Match of the week

Scallops with Sauternes butter and oaked white Bordeaux

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on January 11 2021 at 13:38

One of the treats I’ve lined up during lockdown is to have a weekly takeaway from a local restaurant, both to give me a break from cooking and hopefully help keep them in business and my first was a meal from one of my favourite Bristol restaurants littlefrench.

It included one of chef-owner Freddy Bird’s signature dishes of scallops with sauternes butter which of course posed the question what the accompanying wine should be.

Sauternes, I thought, would be too much of a good thing along with my feeling that it’s better at the end than the beginning of a meal but I did have a couple of dry white Bordeaux to hand. The best match was the 2016 G de Guiraud which had developed a rich tropical fruit character which echoed the richness of the sauce (which is actually as much about the butter as the wine plus some added tarragon I put in at Freddy’s suggestion)

You can buy it for £17.50 from Palmers Wine Store in Dorset or the more recent 2019 vintage from Davy’s for £17.95 which also has the 2017 vintage in magnum. Not that there’s much point in magnums at the moment!

If you live in Bristol you can order the littlefrench at home menu from their website.

For other wine matches with scallops see also Top wine pairing with scallops

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