Match of the week

Rabbit ballotine with Domaine Lucci Wildman Pinot Noir

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on November 1 2011 at 08:49

If i'm asked what my favourite wine is I usually say I don't have one as there are always moments when I fancy one wine more than anything else. But Pinot Noir has to be up there, especially a glorious, hedonistic Pinot like this Domaine Lucci Wildman Pinot which is one of the most delicious wines I've tasted all year*.

It doesn't look much admittedly. It's a natural wine so it's unfiltered and slightly cloudy with a pale almost brownish tinge to it that almost looks as if someone's poured a dash of milky tea into the glass. But the aroma and flavour are just sensational - sweet, scented, heady, silky - everything you expect from great red burgundy.

The match was at a natural wine dinner at Bell's Diner which was presented by my husband, a great natural wine aficionado. He suggested rabbit as the ideal match to the chef Chris Wicks and he came up with this delicious ballotine, stuffed with walnut and ginger and served with carrot, wild mushrooms and a pure-tasting not excessively sweet plum pure which provided the link to the dish. (Apologies for the very blurry photo.)

Like duck, rabbit is a pretty sure-fire match for Pinot.

*available for £22.80 a bottle by the case (mixed or unmixed) from Les Caves de Pyrne and £30 from Bottle Apostle.

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