High Street Wine Challenge: Pic Saint Loup, Sainsburys

It's a Saturday night and I'm home alone so that can only mean one thing. A crappy chick flick, a big plate of pasta and a HUGE glass of red wine. Bliss. 

Tonight's red wine I picked up from Sainsburys, their Taste The Difference Pic Saint Loup (£8). This appellation is located just north of Montpellier in the South of France. A blend of Syrah and Grenache, it's silky smooth, full of ripe blackberry and raspberry fruit. Lovely freshness to it which worked really well with my bolognese, and delicious notes of herbs on the finish. All-in-all a very easy-drinking, tasty bottle. 


A little tip: it's always worth buying "Taste the Difference" or Tesco's "Finest" or similar. The supermarkets negotiate hard on these wines and you'll be getting a real bargain. In some cases the own-label will be standing next to exactly the same wine in its original label, the own-label being about 20% cheaper...


Happy Swigging!

Food & Wine Matching: my Top Tips for Success

Food & wine matching isn’t an exact science. Granted when you get it right the results are amazing (and when wrong it’s horrendous – try smoked salmon with a tannic red, it makes the salmon taste like tin foil bleeeurgh).

So here follows my Top 10 rules for food & wine matching. It's pretty concise (I'll go into more depth in future posts) but I hope it's a good starting point from which to plan your next dinner party menu:

1.       Sauvignon Blanc is perfect with light fish dishes: Sauvignon Blanc, especially European Sauvignon, has a very high level of citrussy acidity which makes it fantastic with light fish dishes, where it acts like a wedge of lemon. Sauvignon Blanc is also great with goats cheese (it cuts through the grassy creaminess) and grilled vegetable dishes.  

 2.       Whereas Chardonnay is best with creamier, richer dishes: Chardonnay is a richer style of white so can stand up to creamier sauces, roast chicken (with all the trimmings) and pork dishes.

3.       With Mushroom dishes, try Pinot Noir: Don’t ask me why, it must be the earthiness of this grape variety (particularly the red wines of Burgundy) that makes it so good with mushroom dishes, eg Coq au Vin. Pinot Noir (regardless of where it's from) is also the perfect accompaniment to duck.  

 4.       Champagne works brilliantly with junk food! Everyone knows that Champagne is a fantastic accompaniment to salty food such as caviar and smoked salmon, but did you know that it is also utterly delicious with more affordable food such as fish & chips, burgers, hot dogs, etc? This is mainly because of the bubbles and the acidity in Champagne which act as a fantastic palate cleanser to greasy, salty food (my Mum still fondly remembers the Dom Perignon and burgers they ate in their first flat back in the 1970s). It is such a great combination in fact that there’s now a restaurant in London called Bubbledogs that serves only hotdogs & champagne!  

 5.       Malbec& Zinfandel are perfect for BBQs: these are the only two red wines I’ve found that can stand up to all those powerful marinades and sauces, and which are also fantastic with red meat. Malbec is the classic steak wine which I’ve written about before; Zinfandel is very luscious, full of sweet ripe dark fruit and smoky notes. Both are silky smooth wines so real crowd pleasers.  

 6.       With Salty & Spicy Food, pick Sweet Wines: There's a reason why Port& Stilton is such a classic food & wine combination - the sweetness of the Port works deliciously with the saltiness of the Stilton. You can actually try blue cheese with lots of different sweet wines, you'd be surprised by how many combinations work. Then we move on to hot, spicy dishes which you would normally wash down with lager. In fact the best thing to drink is actually an off-dry white wine such as a Kabinett Riesling from Germany – the residual sugar helps battle the chilli heat while the acidity is lovely and refreshing on the palate.

7.       Red Wine is NOT a perfect match with Cheese: This is a common misconception! Actually, cheese tends to go better with white wines,  sweet wines (as above) or even Champagne. If you really want to eat cheese with your red wine, stick to hard cheeses like Cheddar and Manchego.

 8.       If you HAVE to drink wine with chocolate, go fortified: Chocolate is a nightmare to pair with wine because it has a certain bitterness to it which clashes with the tannins in wine, which gets worse the darker the chocolate is. So in truth the best wines to serve with it are high alcohol, sweet wines such as Port, sweet Madeira (look for Bual or Malmsey) or Pedro Ximenez Sherry.

9.       If in doubt, go Local: particularly with Old World wines, always remember that they were originally made to go with the local cuisine. So if you’re serving up pizza, lasagne, or similarly Italian tomato-based dishes, serve up Italian wines – both reds and whites have high acidity which works beautifully with tomato sauces. Hearty Southern France dishes like Cassoulet work brilliantly like rustic Southern French reds. It may sound basic, but it really works!

10.   Drink & Eat what you like: at the end of the day, there’s no point in me telling you to drink a Malbec with your steak if you don’t like Malbec! So while you can take all my advice on board, don’t feel that you have to stick to it rigidly – above all make sure you eat and drink what you enjoy.  

Happy Swigging!

 

High Street Wine Challenge

After feedback from various friends, I have decided to do a weekly wine recommendation. It will be something available from supermarkets or wine stores nationwide and on a budget of £10 (sorry Dad, £5 just doesn't cut it anymore).

So for my first one, I am drinking Marquis de Pennautier Viognier from the Languedoc in France (available from Majestic at £9.99, currently on offer at £6.66). This is a very dry, fresh style of Viognier, with bags of acidity but also lots of ripe apricot fruit and a hint of ginger spice. It would be great with roast chicken or with lebanese or moroccan cuisine. Tonight however I am drinking it on its own. Absolutely delicious and well worth the £6.66 offer price!

Racy Rieslings

If you ask any wine expert about their favourite white wines, the word Riesling is highly likely to feature in their list. But normal people are still very scared of Riesling (pronounced "Ree-sling"). Unfortunately it still conjures up images of the cheap sweet German wines that we all drank far too much of last century. But this is grossly unfair.

Riesling is one of the World’s most aromatic white wines. The fruit flavours range from lime and green apple, through to apricot and pineapple, depending on the ripeness of the grapes, which are susceptible to “noble rot.” This is a disease that sounds disgusting but in fact just turns the grapes into raisins thereby concentrating their flavour and sugar levels. So wine producers will be very careful to pick grapes that are the perfect ripeness for the style of wine they want. You also get aromas of honey or even hints of petrol in these wines – strange I know, but this is one of the smells that wine buffs go crazy for.

Riesling grapes developing "noble rot"
(photo courtesy of www.colonialspirits.com)

 

In good quality Rieslings, the sweetness is balanced by the grape’s naturally high acidity levels which makes them utterly seductive and moreish. However if you are completely averse to drinking sweet wines, the following guide will hopefully steer you towards the drier style wines…

 German Riesling

Please do not disregard German Rieslings. It always saddens me that they're so hard to sell when they really are some of the most delicious wines I've ever had the pleasure of tasting.

To find the drier styles, here are the words to spot on the label:

• "Trocken" - means "dry" (whereas  "halbtrocken" means "off-dry")
• "Grosses Gewachs" - this indicates it's the German equivalent of a "Grand Cru," so a top quality wine, and it also can only be used to classify dry wines. Quite often just abbreviated to “GG”.
• "Kabinett" - this indicates how ripe the grapes were when picked, so it doesn't mean the wine is dry per se but rather that the grapes were less high in sugar than a Spatlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese or (the sweetest of them all) Trockenbeerenauslese. Gotta love those Germans and their crazy words! A Kabinett Riesling will always be a touch sweet but this will be balanced by searing acidity, especially those from the Mosel Valley, so you will be surprised by how much you enjoy this style of wine.

 Here are a few German wines that I love which are worth hunting down:

J.J. Prum Riesling Kabinett (Mosel)
Künstler Hochheimer Hölle Riesling Kabinett Trocken (Rheingau)
Naegele Riesling Trocken (Pfalz)

Alsace Riesling

Despite being just across the mountains from Germany, Alsace Rieslings are all dry in style so a very safe bet. Unless they're dessert wines, in which case they'll be labelled VT (Vendange Tardive) or SGN (Selection de Grains Nobles).

Wines to look out for:

Riesling Cuvée Théo, Domaine Weinbach
Domaine Bott-Geyl Riesling Grafenreben Lieu-Dit

Australian Riesling

This isn't a grape variety that the Aussies are particularly reknowned for, but they can do it very well. Wines from the cooler climate areas of Clare Valley, Eden Valley, Margaret River and Tasmania tend to be fresher, zingier and more floral. Those from hotter areas such as Maclaren Vale are fatter and more tropical.

Wines to look out for:

D’Arenberg The Dry Dam Riesling (Maclaren Vale)
Bay of Fires Riesling (Tasmania)
Petaluma Clare Valley Riesling (Clare Valley)

New Zealand Riesling

This is one of the more exciting grape varieties being grown in New Zealand, balancing out the oceans of Sauvignon Blanc. New Zealand’s beautifully cool climate is perfect for growing such aromatic grapes, hence its success also with Pinot Gris, Albarino and now Austria's Gruner Veltliner.

Wines to look out for:

Dry River Craighall Riesling (Martinborough)
Seresin Memento Riesling (Marlborough)
Mountford Pure Riesling (Waipara)

Food Matching

Because Riesling is such an aromatic wine, it works really well with aromatic food. Not just Indian curries, but also Thai, Vietnamese, Moroccan and Middle Eastern cuisine – anything with lots of fragrant herbs and spices. And the hotter the spices are, the sweeter the Riesling should be as this balances the heat beautifully.

Of course it’s also very enjoyable when drunk on its own, beautifully chilled...

Happy Swigging!

Exploring Wines by the glass

I’ve never understood why people don’t even blink at paying £12 for a cocktail, and yet you try to charge anything over £5 for a glass of wine and you can see the palpitations starting. Granted it doesn’t help that wine isn’t very important to a lot of bars and pubs, with customers being charged a small fortune for liquid that has more in common with loo cleaner than wine.

 Thankfully there are an increasing number of bars and restaurants in London where the wine is the focus, where the wine list is full of quirky gems and the staff are keen to help you explore it. For those of you lucky enough to live in or near London, here follows a list of my favourite wine bars where I think they really get it right.  This is where you should go if you want to enjoy wine and learn something new while you’re at it.

 Sager & Wilde (Hackney)

Run by epic husband & wife team, Michael & Charlotte Sager-Wilde, this started as a pop-up but they quickly found themselves a permanent site on Hackney Road. Their focus is on offering wines that you would otherwise never dream of drinking by using a flat rate £20 mark up across the board. So this means the higher up the list you go, the better deal you’re getting. Alongside wines from vintages that I didn’t think were still available, they also serve such wonders as Txakoli and Catarratto, lots of them by the glass, and their grilled cheese sandwich soaks it all up very nicely indeed.

http://www.sagerandwilde.com/

 

Vinoteca (many London locations, and growing!)

This little empire started out just opposite Smithfields meat market, and is about to open its 5^th site by Kings Cross. This is more of a restaurant than a wine bar, but the wine offering is huge and everything is available to drink in or take away. In fact every bottle has two prices indicating how much it is to take away and to drink in, which shows just how reasonable their mark ups are. The list of wines by the glass is constantly changing, and they host monthly wine dinners which are well worth going to if you fancy letting out your inner wine-geek for an evening.

http://www.vinoteca.co.uk/

 

The 10 Cases (Covent Garden)

A Bistro on one side and a wine shop/bar on the other, this place is a wine haven in an otherwise rather drab part of Covent Garden. The owners Will & Ian only ever buy 10 cases of each wine, so when it’s gone they’ll replace it with something new. This means the list is always fresh and exciting and the staff are on hand to offer you their recommendations if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the whole thing. The “Cave à Vin” next door is where they offer those wines that have been particularly well received in the restaurant (alongside finer gems) which you can either take away or drink on site for a £12 corkage fee, accompanied by an assortment of charcuterie and cheeses.

http://10cases.co.uk/

 

Planet of the Grapes (The City)

I first discovered these guys at their fantastic shop in Holborn, then quickly visited their bar/shop in Leadenhall Market which is tiny but tremendous (size isn’t everything). You can drink any bottle from their shelves for just a £10 corkage fee which makes it great value. And if you’re interested in Wine Dinners, they organise some rather epic ones with the World’s most iconic winemakers in their Holborn shop or in their new Bow Lane restaurant.

http://planetofthegrapes.co.uk/site/leadenhall-wine-bar

 

Vagabond Wines (Charlotte Street & Fulham Broadway)

Vagabond is quite simply a wine mecca. They have 100 wines on tap, which you can either sample (25ml) or enjoy a full glass of (125ml) alongside delicious charcuterie and cheese platters. And when you find a wine that really excites you, you can buy a bottle (or several!) to take home with you. They also host brilliant informal wine tastings so you can learn more about your new favourite tipple. Surely this is the future of wine retail? We live in hope.

http://vagabondwines.co.uk/

 

 Happy Swigging!