the fish just over half cooked. Turn the fillets and cook on the other side for about 30 seconds to one minute.
6. Place the hake fillets on warm plates. Warm through the sauce and pour it over the hake then scatter with the fried garlic chips. Serve with the white beans.

The wines to pair

Hacienda López de Haro, Blanco 2021

La Rioja Alta, The Society’s Exhibition Reserva, Reserva 2018

White asparagus with tuna and mayonnaise

Credit: Louise Haywood-Schiefer

More of an assembly job than a recipe, making the best use of Spain’s fantastic canned produce.

Serves 4

Preparation time 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 large tin or 2 x 500g jars white asparagus
• 112g tin high-quality tuna (such as Ortiz)
• 100g homemade or shop-bought mayonnaise
• freshly grated lemon rind
• black pepper

Method

1. Arrange the asparagus on four plates. Roughly break up the tuna and spoon over the spears. Put the mayonnaise in a bowl and add enough of the liquid from the asparagus tin to loosen it slightly.
2. Season with black pepper (you shouldn’t need salt) and spoon over the asparagus and tuna. Finish with a little freshly grated lemon rind.

The wines to pair

Luis Cañas, Blanco 2021

CVNE, Viña Real Rosado 2021

Mushroom tapas, Logroño-style

Credit: Louise Haywood-Schiefer

I had a dish like this at Bar Soriano in Logroño’s Calle Laurel, which offers only garlicky mushrooms to eat. You can serve it on a fresh or lightly toasted baguette – I marginally prefer the crunch of the latter. Either way, it sets off a good red Rioja perfectly.

Serves 4

Preparation time 5 minutes

Cooking time 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 225g small chestnut or button mushrooms, wiped, trimmed and thinly sliced
• 2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 20g butter
• 2 heaped tbsp finely chopped parsley
• salt, black pepper and a good pinch of sweet paprika
• 12 thin slices of baguette (about 1.5cm thick)

Method

1. Heat a medium-sized frying pan, add the oil then tip in the mushrooms. Cook without stirring for 2-3 minutes then flip the mushrooms and continue cooking for a couple of minutes.
2. Add the chopped garlic and continue to cook for another 4-5 minutes, until any liquid is absorbed. Add the butter and parsley, heat through and season with salt, pepper and a good pinch of sweet paprika.
3. Take off the heat and set aside while you lightly toast the baguette slices. Pile the mushrooms on top of them and serve immediately.

The wines to pair

Muga, Prado Enea Gran Reserva 2015

Bodegas Palacio, Glorioso Reserva 2017

Smoky lamb chops with patatas bravas

Credit: Louise Haywood-Schiefer

Tapas fans will know that bravas is the name of a spicy sauce, spiked with paprika and commonly served over fried potatoes. My version is based on the one from my local tapas bar, Bar 44 in Bristol. It makes enough for twice this quantity of potatoes but it’s useful to keep in the fridge or freezer. I also like roasting the potatoes rather than frying them, which cuts down on last-minute work and frying smells (fine in a restaurant, less good in a home kitchen).

Serves 4

Preparation time 30 mins

Cooking time 2 hours

Ingredients

• 2-3 lamb cutlets per person
• smoked salt (I like the version from the Cornish Sea Salt Co)
• 800g potatoes (King Edward or similar)
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 1⁄2 tsp salt
• 4 tbsp olive oil

For the bravas sauce

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 large garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced
• 1 large, fresh red chilli, finely sliced
• 1 fresh bay leaf (optional)
• 1 sprig thyme (leaves stripped)
• 1 tsp hot paprika
• 1 tsp sweet paprika
• 1 large Spanish onion, chopped
• 75ml oaked white Rioja
• 1 small jar roasted piquillo peppers, drained (about 175g)
• 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 2-3 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
• salt and black pepper

Method

1. Take the cutlets out of the fridge and leave at room temperature while you prepare the patatas bravas.
2. First make the sauce. Warm the olive oil over a moderate heat and add the sliced garlic, stirring until it begins to turn golden. Add the sliced chilli, cook for one minute, then stir in the bay leaf, thyme and paprika. Add the onion, cover the pan and leave on a low heat for about 20 minutes until the onion is completely soft. Turn up the heat, add the Rioja, bubble up to reduce, then add the piquillo peppers and chopped tomatoes. Turn down the heat and leave to simmer, uncovered, for about 30 minutes.
3. Take off the heat, cool for a couple of minutes, remove the bay leaf, then blitz the sauce in a blender until smooth. Return half the sauce to the pan and set aside until ready to reheat. (Put the rest in a container and refrigerate or freeze).
4. Heat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6.
5. Peel the potatoes and cut into smallish chunks. Put in a saucepan of cold water, bring to the boil and simmer for 5 or 6 minutes. Drain and shake the potatoes in a colander, sift over the flour and salt, then shake again. Put a roasting tin in the oven with 4 tbsp olive oil, heat through for a few minutes then tip in the potatoes. Roast for about 50-60 minutes, turning them from time to time until well browned and crisp.
6. Just before the potatoes are done, fire up the barbecue or heat a ridged grill pan. Rub a little olive oil into the surface of each lamb cutlet and sprinkle with smoked salt. Place the cutlets on the grill and leave for 2-4 minutes depending how thick they are. Turn them over and grill the other side for a minute or two. Remove from the grill and leave on a platter to rest.
7. Transfer the potatoes to a serving plate. Heat through the bravas sauce, pour over the potatoes and sprinkle with chopped parsley. Serve with the cutlets, alongside some allioli (garlic mayonnaise) and a simple green salad.

The wines to pair

Bodegas Lan, Reserva 2016

Sierra Cantabria, Reserva 2015

Photography by Louise Haywood-Schiefer, food styling by Nikki Morgan

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An instant familiarity overtook me when I ate Jamaican food on the island for the first time. Those dishes I savoured so much at home in the UK, and which seemed too infrequent because they depended on successfully sourcing ingredients not sold where we lived in the southwest, were now abundant.

Ackee and saltfish served with three different types of dumpling on the side. Stew pork that was so deeply glossy and satisfying I heard myself making involuntary noises of joy as I ate it. Jerk chicken savoured with a side of roasted breadfruit, eaten as the smell of woodsmoke attached itself to my skin from the pimento wood on jerk pits.

Food is everywhere in Jamaica. Growing in trees, produce sold at the roadside, meals sold in unassuming food shops and in jerk pans on a main street with a huge queue of buyers patiently moving forward. It is written in the island’s DNA, and the food offers a glimpse into the island’s complicated history and every group that has called this island home, from the indigenous Jamaicans to the European imperialists, the West and Central African people enslaved by the Spanish and English through to the Indian and Chinese indentured servants.

Escovitch fried fish with bammy pays homage to the indigenous Taino and the Spanish settlers. Jerk is the ultimate resistance food, honed in the mountains by both the Taino, who had survived the Spanish genocide, and by the Maroons, people from Africa who had escaped enslavement. Ackee arrived in Jamaica on a slave ship, as did the first coffee plants that sparked the now world-famous Blue Mountain coffee. Everyone left their mark.

Tamarind and ginger roast lamb recipe

Tamarind is abundant in Jamaica and, happily, it goes with nearly everything. Here, its tanginess excites the lamb. This is a deliciously sticky dish that is perfect for a lazy Sunday. We cook it so there’s still a bit of bite to the meat, but if you would rather it was pull-apart tender, then cover it in foil for the first two hours of cooking and remove the cover for the rest.

Serves 6-8

Preparation time 5/6 hours or overnight

Cooking time 3 hours

Ingredients 

• 400g tamarind pods, or 2 tbsp tamarind extract
• 2.5cm piece of ginger, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 tbsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground pimento
• leaves from 4 thyme sprigs
• 1⁄2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 2 spring onions, sliced
• 2 tsp sea salt
• 1 lamb shoulder on the bone (1.5-2kg)
• 2 onions, sliced
• sea salt

Method

1. If you’re using tamarind pods, remove the flesh, de-stone them and pick off any strings. Bring these to the boil in a saucepan with 200ml water, then reduce to a simmer, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick. It will take about 12 minutes.
2. In a food processor, blitz all of the ingredients apart from the lamb and sliced onions – but including the tamarind – until they form a paste. Rub the paste all over the lamb, pushing it into any nooks and crannies. Leave to marinate for 4 hours or overnight in the fridge.
3. Remove from the fridge 1 hour before cooking, so the meat can return to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 200°C/390°F/gas 6.
4. Scatter the sliced onions into an ovenproof dish, add a cupful of water and sit the lamb on top. Place the lamb in the oven and immediately reduce the temperature to 150°C/300°F/gas 2. Cook for 3 hours.
5. Remove the lamb from the oven, cover it loosely with foil and then rest for about 20 minutes.

Motherland: A Jamaican Cookbook by Melissa Thompson was published in September 2022 (£26 Bloomsbury)

Melissa Thompson is an award-winning food writer and cook who started a supper club in her front room in 2014 that developed into sell-out food and recipe project @fowlmouthsfood. She is a BBC Good Food columnist, British Library Food Season co-director and writes recipes and articles for a range of publications.

The wines to drink with tamarind and ginger roast lamb

It is generally known that reserva Rioja, Left Bank Bordeaux and Chianti Classico have a natural affinity with lamb. However, the slow-roasted nature of this dish together with sweet-and-sour tamarind and aromatic ginger call for other options. The wine’s profile needs rich fruit to stand up to the intensity of flavours that develop with the cooking method here, and the fatty cut demands enough acidity to cleanse the palate. Italy’s Taurasi and France’s Madiran are excellent choices to meet this mandate.

The meltingly soft texture of the dish negates the need for tannin to soften its fibres, and as such, older vintages of between six to 10 years should do rather nicely. The savoury profile of a wine with this bottle evolution will complement the subtle umami of the tamarind, boosting the dish’s overall appeal. The aromatic ginger and black pepper notes found in Taurasi and Madiran together make for a marriage of spice without the heat that comes from the use of chilli.

by Shayne Jones

Wines selected by our Decanter experts

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For the UK’s third edition of the Star Wine List of the Year Awards, held in partnership with trade title The Buyer, a jury of top sommeliers was brought together to judge over 100 wine lists from restaurants and bars across the UK.

Spanning 12 categories, the winning establishments [see below] were picked by consultant sommelier and wine director at Ten Trinity Square Jan Konetzki, Piotr Petras MS, Ronan Sayburn MS and Ruth Spivey, wine consultant and Star Wine List’s UK Ambassador.

‘In the last two decades things have changed in the UK. Wine is not only the add-on to the fancy meal of the celebrity chef; wine has become the main feature of many restaurants and bars, creating destination places, and a real reason to go somewhere now,’ said Konetzki.

The UK’s wine-focused restaurants, bars and hotels leave wine lovers spoilt for choice when it comes to seeking out great bottles alongside top quality food.

Sayburn, who is also co-chair of the Decanter World Wine Awards, said: ‘Historically the UK hasn’t made a lot of its own wine. Because of that, wine merchants had to travel all over the world, buying wines to bring in. So the UK wine trade has been strong for hundreds of years. That’s reflected in the wine lists you find in UK restaurants nowadays. Sommeliers have the pick of the best of the best.’

Gareth Ferreira MS, beverage director at Core by Clare Smyth, collects the Grand Prix award. Ruth Spivey says of the list: ‘While grand in length, it still feels alive and dynamic. Arguably unimprovable!’ Credit: Thomas Skovsende.

The winners:

About Star Wine List

Started in 2017, Star Wine List is an online guide to the best wine bars and restaurants in 36 countries worldwide, ‘from bistros to fine dining, natural to classical’ according to Star Wine List founder Krister Bengtsson. The Star Wine List Awards were initiated shortly after, as a way to celebrate great wine restaurants, judged by a top sommelier jury. The awards take place in Denmark, Norway, Finland, South Africa, Australia, New York, Germany, Sweden, Singapore and the UK.

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Rías Baixas

My first visit to Galicia a decade ago was on a wine trip. Or so I had been led to believe. The invitation had come from the Rías Baixas regional consejo, after all, and, as I leafed through the schedule over breakfast on my first day, I found a list of producers’ addresses that, put together, charted a mazy course around the fjords, estuaries and wide beaches of the home of Albariño.

But the first stop of the week was not a winery or a vineyard or a tasting room. Our hosts had instead decided to collect us from our hotel in the centre of the estuary town of Pontevedra and take us on a short stroll to the Lérez river waterfront to visit the Mercado de Abastos local central market.

It’s a pleasant if scarcely spectacular building, a large, light and airy two-storey construction of columns and arches in the local granite stone entirely rebuilt in the early 2000s. But once we’d stepped inside we soon grasped that our hosts’ reason for bringing us there wasn’t to admire the architecture. If your mission was to get people to understand why the great modern white wines of Rías Baixas taste and feel the way they do, here was a significant, overwhelmingly sensual part of the explanation. Stall after stall piled up with the fruits of the Atlantic ocean that crashes into Galicia’s 1,000km-plus of craggy coastline, a parade of creatures from every corner of Jules Verne’s imagination, the air dense and damp with iodine, salt and the melodious calls of the stallholders.

If Galicia’s costa del marisco (seafood coast), is a seafood-lover’s spiritual retreat, then the region’s markets are its churches, places where you can marvel at and worship the marine abundance. Hake, tuna, mackerel and octopus brought from the ocean to Europe’s largest fishing port in Vigo; crabs, mussels, scallops, and – most distinctive and challenging of all – the livid red, intensely iodine-flavoured percebes barnacles foraged by divers who scrape them from the rocks in wave-lashed rocky coves.

And as I soon discovered, the Albariño-based white wines that are the essence of the Rías Baixas DO are the very definition of a ‘grows together goes together’ match. No matter how succulently fruity or ripe they may be, the best wines have a distinct saline-mineral feel to go with the flowers and the fresh stone and citrus fruit. These are wines that are born to be drunk with the region’s local seafood, whether served simply without adornment, or in a dish such as pulpo gallego. The carefully and slowly simmered octopus doused in olive oil and paprika, served on a layer of potato, is a Galician original that’s now widely adopted as a Spanish tapas classic.

Pulpo Gallego (Galicia)

Credit: www.pqpictures.co.uk / Alamy Stock Photo

Ingredients

1 octopus (2kg), cleaned and ready
1kg potatoes, cleaned and halved
sea salt
Pimentón de La Vera (smoked)
good olive oil

Method

Slowly simmer the octopus in a large pan of water for up to 40 minutes until tender. Let the octopus rest in the pan for 15 minutes, then remove and leave to wait in a bowl. Using the same water, boil the potatoes for 15 minutes. Strain, remove the skins, slice and arrange on a serving plate or wooden platter. Cut the tentacles into roughly 1cm pieces and arrange in a layer on top of the sliced potatoes. Sprinkle with pimentón and salt, then drizzle with plenty of olive oil. Serve with crusty bread.

The wine: Alberto Nanclares, Dandelion Albariño, Rías Baixas, Galicia 2020

Castilla y León

Travel east from Galicia’s coast and you move towards its border with the extensive inland region of Castilla y León. Galicia itself isn’t all about the fruits of the sea – the province is home to Spanish gastronomic specialities such as padrón peppers, the soft and tangy Tetilla cheese and the meat of indigenous cattle (Rubia Gallega) and Celtic pigs.

As you continue east, the distinct vinous and gastronomic cultures of Galicia and Castilla y León meet in Bierzo, a DO that lies just inside the Castilla y León region. Split between the granite and slate mountainous Bierzo Alta and the flatlands of Bierzo Bajo, in terms of wine this is Mencía country – the same red grape that predominates back on the other side of the border in the inland Galician DO of Ribeira Sacra. These bright, fragrant reds – such as Raúl Pérez’s Ultreia Saint Jacques Mencía, Bierzo (2020, £15.95 Vin Cognito) – are perfect for drinking with the kind of hearty soups, broths and stews found in both inland Galicia and León. These are filling, warming combinations of cabbage, potatoes, pork, sausages and black pudding, with the chickpeas that – along with beans and lentils – characterise the cuisine of Spain’s interior Meseta. They’re a particular feature in the caldos and cocidos dishes of León.

Heading south into the Meseta, the vast high-altitude plain that extends across central Spain, you begin to grasp the single most significant influence on the food and wine culture of Castilla y León. Namely: water, or rather, its relative absence. Pulses, like vines, are one of the few crops that can cope with the low rainfall in a terrain whose bleached earthy colours and dazzling skies stand in contrast to the variations on a theme of green in Galicia. This is a place, too, for roaming livestock: cattle, sheep and, in the vast dehesa or holm oak forests, pigs foraging for acorns and mushrooms.

Different iterations of the red wines of Ribera del Duero, made from Tinto Fino (the local name for Tempranillo) are primed for drinking with the local animal produce. A youthful ‘jovén’ wine, such as Quinta Milú’s (2021, £16.50-£17.40 Bottle Apostle, Forest Wines, Seven Cellars), with minimal oak influence and bountiful succulent mulberry fruit, is best enjoyed with a slice or five of sweet, melting jamón Iberico. A wine with a little more density, time in oak and heft, but maintaining that quintessential Ribera high-plain freshness, is the perfect match for chuletas – lamb chops cooked over a smoky fire made of vine cuttings. While a glass of golden, mouthfilling Albillo Mayor white such as Valduero’s Ribera del Duero Blanco (2020, £25 Wine Raks) is ideal to match with the salty and almost toffee-sweet hard local sheep’s cheese Zamorano.

There’s a deceptive simplicity to my own favourite Castilla y León eating experiences. Back home in England, for example, I often try to recreate the heavenly combination of the local morcilla black pudding, plump with rice and sweet with onion and spice, roasted whole or fried with a few squares of the juice-absorbing, focaccia-like torta de Aranda bread and served with a fried egg. It’s never quite the same. But a glass of something like Pago de los Capellanes’ lustrous crianza certainly helps foster the illusion of being there.

Morcilla de Burgos con huevos (Castilla y León)

Ingredients

1 Morcilla de Burgos (black pudding) cut into 2cm-thick slices
6 large free-range eggs
2-3 tbsp of milk or cream
knob of butter
1 tbsp olive oil

Method

Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the morcilla for a couple of minutes each side. Remove and set aside. In the same pan, melt the butter and the beaten eggs and milk. Carefully stir the eggs until thick and silky. Serve with the morcilla and toast of your choice.

The wine: Pago de los Capellanes, Crianza, Ribera del Duero 2020

Basque Country

The Basque Country’s 21st-century emergence as an essential stop on the Airbnb and easyJet circuit means that tens of thousands of British mini-breakers are now familiar with one of the true joys of gastronomic Spain: the slow, leisurely crawl around the dozens of pintxos bars that line the streets in the old towns of the region’s two main cities, Bilbao and San Sebastián.

What can seem, initially, like a rather simple and humble idea – a set of more or less elaborate bite-sized appetisers – is in fact, a site of all- neurons-firing culinary creativity. Classics include toothpick-skewers of green chilli, green olives and anchovies; cod or hake cheeks; Txangurro spider crab tartlets; chipolata-sized spicy-smoky cured txistorra sausages… The list approximates the infinite, and each bar has its own specialities, its own takes on new and old. Favourite spots of mine include the always-bustling Bodega Donostiarra in San Sebastián and the wonderfully old-school La Viña del Ensanche in Bilbao.

But pintxos culture is only a part of what makes the Basque Country such a draw for food lovers: Euskadi, to use the Basque language name for the region, was one of the original engines of the post-Franco new Spanish cooking, and it remains at the forefront of alta cocina. The region has the highest concentration of Michelin-starred restaurants per head in the world, with 33 stars spread across 23 restaurants, as well as three establishments – Asador Etxebarri (6th), Elkano (16th) and Mugaritz (21st) – in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2022 list.

But even the less rarefied, more everyday food is taken seriously here. There is a love of (and quality of) fish and seafood to rival Galicia. There are some world-class cheeses, notably the hard, sharp but creamy Idiazabal made from unpasteurised Latxa or Carranzana sheep’s milk. And there are the gloriously glossy black Tolosa beans, a luxurious base for a bean and pork rib stew.

The region’s winemakers never lose sight of their products’ role as a partner for food, whether it’s considered part of high culture or low. The red wines of the Basque corner of Rioja, Rioja Alavesa, are the natural partner for meaty dishes (you can read more about them, and the foods you might drink with them, in our Rioja guide with next month’s issue). But it’s Txakoli, the pin-sharp, prickly dry white wine, that is the wine of the pintxos bar and the seafood lunch – often served in stubby glass beakers, its function is to provide a burst of lemon-like acidity and bite to wash down the succession of delicacies. A new wave of producers, such as Astobiza (2021, £15.95 Thorne Wines), Bengoetxe (2020, £18.50 The Sourcing Table) and Gorka Izagirre (2021, £13.95 Slurp), is taking the style in new, more minerally, concentrated directions, without losing sight of the style’s traditional role.

La Gilda pintxo (Basque Country)

Ingredients

32 pitted green olives, such as Manzanilla
16 anchovies in oil (from a tin, such as the great Spanish brand Ortiz)
32 guindilla peppers
some cocktail sticks

Method

An extremely quick and easy route to an authentic Basque pintxo! I like to simply slide the ingredients on cocktail sticks in the following order: 1 green olive, 1 folded half of an anchovy fillet, 1 pepper, 1 olive, the remaining anchovy, 1 pepper. Repeat until you have 16 skewers.

The wine: Hiruzta, Hondarribia Txakoli, Getariako Txakolina, Basque Country 2021

Catalonia

Like the Basque Country to its west, Catalonia has developed a justified reputation for being one of the world’s centres of fine dining. Its two most famous restaurants of recent times – Ferran Adrià’s El Bulli (which closed its doors in 2011) and the Roca brothers’ El Celler de Can Roca (still very much going strong) – have both been named the World’s Best Restaurant on numerous occasions. And the number three restaurant in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2022 list, Barcelona’s Michelin two-star Disfrutar, has three former El Bulli chefs, Oriol Castro, Mateu Casañas and Eduard Xatruch, helping to keep the Catalan avant-garde flame burning. Delectably surreal dishes on the occasion I visited pre-pandemic included crispy egg yolk with mushroom gelatine and instant smoked cider.

The Catalan culinary avant garde has left its traces on the region’s wines, too. El Celler de Can Roca sommelier Josep Roca is an influential figure – and the World’s Best Sommelier according to the 2022 50 Best awards – while former El Bulli head sommeliers Ferran Centelles and David Seijas Vila have become a widely respected writer and judge (Centelles) and winemaker (Seijas). The Gallina de Piel wine brand made by Seijas includes a stylish Penedès white, Ikigall (2021, £14-£15 Alexander Hadleigh, Butlers Wine Cellar, NY Wines, Vino Gusto) and a polished Cariñena-Garnacha red from the Costa Brava DO Empordà, Roca del Crit (2019, £22.65 Alexander Hadleigh).

The cocina de vanguardia certainly remains a source of pride in the region, with its proponents given rock star status by the local media. However, Catalan cuisine remains deeply tied to traditions and seasonal produce. Mushroom hunting is a big deal in autumnal forests; so, too, the veneration of a specific ingredient’s moment in the growing season. The humble calçot – a member of the onion family that is somewhere between a leek and a large spring onion – is celebrated, for example, with an outbreak of late-winter barbecue parties, or calçotadas. The calçots are roasted on open fires and eaten with a romesco-like sauce of roast peppers, nuts, garlic, vinegar, bread and olive oil – all accompanied, naturally, at those I’ve been lucky enough to go to, with plentiful Cava.

Catalan cooks of all persuasions are also inclined to take full advantage of the region’s very varied conditions. The proximity of both the Med and the Pyrenees gives rise to the concept of mar i muntanya (sea and mountain) dishes, such as pollastre amb llagosta (chicken with langoustine). To my mind, this richly flavoured combination works best with a chilled bottle of a super- succulent, lightly tannined, youthful Garnacha such as El Garbi…

Romesco sauce (Catalonia)

Credit: Julia Bogdanova / Alamy Stock Photo

From Claudia Roden’s The Food of Spain

Ingredients

2 dried ñora peppers
1⁄2 head of garlic in its skin
6 tomatoes (about 500g)
60g blanched almonds or hazelnuts, or 30g each
2-3 tsp red or white wine vinegar
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
salt

Method

Soak the peppers in boiling water for 30 minutes to an hour. Grill the garlic for 15 minutes and tomatoes for 25 minutes, allow to cool, then peel and place in a bowl. Toast the nuts in a frying pan until lightly coloured. Blend the cooked ingredients in a food processor; finally add vinegar, oil and salt.

The wine: El Garbi Tinto, Terra Alta, Catalonia 2020

Valencia

The historic influence of the Arab world is always palpable in southeast Spain. One of the defining features of the landscape, the orange grove, was a 7th-century Moorish import which spread from Córdoba and Granada up the coast to Valencia during the centuries of Moorish rule. And the quintessentially Arabic confectionery combination of honey, ground almonds and egg whites is at the root of arguably Spain’s most famous sweet treat, turrón nougat, which originated in the town of Jijona/Xixona near Alicante.

Did the Arabs bring what is still perhaps the Valencia region’s best-known grape variety, Muscat, or Moscatel, to the area too? One of the theories of Muscat’s origins is that it came from the area around the city in Oman with which it shares its name. Maybe there’s a whiff of the apocryphal about this story that’s every bit as powerful as the classic Muscat fragrance. But what’s undeniable is the ability of the lusciously citrussy local sweet wines, Moscatel de Valencia, to make a sublime match with a piece of brittle IGP Turrón de Jijona or the array of orange-based cakes and desserts, from orange-infused flans to the light airy sponge of a Valencian orange cake.

Dry Muscat, of which there is an increasing and increasingly refined number, is better suited to dishes made from an ingredient that is yet another Moorish legacy. It was the Arabs who converted the coastal marshlands into rice fields, and, as the great food writer Claudia Roden points out in her indispensable The Food of Spain (Penguin, 2012): ‘Valencia has the widest repertoire of rice dishes in Spain – paella was born here.’ So, too, the variation on paella, fideuà, in which short, thin noodles take on the role of rice. Both fideuà and a classic paella with chicken, rabbit, stock, paprika and saffron are brilliant with the kind of amphora-aged and skin-contact whites that have emerged in the region. Look for producers such as the great Pablo Calatayud of Celler del Roure in Valencia or Pepe Mendoza in Alicante.

Coca de llanda Valenciana (Valencia)

Ingredients

500g flour
500g sugar, plus a little for sprinkling
3 eggs
500ml milk
250ml mild olive oil
16g baking soda
zest of two lemons (depending whether you want more or less lemon flavour)
cinnamon
rectangular mould (40×27cm)

Method

Combine the eggs and sugar in a bowl, then slowly add the oil, followed by the milk and lemon zest and finally the flour. Mix well and add the baking soda. Pour into a baking parchment-lined tin, and sprinkle with the remaining sugar and cinnamon. Bake in the centre of a preheated oven at 200°C for 30 minutes.

The wine: Pepe Mendoza, Pureza Moscatel, Alicante 2021 

Andalucía

Sherry, the emblematic wine of Andalucía, is an ideal aperitif – particularly in its driest and lightest forms, fino and manzanilla. In fact, it’s so refreshing, mouthwatering and appetite-whetting that it’s easy to understand why it can get overlooked as a wine to drink with food. A few days in Jerez or Sanlúcar de Barrameda is a good way to remind ourselves what we’re missing if we confine our Sherry consumption to the moment before the meal.

Those lighter styles – notably manzanilla with its discernible salty tang from ageing in the cellars in estuarine Sanlúcar – work particularly well with the remarkable array of fish and seafood dishes you find in a region where Atlantic meets Mediterranean. For someone raised, like me, on fish and chips, the deep-fried medleys of chunks of red mullet, anchovies, squid, hake and prawns served up at freidurias and tapas bars are pretty much irresistible when I visit this corner of the peninsula. Incidentally, back home I’ve taken to having a glass of manzanilla with my fish and chips, too.

Fino and manzanilla also have an affinity with the traditional cold soups of the Andalucía region. The vividly refreshing mix of peppers, tomatoes, Sherry vinegar, olive oil and bread that is gazpacho; and the Moorish mix of almonds, bread, garlic and Sherry vinegar of ajo blanco. To go with another speciality – the exquisite jámon Iberico produced from pigs reared in the oak forests in the Sierra Nevada and Sierra de Aracena mountains – I prefer a richer, glossier, but savoury dry oloroso or amontillado, styles whose abundance of umami notes make them the perfect partner with unctuous, rich slow-braised oxtail or rabo de toro.

Sherry is as much ingredient as accompaniment. The glass of molasses-like Pedro Ximénez poured over ice cream made simply from cream, eggs and sugar. The kidneys sautéed with garlic, onions and dry oloroso for riñones al Jerez. The almejas clams steamed with fino and jámon… All ideas for bringing a beam of Andalucía’s southern sun to a murky midwinter northern European kitchen.

Riñones al Jerez (Andalucía)

Credit: Nito / Alamy Stock Photo

Ingredients

6 tablespoons olive oil
800g kidneys (veal or lamb)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
80ml fino or manzanilla Sherry
large bunch parsley, chopped
salt

Method

Wash and de-membrane the kidneys and soak in a bowl of water with a slug of vinegar for 15 minutes. Quarter the kidneys, fry in olive oil over a medium heat for two minutes each side. Add the parsley and Sherry and cook for a further two minutes, reducing the liquid to a sauce.

The wine: Hidalgo, La Gitana, Manzanilla, Jerez

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Tempura is a popular Japanese dish made by frying batter-coated seafood and vegetables in light or dark-coloured sesame oil.

These deep-fried morsels, which are supposed to be enjoyed crunchy and piping hot, were introduced to Japan in the 16th century by Portuguese Christian missionaries. The name ‘tempura’ comes from the Portuguese term ‘tempêro’, which means ‘seasoning’.

Initially, it was just a hawker food in Japan but in the 19th century, speciality restaurants appeared and there are now many places to enjoy this cuisine, with its popularity also growing in Western countries.

Consider the tempura ingredients

Finding the best wine pairing for tempura starts with considering the texture of the ingredients, seasonings and frying oil used by your chosen restaurant.

Seafood and vegetables, in addition to the batter (usually made of water, flour and egg yolks), form the key components of tempura.

Prawn is the ‘king’ ingredient and is usually served as the first course of a meal. Other seafood options include squid, white fish and sea eel (anago), while green asparagus, sweet potato and shiitake mushrooms are among the most favoured vegetable ingredients for these deep-fried dishes.

Seasonings are also crucial to the way the dish is enjoyed. Authentic tempura is enjoyed with salt and lemon (or sometimes just salt) or with tentsuyu (a soy sauce-based dipping sauce).

It is also worth noting that the roasting level of sesame used for the frying oil differs by restaurant. Unroasted sesame oil makes a lighter-coloured coating while heavily-roasted oil creates a darker colour and richer, nutty flavours – another factor to take into account when pairing wines.

The diversity of Sherry

Reflecting on the origins of tempura on the Iberian Peninsula, it follows that Sherry may be a good place to start in terms of a wine pairing.

After a discovery tasting with my fellow wine experts, we found that tempura goes well with dry Sherries that have a crispy, nutty flavour and are high in alcohol. Fino, Manzanilla, Amontillado and dry Oloroso are our top choices.

With seafood tempura seasoned with salt and lemon, Fino or Manzanilla are the most suitable pairings. Deep-fried prawn served in this way goes perfectly with those two styles, especially with Manzanilla, which has a bit more saltiness than Fino due to its terroir. If you prefer pairing your tempura with tentsuyu, however, richer Amontillado is the better choice.

Green asparagus tempura served with salt matches very well with Fino. To pair with tentsuyu-seasoned sweet potato and shiitake mushroom, Amontillado and dry Oloroso are clear winners.

With the extraordinarily rich-flavoured sea eel tempura, which the chef would always recommend dipping in tentsuyu, we also prefer Amontillado or dry Oloroso.

Bubbles offer balance

Sparkling wines are natural partners for deep-fried dishes like tempura (although many Japanese foodies would prefer a cold beer).

Brut-style Old World sparklers such as Champagne, Cava and Franciacorta alongside English fizzes are obvious choices due to their higher minerality and refreshing acidity. Proseccos with a good level of freshness are also ‘why not’ options.

Blanc de Blancs is a good match for tempuras with shrimp, white fish or vegetable fillings; a richer Blanc de Noirs would be better paired with sea eel.

Still wines add dimension

While sparkling wines with their crisp bubbles neutralise the greasy texture of tempura, still wines add to the flavour and generate new dimensions to the pairing experience.

Generally speaking, the minerality of seafood tempura matches better with Old World still wines rather than those from the New World.

For salty seafood tempura, you won’t go wrong with a light to medium-bodied, unoaked, less aromatic dry white such as Muscadet. If you’d like a squeeze of lemon, a refreshing, crisp Chardonnay such as a village-level Chablis would work better.

If you enjoy your seafood tempura with tentsuyu, consider richer dry whites, such as a Burgundian oaked Chardonnay or a white from the Côtes du Rhone.

With salted green asparagus tempura, a dry, medium-bodied, slightly aromatic white such as Sancerre or Alsace Riesling matches well. If tentsuyu is your sauce of choice, consider a richer white.

Salted sweet potato and shiitake mushroom tempura tend to work well with unoaked Chardonnay whereas tentsuyu-seasoned versions prefer full-bodied whites or even a fruity red. A regional level Merlot from Bordeaux’s Right Bank or the Languedoc or a Burgundian Pinot Noir would be good choices.

To balance the richness of sea eel tempura, you will need a rich, full-bodied red with a good amount of tannin. A Syrah from the Northern Rhône or a classy Cabernet Sauvignon from Bordeaux’s Left Bank will not fail to impress.

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Ideas for pairing wines with haggis on Burns Night:

• Syrah / Shiraz
• Shiraz-Grenache blends
• Viognier
• Beaujolais Cru (Gamay) 
• German Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir)
• Chilean País

There are a few different avenues to explore if you’re looking to pair wines with haggis, which sees its star quality celebrated at Burns Night supper with the traditional reading of Robert Burns’ poem, ‘Address to a Haggis’.

Made well, and from a quality source, haggis offers a rich combination of meaty flavours with peppery and herby characters, as well as bit of spice. If you’re unsure, why not ask your local butcher for advice?

Vegetarian haggis also exists; haggis maker Macsween of Edinburgh celebrated Burns Night 2020 by shipping vegetarian haggis to the US – its first export to the country in 50 years.

Food safety officials in the US prohibited haggis imports in 1971, citing the traditional inclusion of sheep’s lung.

Scotch whisky and Burns Night go hand-in-hand, but Robert Burns did write about drinking a ‘pint o’ wine’ in his song ‘The Gowden Locks of Anna’.

A pint is perhaps pushing it, especially for a Wednesday evening, but there are plenty of styles to explore.

‘I’m always surprised at how peppery haggis is – not spicy, but peppery,’ said Tina Gellie, Decanter content manager, who offered her advice ahead of Burns Night 2018.

‘And of course it is also dense, rich and meaty. As most people do on Burns Night, I have always paired my haggis, neeps and tatties with whisk(e)y, but if I were to choose a wine, I’d probably go for a juicy, fruit-driven red, where the tannins wouldn’t compete too much,’ said Gellie, who is also regional editor for Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

‘Maybe a cru Beaujolais, a fashionable Chilean País or Carignan or a Shiraz-Grenache blend,’ she said.

Fruit-driven red wines with good acidity are likely to be a better bet than bottles with heavily pronounced tannins or oak, which could overpower the flavours of the dish.

Natalie Earl, Decanter regional editor for France (excl. Bordeaux and Burgundy), said she would enjoy vegetarian haggis with a German Spätburgunder.

‘Both have an earthy, savoury character, and the Spätburgunder is light enough not to make the whole combination too rich,’ she said.

If you’re looking for white wines to pair with haggis, refreshing acidity can still help to lift the dish but think about a trying a style with enough richness to stand up to the flavours. Options could include riper styles of Viognier, as well as Chardonnays with a touch of oak or creamy texture from malolactic fermentation.

If you’re planning to stick to spirits, here is our guide to Scotch whisky for Burns Night.

Wines to drink with haggis: Recent reviews by our experts

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Wine with Chinese food: Five styles to consider

• Riesling (dry, off-dry)
• Gewürztraminer
• Chardonnay sparkling wines 
• Pinot Noir
• Gamay

Chinese New Year’s eve: The countdown, the feast

It’s that time of the year again in China. The streets are lit with red lanterns, windows are decorated with red paper-cut patterns and the letter ‘福 (fortune)’ on every door – usually pasted upside down, as ‘倒 (upside down)’ shares the pronunciation of ‘到 (arrives)’.

You know New Year is around the corner when the online retailers start to warn their customers that the couriers are about to take a break so ‘shop now but it won’t get delivered any time soon!’ Every household is busy stocking up on ‘Nian Huo 年货’ (the ‘spring festival stash’), which covers everything families need to indulge themselves during the week-long break; bags of rice, tons of greens, meat and fish, all sorts of snacks, cases of baijiu (the white liquor), beer and increasingly, wine.

The feast on the eve of the Lunar New Year, just like Christmas eve, is arguably one of the most important Chinese family occasions of the year.

After a year of hard work, the youngsters rush home – even if they have to travel thousands of miles – so they can make it to this special dinner. Parents meanwhile are busy cooking in the kitchen, while grandparents slip red envelopes into their grandkids’ pockets behind the backs of their strict parents.

When the food is ready, be it cold salads, red-braised meat, roast duck, steamed fish, hot soup, fried vegetables, or indeed dumplings, everything is served together and no one is supposed to touch the food until everybody sits down and a glass has been raised.

With the TV turned on to show the good old Spring Festival Gala, family members chat for hours over the abundance of food and drinks, doing rounds of ‘Ganbei (bottom-up)’ until firecrackers light up the midnight sky. Such is my memory of Chinese New Year’s eve.

Nowadays, this particular family dinner is much less about treating your family to the most sumptuous feast of the year – they can afford perfectly good food themselves and don’t need to wait for a special occasion anymore. It is, at least for me, about sharing a tradition and cultural moment that transcends generations, and basking in the joyous reassurance that you are loved and cared about.

Pairing ideas for a full-on feast

If you are after a full-on, authentic Chinese New Year feast experience this year, forget about the one-wine-to-each-dish pairing routine, as dishes of diverse ingredients and clashing flavours are bound to be served together.

What you need is an all-rounder that works with the whole feast. Sparkling wines, namely Champagne, Cava, English bubbles and well-chilled Prosecco, are infallible choices with their palate-cleansing nature. If the dishes are red meat-heavy or with a strong seasoning, you can even try a red fizz such as a frothy Lambrusco.

Aromatic whites with a touch of residual sugar (such as Kabinett Riesling and Gewürztraminer) tend to work in synergy with steamed fish and dishes with strong scents of spices. The fragrance and friendly sweetness make Moscato Asti a welcomed partner to Hot Pot and Sichuan-style spicy dishes among young drinkers in China.

Fruit-forward, ripe and supple red wines such as a New World Pinot Noir, Barbera, Rioja Joven or Southern Italian reds such as Nerello Mascalese also have a place on the table, especially when your dishes are heavy on red-braised seasoning (which usually involves soy sauce and sugar).

I would avoid muscular reds with robust tannin when pairing with a complex feast. Austere acidity also tends to ruin the sweet-and-sour dishes entirely.

Pairing Chinese food and wine – common takeaways

Chinese takeaways provide a simpler, westernised approach to the vast possibilities of the country’s eight great regional cuisines (‘八大菜系’).

You’ll find familiar options and popular single dishes available almost everywhere, and so they also pose fewer difficulties when thinking about wine pairing.

Here are some suggestions for pairing wine with Chinese food commonly found in the UK and US.

Wine with Dim sum

Among the eight great Chinese regional cuisines, Cantonese food is arguably the most widely found in western countries.

Dim Sum covers a wide range of small dishes, including steamed dumplings, spring rolls and soya-seasoned meats.

The relatively mild flavours open up plenty of options to wine pairing.

‘Instead of using condiments to enhance the flavours, [the] natural savoury taste lends itself to be paired with wines,’ said Guo Ying.

‘The best shrimp dumplings must have smooth and translucent skin with a springy texture, and you can taste the freshness of the shrimp. Pork meat is added to enhance the flavours,’ said Guo Ying.

Try a still or sparkling made with 100% Chardonnay to pair with this fresh and light dish, or with other Dim Sum dishes of similar texture, such as Shumai.

Food and wine expert Fiona Beckett suggested ‘sparkling wine, preferably blanc de blancs Champagne, or a chilled fino Sherry’ in a previous article for Decanter.com.

Similarly, spring rolls with crispy skin and mild vegetable fillings could benefit from a fresh and clean white. A youthful Gruner Veltliner or green apple-tinged Picpoul de Pinet wine would fit the bill perfectly.

The same rule applies to potstickers – pan-fried dumplings.

For Cha Siu Bao (steamed Barbecued pork bun), the salty-sweet, rich fillings would pair nicely with a refreshing off-dry Riesling or a chilled Moscato d’Asti.

A ripe, fruit-forward New World Pinot Noir could also do the trick with Cha Siu (braised pork bellies), though tannins may not work very well with the doughy texture of the bun.

When pairing wine with dumplings in general, heavy, tannic reds should be avoided, because they are likely to overpower these lightly flavoured dishes.

Wine with chow mein (fried noodles) and fried rice

These hearty dishes can be served as a whole meal on their own: carbohydrates, proteins and vegetables – everything you need is packed in one plate.

Fresh ingredients are tossed skilfully in giant woks over blazing flames, with plenty of oil, soy sauce, oyster sauce, spices and (optional) spring onions added.

These greasy dishes, though satisfying, cry for acidity to refresh your palate.

A Riesling with razor-sharp acidity, with or without residual sugar, remains the top choice, although we wouldn’t say no to a linear English sparkling wine.

Find more tips on pairing wines with fried rice here.

Wine with crispy duck and pancakes

This beloved duck dish bears some resemblances to the famous Peking duck, although it’s generally deep fried rather than roasted.

As many people know, crispy duck is delicious when served with hoisin sauce, shredded cucumber and spring onion, wrapped in thin pancakes.

Beckett recommended ‘a good fruity Pinot Noir from Oregon or the Sonoma coast, or a cru Beaujolais’ for this dry and crunchy duck dish.

Canadian-Chinese MW Jennifer Docherty believes that Spätlese Riesling is a better partner to Peking duck, as the dish is greasy and rich whereas Pinot Noir is ‘quite linear’.

Plus, a touch of residual sugar goes well with the hoisin sauce, she said.

Wine with sweet and sour dishes

General Tso’s Chicken has nothing to do with the real General Tso, and orange chicken hardly resembles its ‘origin’ – tangerine chicken of Hunan province.

That said, there’s nothing stopping us from enjoying these richly sweet and sour dishes.

Beckett suggested pairing anglicised sweet and sour dishes with ‘aromatic white blends such as Hugel’s Gentil or TWR’s Toru from Marlborough, New Zealand’.

Aromatic varieties such as Riesling, Gewürztraminer and Torrontes with their distinctive characters (and a touch of sweetness in some cases) should work well with sesame chicken.

Residual sugar levels are a more important consideration when pairing wines with spicier dishes, such as General Tso’s Chicken.

Wine with Sichuan-style spices

A cold sparkling wine can do wonders to ease the burn of Sichuan-style spices – be it Prosecco, Asti, Lambrusco or Brut Champagne.

Again, aromatic white wines with Chinese food can work well when paired with dishes that have complex aromas from various spices.

You could go for sweetness, too. An Auslese Riesling or even a lighter style of Sauternes or Barsac can work hand-in-hand with the spicy sensation.

Beckett recommended ‘a bold off-dry rosé (a pale Provençal pink doesn’t quite cut the mustard) or off-dry Riesling such as Jeffrey Grosset’s Alea’.

Light-hearted, juicy reds, such as a youthful Gamay or Pinot Noir, also work well with the rich flavours and refresh the palate.

Be cautious with powerful tannins and high alcohol, because they tend to enhance the heat.

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Dumplings and wine pairing – at a glance

• Champagne works particularly well with fried dumplings, or when serving with vinegar
• Think of ripe Chardonnays, or fruity rosés to go with your dumpling fillings
• The stronger the filling flavour, the harder to pair with a wine
• Avoid heavy, tannic reds

The history of ‘Jiaozi’

The history of the Chinese dumplings (or Jiaozi 饺子 in Chinese) can be traced back to the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 AD) when legendary physician, the ‘Saint of Medicine’ Zhang Zhongjing treated his patients with lamb and warming herbs wrapped in a thin layer of dough, shaped like human ears.

Archaeologists even found some seriously old dumplings dated back to the Tang Dynasty over a thousand years ago in the Turpan Basin of Xinjiang, northwest China. They look almost exactly like the dumplings we enjoy today.

It’s a well-kept tradition, especially in Northern China, for families to gather and make dumplings on the eve of the Chinese New Year. The whole family, young or old, will work together while chatting, getting their hands dirty rolling out dough wrappers, mixing their home recipe of stuffings and carefully squeezing those little packages of flavours into the fat-bellied ear shape.

The classic flavours of dumplings

When speaking of dumplings (or in Chinese ‘Jiaozi’), it always encompasses a variety of fillings and flavours.

The possibility is literally endless; although the classic stuffings, which you tend to find in the frozen corner of Chinese supermarkets, usually involves meat (most commonly pork) or seafood with a range of vegetables, such as chives, fennel, Chinese cabbage or green onion.

For vegetarian choices, egg and chives are at the top of my list. The smart combinations of carrots, different mushrooms, leaf vegetables and tofu are also colourful and tasty.

Away from its home, there are also more localised, innovative dumplings that involve Miso, Kimchi, Hoisin duck, BBQ Beef or indeed, cheese in the filling – but why not?

Pairing dumplings with wine

‘If you want to pair your dumplings with wine, it’s better to choose light-flavoured fillings,’ said Jennifer Doherty MW, head of buying and education at Summergate Fine Wines & Spirits.

See also: Chinese food and wine pairing

See also: Peking duck and wine pairing – ask Decanter

‘The classic garlic, chive and pork dumplings, for example, are difficult to pair with wines due to their overpowering flavours,’ said the MW, who grew up in a traditional Chinese household in Canada. Other strong-taste dumplings may include beef and tomato or lamb and carrot.

Those with obvious spiciness or sweetness, meanwhile, can also be tricky to pair with wine, as they may enhance the alcohol burn or acidity.

‘Pork and cabbage, Sanxian (pork, prawn and eggs) and mushroom dumplings, on the other hand, are more delicate.’

The mild-flavoured chicken and mushroom dumplings or savoury vegetarian stuffings are also safe choices for wine.

‘I would pick a light and delicate white wine to go with something like pork and cabbage – I don’t think you want a red wine. Try a wine that’s got a little oak on it with good acidity – I’d go for a nice Bourgogne Chardonnay, maybe a Mâcon.’

‘Personally, I love Rieslings, so I’d try a Kabinett—with refreshing acidity and a little bit of residual sugar, to pair with it.’

What about the sauce?

Classic sauces to serve with dumplings can include a mixture of soy sauce, Jiaozi vinegar, sesame oil, garlic and spice.

‘This is the benefit of making your own sauce,’ said Doherty. ‘You can adjust the levels of salt, sourness, and give it a little bit of roundness to achieve a nice balance.

‘It shouldn’t be too difficult for you to find a pairing wine if you prefer a more savoury sauce.

‘But if you prefer only vinegar as the sauce, finding a wine match will be more difficult, so try something with high acidity; Champagne could be a good option here.’

How are your dumplings cooked?

You may be asked whether you’d like your dumpling fried or boiled in a Chinese restaurant (although you are more likely to find fried dumplings in Japanese restaurants). You can also have your dumplings steamed in a dim-sum style.

If your dumplings are steamed or boiled, the skin turns soft while retaining the clean, doughy mouthfeel. Flavours of the filling tend to drop a little if dumplings are boiled in water, so good wines to choose could be a creamy aged Champagne, a ripe New World Chardonnay or a fruit-forward Grenache or Zinfandel-based rosé , especially when the dish is served warm.

Fiona Beckett also recommends Blanc de Blancs Champagne or a fino Sherry with dim sum, in her guide to wine and Chinese food pairing. 

Avoid big, heavy red wines as they would most certainly overpower the flavours, and tannins don’t tend to work well with the soft and sticky doughy skin.

A touch of residual sugar in the wine, however, can work well, especially with a meaty filling and seasoned with savoury, umami-rich soy sauce and Shaoxing wine.

Fried dumplings tend to pair better with wine, as the skin gets crisper; a bit of burn on the bottom adds even more to the texture. If done properly, the filling should remain soft inside.

As fried dumplings absorb some oil in the cooking, a chilled bottle of NV Champagne or dry English sparkling make a good match with fried dumplings, served cold or hot.

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While mostly associated with Easter celebrations, Lamb is also a great option for your Christmas meal as an alternative to Turkey, Ham or Beef.

It’s texture and affinity to strong seasonings suggest this is a perfect meat to be enjoyed in the bleakness of winter rather than at the arrival of Spring. And Lamb at Christmas is no less, if not more, symbolic than the default turkey.

Finding the perfect wine to enjoy with lamb is not a straightforward task though. The meat itself, as well as the ingredients it can be cooked with, can have such different textures and flavours. But it is a fun and worthwhile endeavour; a good wine and lamb pairing can really bring out the best of both.

Scroll down for wine recommendations

When choosing wine to pour with lamb you must consider three main aspects:

Age of the lamb

You can hardly compare the structure and flavour of a baby lamb to that of a mutton. ‘Baby/milk fed’ lamb, a specialty in southern Europe, has a distinctively soft texture to which structured aged reds, such as Bordeaux or Rioja, can serve as a good counterpoint with their mellowed tannins and earthy aromas. The meat of an older animal, on the other hand, has a somewhat earthy character in itself calling for a younger, more fruit-driven wine, with a certain acid drive. A Chianti Classico or a Langhe Nebbiolo would be good options. A Naoussa Xinomavro or a Northern Rhône Syrah, with their distinctive tapenade-like savoury aromas, would also be great choices.

Cooking method

If the accompanying ingredients (more on that below) can condition the flavour profile of a lamb recipe, the cooking method can greatly change the structure of the meat as well.

If you’re planning to simply grill some lamb chops with Mediterranean herbs or serve a piece of baby lamb pink, go for a lighter style that will allow the more refined flavours to shine and the softness of the meat to be fully enjoyed. It should still have firm tannins, so a Pinot Noir or a Mencía would do a very good job. Another great option is a rosé Champagne!

Slow-roasting will make for a fattier meal with more intensity of flavour, and you will need a wine to offset, while supporting, the mouth-coating richness. Go for something robust yet refreshing, such as an orange wine, an oaked Chardonnay or a dark rosé. If you would like to stick to red wine, then consider a Beaujolais or an Etna red.

Seasoning, spices and sauces

One the most common, and most fatal, mistakes in food and wine pairing is to look at the core ingredient — lamb in this case — without considering the spices and herbs it will be cooked with, or the sauces that it will be served with. These can in fact be more important than the base protein itself.

A more simple, Mediterranean style of cooking, lends itself to a wide variety of styles, from savoury young reds, to rosé fizz by way of aged bottles of classics such as Chianti or Barolo.

British stews, hotpots and pies call for a wine that can add complexity, without overwhelming, and give more dimensions to dishes that are based on quite simple flavours – root vegetables, stock. Go for wines with restrained tannins and freshness of fruit – a Côtes du Rhône Villages or a South African Cinsault are two good options.

For lamb tagines, or other recipes with African species, go for intense an intense rosé or a skin-fermented white. An amber wine will also pair well with a curry, as will an aromatic Gewürztraminer or a dry, oaked Viognier.

The key with these pairings is, as with everything else when planning your festive meals, to discover your own preferences. Learn through trial and error and, above all, have fun!

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10 wines for your Christmas lamb:

Recommendations by Decanter’s editorial team.
Wines grouped by style and ordered by score, in descending order. 

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If there’s one thing you might assume you don’t have to pay much attention to at Christmas, it’s the cheeseboard. Stilton, Cheddar, brie, maybe a goat’s cheese, that’ll do it, you might think. But you won’t be surprised to hear that your cheeseboard could be so much better if you give some careful thought to both the selection and the wine pairings. And who better to steer you through both than Patricia Michelson, the founder of London’s fabled La Fromagerie, with its three branches in London’s Bloomsbury, Highbury and Marylebone.

Michelson has firm opinions on the subject, from the best moment to eat your cheese (not straight after the big meal, or for at least an hour after it) to the order in which you should eat them.

Patricia Michelson is the founder of La Fromagerie cheese shops in London. Credit: Thomas Skovsende

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It’s important to enjoy the whole experience, so you need a progression of taste, she argues. ‘Goat’s cheese refreshes and neutralises the palate, its bright acidity building up your tastebuds. Then you want the nutty fruitiness of hard cheese and the mellowness of a bloomy- or washed-rind cheese like a Vacherin. End with a blue, and note how the sharpness of the veins mingles with the richness of the paste and brings the whole taste experience together. Don’t start with the blue because it will kill everything afterwards.

Michelson is generally a fan of white wine with cheese, though she acknowledges that it’s a time of year when most people would drink red. Her own preference is claret or the house wine they serve at the cafe, a Côtes du Frontonnais from southwest France. ‘It’s nice to introduce the younger generation to a really nice Bordeaux like a St-Emilion, though for a Boxing Day cheeseboard a good Beaujolais hits the mark. It’s such a crowd-pleaser.’

In terms of fortified wines, she favours the nuttiness of a Madeira or Marsala over Port, or a Vin de Constance (by Klein Constantia near Cape Town in South Africa), which she feels stands up particularly well to Stilton or Stichelton. ‘I prefer it to Château d’Yquem (Sauternes), which is too fine a wine for blue cheese.’

And a final tip – assuming you live within reach of a decent cheese shop – don’t stock up with too much cheese. ‘Remember, shops only close for a couple of days over the Christmas period.’

Patricia Michelson’s dream cheeseboard

1. Fleur de Chèvre

‘The bright acidity of goat’s cheese refreshes and neutralises the palate, building up your taste buds for the cheeses to follow,’ says Michelson. This unpasteurised cheese from the Poitou-Charentes area is wrapped in a vine leaf and salted with Fleur de Sel from the Ile de Ré, which gives it a fresh, light, lemony flavour – not too aggressively ‘goaty’ for those who are goat’s-cheese averse. It would be delicious with a fresh crunchy apple.

Individual wine match The obvious choice would be a Loire Sauvignon – Sauvignon de Haut-Poitou at the budget end, Sancerre or Pouilly-Fumé if you want to splash out, though a Quincy, Reuilly or Menetou-Salon would also work well, as would Cabernet Franc-based Loire reds.

2. Sparkenhoe Red Leicester

This deep orange-coloured territorial cheese from Leicestershire adds a welcome splash of colour to a festive cheeseboard. (The orange comes from a naturally occurring colour called annatto which is found in the seeds of the achiote tree.) Many Red Leicesters are factory-made, though, so look out for Sparkenhoe’s, which is a traditional farmhouse cheese made with unpasteurised cow’s milk and matured for six months on beech shelves. Mellow and slightly nutty, it’s a great foil for a good red, especially Bordeaux. It goes well with nuts, too.

Individual wine match If you have a top claret you want to show off, Red Leicester is one of the best cheeses to pair with it. It would go well with a reserva or gran reserva Rioja, too, or an amontillado Sherry.

3. Isle of Mull Cheddar

There’s a great back story to this Cheddar from Tobermory on Scotland’s Isle of Mull, which is geographically much more exposed than Cheddar’s traditional home territory of Somerset, southwest England. ‘You can pick out the salty, briny flavour of the seaspray,’ says Michelson. The cows get to eat the mashed barley residue from the Tobermory whisky distillery, which helps give it quite a boozy kick and a stronger, richer flavour than you may be used to, especially the summer cheeses. Good with a sweetish wholemeal biscuit.

Individual wine match One for a fortified wine such as a tawny Port or a Madeira, though you could try a full-bodied, oak-aged Chardonnay. ‘I have often enjoyed the summer cheeses with whisky served with a splash of water,’ adds Michelson.

4. Ubriaco

This pale semi-skimmed cow’s milk cheese from the Treviso province, just outside Venice, has a crust that is dipped and washed in red wine pressings (Ubriaco means ‘drunken’). That gives it a marked tangy, winey flavour that makes it a particularly good match for a red wine, particularly an Italian red. Keep the flavours clean with some crisp, salted Italian-style flatbreads.

Individual wine match Although it comes from the Veneto, which might suggest a Valpolicella Ripasso or even an Amarone, you may want to look elsewhere in Italy for your wine match. It would be a fine pairing for a youngish Piedmontese Barolo or Barbaresco, or even a Brunello di Montalcino from Tuscany.

5. Langres Fermier

Washed with Marc de Champagne eau-de-vie, this washed-rind pasteurised cow’s cheese from Fromagerie Remillet, with its distinctive pale orange rind, is not as strong and pungent as it might appear – the interior is creamy, even fudgy. You could pour a little white wine, Champagne or eau-de-vie into the volcanic-style crater at the top for extra flavour. It’s perfect with a baguette.

Individual wine match Given the region it comes from, Champagne would be the perfect match, especially if you’ve splashed a little Champagne on the cheese. (Rosé Champagne goes with younger cheeses, advises Michelson.) An Alsace Pinot Gris or Gewurztraminer would work well, too, or if you prefer a red you could go for a southern Rhône Gigondas.

6. Stichelton

According to the regulations, Stilton has to be made with pasteurised milk, but this unpasteurised version from the Welbeck estate in Nottingham comes from exactly the same area and is Stilton in all but name. The raw milk and slightly slower production process results in a creamily textured cheese and some intensely flavoured blue veining, which gives it a satisfyingly deep, savoury character that’s perfect with walnuts and oatcakes.

Individual wine match The recipe may be different but it’s still in essence a Stilton, so think in terms of the usual suspects. Vintage Port, a generous red (Amarone again or maybe a Douro red) or a rich, sweet wine such as a Hungarian Tokaji or a Passito di Pantelleria from Sicily. Michelson also recommends a Vin de Constance

Or choose one cheese…

An alternative to laying out a full cheeseboard would be to serve an individual, show-stopping ‘hero’ cheese: a perfect example of its kind. ‘That’s not a bad option to go for over Christmas when everyone is eating a lot,’ says Michelson. ‘You can always bring out a single cheese just to finish off your wine.’ The obvious choice would be a Vacherin Mont d’Or, which can be served either at room temperature or – particularly decadently – baked so it’s like a fondue. The best match for that, she holds, is a Chignin from Savoie or Savagnin from the Jura in eastern France, or vintage Champagne. Other possibilities would be a truffled Brie, a Beaufort (‘a favourite for New Year’s Eve’), or a Comté which, as Michelson rightly says, ‘everyone loves, from children to adults’. ‘Comté and Vacherin make a good mini cheeseboard,’ she continues, ‘and I’d drink white wine with both.’

Credit: Thomas Skovsende

Credit: Thomas Skovsende

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For most, Christmas dinner revolves around the idea of a standout meat dish at the centre of the table. Yet this is no longer the rule for everyone; many of us have now switched to vegetarian or vegan diets and it’s hard to hold a celebration without having to accommodate different, meat-free preferences.

Rather than a hindrance, this should be seen as a great opportunity to bring new flavours to the festive table and think of wine pairing possibilities that go beyond the ‘which wine shall I have with turkey’ dilemma.

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Nut roast and beyond

The go-to replacement dish for that rebellious vegetarian/vegan friend or relative was, for a long time, the infamous nut roast.

Infamous because many vegetarians will tell you there are a number of more exciting, less obvious and easier-to-cook alternatives (more on that below).

Having said that, a good nut roast is indeed delicious and usually ends up being eaten by everyone! Its crunch and smokiness can actually be compared to that of lamb, namely when spices and herbs are also a central part of the recipe.

The comparable smokiness of an orange wine will be a great fit, as will the herbal profile of a Vacqueyras from the Southern Rhône or the trademark tapenade aromas of a Naoussa Xinomavro.

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Vegetarian Christmas meals: The beauty of simplicity

The truth is that the best vegetarian dishes, while bound to delight even the most avid meat-eater, are simple and based on only a handful of ingredients.

If you’re not vegetarian yourself, pleasing the vegetarian guest is all about integrating the veggie dishes as part of the whole meal, so that everyone can enjoy them – and their accompanying wines, of course.

A nice selection of delicious roasted vegetables, brought to life by the smokiness of the grill, the complexity of spices and the depth of a good olive oil, is a great dish in itself with a dollop of labneh or sprinkled with feta. It also makes a great side for a turkey or meat roast.

And those roasted veggies will handle – and ask for – a structured red, with firm tannins and good concentration, as much as the reddest of meats.

So don’t be afraid to pour the same wine that you’ve selected for the turkey, lamb or ham. A dry Douro red, a Chianti Classico or a Hungarian Kekfrankos will likely do the trick.

A mezze spread, with delightful dips, a colourful selection of olives, spiced nuts, marinated aubergines and marinated beetroots, is also something you should consider.

It makes a great aperitif selection but also allows guests, vegetarian or not, to nibble throughout the meal.

Pair it with a refined Pinot Noir or a Mencía from Galicia; their fresh minerality will allow you to appreciate the diversity and subtlety of flavours.

Another great option alongside mezze – especially at the start of a meal – would be a refreshing and delicious pétillant naturel wine, also known as pét-nat. The structure, broad palate and restrained effervescence of a pét-nat will deliver such a great balancing act.

Photo by Jez Timms on Unsplash

Cheese, real or fake, but never with red

Well now, there’s no Christmas without a proper cheese selection is there?

Although cheese and wine pairing is usually, and outrageously, associated with red wine, it is best to look elsewhere in many cases.

The tannins bind with the fats in the cheese and prevent the full appreciation of all those complex and delicious flavour compounds that the best cheeses have.

Look to structured, medium-to-high acid white wines and this complexity really comes to life. Try a robust California Chardonnay, an aged Mosel Riesling or a white Rioja and you’ll be a little closer to heaven.

Orange wines will again be a good option, because the intensity and high acidity will enhance the umami characters in the cheese. But, once again, you should avoid skin-contact wines with too much tannin.

For vegans, the choice of non-dairy ‘cheese’ is increasingly appealing and diverse.

These are usually made with fermented seeds and nuts, helping them to develop texture and flavours that are, well, very cheesy.

The same wines that pair well with cheese will therefore also be great companions to their vegan counterparts. But it’s worth pointing out that, when considering vegan diets and guests, you will need to make sure that the wine itself is vegan-friendly!

The golden rule: always have good fizz within reach

It’s worth stating the obvious here: always have a good bottle of sparkling wine close by. Not only is it the trademark celebratory drink and the best crowd-pleaser, but it is also the ultimate food pairing wine.

Think past the world of oysters and canapés, because the right fizz can be perfect with a variety of dishes, from roast chicken to pasta with leeks or even cheese.

So it’s worth investing in some good bubbles, which would work equally well as an aperitif or alongside some of the main meal’s dishes. Sparkling wines are often an ideal option when vegetarian dishes take centre stage.

Try an English sparkling rosé with a plate of creamy pasta or a sparkling Vouvray with a nut roast.

And if you’ve never tried a cheese platter with a late-disgorged Champagne, full of toasty aromas and pastry-like flavours, you’d be mad not to have a go.

10 wines for your Vegetarian Christmas meal:

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Classic styles when pairing wine with turkey:

• Full-bodied Chardonnay, such as those from Burgundy or California
• Pinot Noir
• Mature Bordeaux, Rioja or Barolo
• Beaujolais (Gamay)

Remember that turkey is not a powerful meat

Turkey is a white meat and has a low fat content, which is why it can dry out if not cooked carefully.

So, your wine matches should ideally be either a full-bodied white wine or a medium-bodied red, with low or medium tannin and relatively high acidity.

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Tips on matching turkey with wine. Credit: Annabelle Sing / Decanter

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The basic rules of wine with turkey

Let’s talk about tannins

Fine tannins are great in a balanced wine with some bottle age, but too much mouth-coating tannin could also ruin all those hours you’ve spent slaving away in the kitchen.

There is likely to be a dearth of fat on the plate in general, leaving little to soften tannins in a big, bold, young wine.

This can accentuate the harsh feeling of tannins in the mouth, eclipsing other flavours, while the saltiness of the turkey can also make tannins taste more bitter.

It may seem strange that classic wine choices include those with relatively high tannin levels, such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blends from Bordeaux.

This, however, is where several years of bottle age come into play, because tannins will soften and integrate over time in the best wines.

Embrace acidity

A roast turkey dinner is often full of flavours and complexity – sides like cranberry, bacon, parsnips, stuffing and Brussels sprouts are just some of the dishes vying for attention.

A wine with medium or high levels of acidity should be able to cope better with these myriad flavours.

Red wine with turkey

Everyone has their own personal tastes, and there are so many options out there, but Pinot Noir in its various guises around the world is often seen as a great match for turkey dinners.

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir from bolder Burgundy crus, such as Gevrey-Chambertin or Pommard, should work exceptionally well.

If you can stretch to the Grand Cru of Chambertin then you’re in for a treat, but there are also plenty of less expensive options out there. Try looking towards Fixin or Santenay, for example.

Be aware, though, that some lighter styles of Burgundy Pinot, such as classic Volnay wines, may be overpowered by the range of flavours on your plate.

It’s worth looking to other cool climate regions such as Central Otago in New Zealand, The Finger Lakes in New York State or even Essex or Kent in the UK too.

Pinot Noir is also a good option when eating cold roast turkey leftovers, particularly if pickles and chutneys are on the dish too, says Fiona Beckett. She recommends ‘a riper, more robustly fruity Pinot Noir from, say, California, Oregon or New Zealand.’

Beaujolais Cru

Gamay is often underrated and it’s easy to also make the mistake of thinking that all Gamay wines are lightweight.

Not so, especially in those 10 Beaujolais Crus known for making wines with more power and depth, such as Morgon or Moulin-à-Vent.

Aged Bordeaux

Cabernet Sauvignon is obviously in a completely different universe to what we’ve just talked about; big tannins, big acidity and lots of luscious dark fruit. Merlot, too, carries significant weight in its classic Bordeaux Right Bank form.

Yet the delicately poised balance of fruit, acidity and integrated tannins can still work wonders with your turkey dinner, if some of those tertiary aromas from a few years of bottle age have started to develop around the edges.

Panos Kakaviatos selected a handful of wines from Bordeaux that are ready to drink now.

Other classic reds from the bolder end of the spectrum would be aged Barolo or Chianti Classico.

Mature Rioja can also combine those lovely, earthy, mushroomy aromas with bright red fruit and medium-weight tannins. There are also plenty of relatively good value options.

Be wary of choosing a wine with too much oak influence, however.

White wine with turkey

Chardonnay

A full-bodied Chardonnay can be an enchanting accompaniment to your turkey, especially with traditional sides such as bread sauce.

The best examples exude oaky richness that can give sweet spice notes, while creamy lactic acid really helps out with a meat that can sometimes be on the dry side. A backbone of acidity helps to balance out the flavours.

Good Chardonnays, in general, are found in the similar geographical areas to good Pinot Noir.

White Burgundy from the Côte de Beaune will work well at almost all levels. As above, those lucky enough to be able to choose a Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru or a Bâtard-MontrachetGrand Cru are unlikely to be disappointed.

The high levels of minerality and acidity in these wines help to cleanse the palate, allowing you to wade through all the trimmings effortlessly. The Mâconnais is an area to explore for relative value options, particularly for anyone who enjoys riper fruit notes on their Chardonnay.

Other wonderful examples can be found in Victoria in Australia, from Victoria to Adelaide Hills to Margaret River, or in California from Napa Valley to Sonoma’s Russian River Valley to Santa Barbara County.

Don’t overlook South Africa, home to this ‘top-class’ Chardonnay from Hamilton Russell Vineyards, or New Zealand. The Kumeu River Chardonnays made near Auckland are extraordinary wines and are capable of offering fantastic value for money.

Top tip for cooking turkey: 

‘Take off the legs and cook them separately from the crown,’ says Stephen Harris, chef at the Sportsman in Whitstable, Kent. ‘It’s easy to overcook the breast otherwise. I like to confit the legs in goose fat and last year I sous-vided the breast, which worked well.’

Tasting notes: Wine with turkey suggestions

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Pairing wine with beef: Six styles to try

• Cabernet Sauvignon

• Grenache or ‘GSM’ blends

• Malbec

• Shiraz

• Aged Nebbiolo (Barolo)

• Traditional white Rioja

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It’s hard to beat a delicious bottle of red wine with hearty roast beef on a wintry afternoon, whether it’s Christmas Day or simply a relaxed Sunday lunch.

Classic fuller-bodied reds, such as Bordeaux blends led by Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot, Châteauneuf-du-Pape from the Southern Rhône or Australian Shiraz, are often considered go-to wines that can match the flavour intensity of a roast beef dish.

Yet balance is important in any great wine. A refreshing dose of acidity can work wonders, particularly if you also have a range of trimmings on the dinner table.

A bit of bottle age can bring depth and complexity, too, as Decanter’s Tina Gellie noted after tasting this Château d’Arsac 2016 from the Margaux appellation.

‘It’s showing nice maturity already, with savoury saddle leather spice enhancing red plum and bright cassis fruit – a natural partner for roast beef,’ she said.

Pairing wine with beef also offers plenty of scope for experimenting and personal preference. If you’re thinking about a more precise match, consider the cut, age, cooking time and accompaniments.

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Red wine with beef: what makes the cut? 

‘The easiest way to pair wine with beef is to think about matching the flavour intensity of your wine with your beef,’ said Mark Quick, wine director for Hawksmoor steakhouse restaurants.

‘The fat in your cut is where all of the flavour is locked up,’ he told decanter.com in December 2020.

‘More fat equals more intense beefy flavour. For example, a fillet would be one of the leaner cuts and usually have a very subtle flavour, on the other end of the scale would be a heavily marbled rib-eye.’

Leaner cuts, like fillet or topside, can be beautifully melt-in-the-mouth tender but could also be overpowered by a wine that is too bold.

‘You could be better off going with a lighter and more subtle drop,’ said Quick.

‘For example, a red from the Jura, a Pinot Noir from anywhere, or there are some very good lighter Garnachas [Grenache] coming out of the New and Old world nowadays that work very well too.’ He highlighted Dani Landi, ‘La Uvas de la Ira’, as a particular favourite.

Malbec lovers could look towards fresher styles from Altamira and Gualtallary in Argentina’s Uco Valley, as previously suggested by South American wine expert Patricio Tapia, a Decanter contributor.

A leaner cut of beef served rare or pink might also benefit from a red that puts bright, juicy fruit front and centre, yet still with enough depth to match the flavour of the meat.

Fat and tannin: a match made in heaven

Fattier cuts of beef, such as rump, fore rib and shin, have a deeper flavour than leaner cuts.

Quick said that the higher the fat content of the beef, the higher its capacity to pair with richer wines that have bolder tannins.

Fat content washes away tannin in your mouth and vice-versa, he said. ‘That’s what keeps you coming back for more of both your wine and your steak.’

Barolo and aged beef

If you’ve gone for dry-aged steak or beef, then think about how long the meat has been aged for.

‘Heavily aged beef possesses a gamey, sometimes cheesy characteristic that marries extremely well with old wines,’ said Quick.

How about wine with a few years of bottle age? ‘An aged Barolo or red Burgundy would be epic,’ said Quick. ‘It could be the perfect excuse to drink that bottle that has been staring at you.’

Accompaniments and sauces

Many of the classic sauces with beef hold pretty strong flavour themselves. How about meeting that peppercorn sauce head-on with the peppery notes of a Syrah/Shiraz, for instance?

Roast beef with red wine sauce or jus might work better with a red that showcases riper fruit, while a traditional gravy has more savoury elements to it.

When it comes to sauce, Hawksmoor’s Quick said, ‘Ignore all of my advice about avoiding big, powerful, tannic wines with lean cuts if you are going to pour sauce all over your steak. You are essentially covering your steak in butter or beef fat anyway, so should revert to the advice about fatty steaks in this instance.’

Can you drink white wine with beef?

It might be considered a faux-pas in some circles, but personal taste is important – and several sommeliers say some white wines can work well with beef.

If you’ve got a lovely caramelised crust on your meat then a white wine with nutty flavours can be brilliant, said Quick. ‘Look for extended oxidative ageing,’ he said, suggesting Jura or traditional white Riojas.

He also highlighted Sherry as a potential match here. ‘If that’s what you are into, [it] would work wonders,’ he said.

Oloroso, for example, is a Sherry style known for its nutty complexity.

Tasting notes: Inspiration for pairing wine with beef this Christmas

The wines below have been recently reviewed by Decanter experts.

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Italy boasts the world’s oldest and largest tradition of truffle hunting, which is part of the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage list. Over 70,000 licensed hunters wander in the Italian forests at night with their dogs, which are essential to detect the scent of truffles beneath the soil.

But even though 2022 won’t be remembered as a year for truffles in Italy, as persistent drought gave truffle hunters more than a few headaches, truffle-mania is not going to stop anytime soon: a 700-gram nugget of white truffle recently sold for €184,000 at the annual auction in Grinzane Cavour, Piedmont.

The number of tourists in Alba is back to the all-time high of 2019, when the international white truffle fair attracted an estimated 100,000 visitors. Reserving a table at a restaurant offering a truffle-based menu proves challenging – the three-Michelin-star Piazza Duomo restaurant, for example, is fully booked until the end of the season.

One factor that drives the popularity of truffles is their unique ability to transpose the aromas of the earth into edible form. All truffles release musky nuances that recall the beguiling experience of walking in the woods after the rain, but white truffles do so in an especially delicate and refined way.

Wine and truffle food pairings

Truffles are extremely aromatic – you can smell them from metres away! They have little or no taste, however, so the ingredients they are shaved on to make a big difference.

Wine with white truffle

Eggs and cheese

Aged Chardonnay with judicious oak influence works well when shaving truffles on to neutral and creamy dishes such as egg cocotte (baked eggs) and cheese fondue. Examples from Northeast Italy in particular allow the truffle to shine while balancing the dish with a kick of cleansing acidity.

Pasta and risotto

Tajarin (Piedmontese tagliatelle) with butter and risotto al Tartufo bianco (white truffle risotto) also match complex white wines with a little bottle age. Try a quality Trebbiano d’Abruzzo, which can offer complementary honeyed and earthy flavours along with good acidity to balance.

Meat

With its lifted aromatics and pinpoint tannins, Carema from Northwestern Piedmont pairs well with carne cruda con tartufo bianco (steak tartare with white truffle). This medium-bodied Nebbiolo-based wine is also a great alternative if you are craving red wine with the previously-mentioned dishes.

Barolo and Barbaresco require a juicy fillet of beef with white truffle to balance their tannic heft. If you can’t find an older vintage, try a younger yet earlier-drinking vintage such as 2017.

Wine with black truffle

Black truffles require slightly bolder and more rustic wines.

Eggs and cheese

When shaved on to Scamorza cheese or savoury crêpes, they match full-bodied white wines made from neutral grapes such as oak-aged Vernaccia di San Gimignano.

Pasta and meat

Strangozzi (Umbrian ‘spaghetti’) served with shaved black truffle, as well as meat courses, go well with medium-weight Sangiovese-based reds. Try Montefalco Rosso from Umbria.

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