Mature gruyère and white port

I don’t drink a lot of white port, I must confess. More often in summer with tonic rather than at this time of year.

But now I’ve discovered how well it goes with gruyère, I may.

Port is an obvious pairing with cheese*, I know, but a mature white port like the Kopke White Colheita 2010 my fellow wine writer Kate Hawkings produced the other night adds a different dimension.

At that age it’s showing a degree of oxidation, not unlike a vin jaune but with a sweetness that works well with the deep savouriness of gruyère. There’s a touch of quince and orange peel in there too.

You can buy it, somewhat to my surprise, from Waitrose - though only in a few branches, I imagine - and online from their website and Waitrose Cellar for £42.99 which is obviously not cheap but would make an interesting Christmas present for a winelover.

*I was reminded, going through the archives, that 20 year old tawny port is also a great match for gruyère

See also Christmas pairings with port, sherry and madeira 

The best wine matches for Comté (which is very similar).

Gruyère photo by barmalini at shutterstock.com

Eccles cakes and medium-sweet sherry

It’s a bit early to be thinking about mince pies though I’m sure there are some in the shops somewhere but Booths showed off their very tasty festive eccles cakes with a mince pie filling at their autumn tasting the other day.

What to drink with it though? Sauternes proved too light, port too strong and sweet and 15 year old amontillado too dry, in my opinion at least

I found myself yearning for a sweeter sherry - not as sweet as cream though that would work but a rich medium-sweet sherry which I recalled I had at home in the form of William & Humbert’s As You Like It. As its classified as a VORS (Very Old Rare Sherry) the constituent sherries are no less than 30 years old which you might think make it a bit grand for an eccles cake or a mince pie but if it’s a great match, why not?

You could always drink it with a basic off-dry amontillado instead, which I believe Booths stocks in its own label range, or even a cream sherry.

You can buy the As You Like It from Sandhams for £29.99 a 50cl bottle or The Wine Society for £31 - one of the rare occasions when TWS is more expensive than the competition.

For more suggestions as to what to drink with mince pies click here 

And for other amontillado sherry pairings here.

Apricot sorbet and moscato di Pantelleria

There were lots of interesting food and wine matches during my trip to Pantelleria and Etna last week with the Sicilian winery Donnafugata but the most surprising one to me was this pairing of an apricot sorbet and a light moscato, the 2022 Kabir.

Surprising because ice-creams and sorbets are hard to match. In the past I’ve found richer more liquorous wines and even liqueurs work best as you can see from this post.

What wine - if any - goes with ice-cream?

Like their famous Ben Ryé passito di Pantelleria, the Kabir is made from zibibbo but unlike Ben Rye the grapes are not sun-dried resulting in a lighter, more fragrant wine that was just 11.5% but one which worked really well with the sorbet.

What would you pair Ben Ryé with then? Depends a bit on its age. When it’s younger it’s rich and orangey, almost marmaladey so you can pair it with relatively light creamy pastries like cannoli or this ‘bacio Pantesco’, a deep-fried pastry filled with ricotta.

More mature ones develop rich treacley notes that work particularly well with a dark chocolate dessert or dried fruits such as raisins and figs, 

You can buy the Kabir in the UK for £32.95 from Vinum and £39.06 from Shelved Wine. 

(Apologies for the photo but I was a couple of spoonfuls in before I realised what a brilliant match it was!) 

Lettuce with smoked fish and vermouth sauce paired with vermouth

I hesitated to make this astounding drink pairing which I had at Mauro Colagreco’s new restaurant at Raffles in London recently my match of the week because I it would be really hard to replicate but I’m sure would fascinate the chefs, sommeliers and other food and drink professionals among you.

The menu is led by vegetables which reflects the style of his three-Michelin-starred restaurant Mirazur in the south of France. The lettuce was a red oak lettuce served with smoked fish and a just-warm creamy vermouth sauce and some some delicious crunchy shards of what looked like puffed rice. In other words a reimagined caesar salad

With it the sommelier had paired a vermouth called Vinmouth, an organic white vermouth from Perpignan, which worked brilliantly with the warm, rich dressing and the smokey fish. There don’t appear to be any UK stockists but you can buy it from Le Grand Epicerie in Paris.

In fact all the pairings on the drinks pairing menu were outstanding and could easily have made the match of the week slot.

There was a refreshing rhubarb ‘amuse’ that wasn’t on the menu which was paired with a medium-dry French cider called Maley

The first course of seabass sashimi and sea buckthorn was matched with a Tatomer grüner veltliner from California

Then the lettuce

Followed by a spectacular dish of Jerusalem artichoke, monkfish, wild mushrooms and hazelnut which was paired with a Filipa Pato Nossa Calcario Bical 2021 from Bairrada in Portugal (a clever low cost alternative to white burgundy)

The main course was a more conventional pairing of radicchio with grilled loin of venison and mustard sauce with Guigal Chateau d’Ampuis Cote Rotie 2018. Glorious

And finally a show-stopping dessert of citrus, crispy ravioli shell black lemon ice cream and yoghurt fontainebleu which was paired with a Masumi yuzushu yuzu liqueur - an extravagant burst of creamy citrus.

Of course, bearing in mind that this is a top Michelin-standard restaurant albeit it hasn’t been rated yet the price isn’t cheap - £165 for a 5 course tasting menu and £125 for the ‘Exploration Route’ pairing though that’s not out of order for a restaurant of this quality.

However there is a 3 course à la carte ‘discovery’ menu for £110 and a lunch menu for £60 from Tuesday to Saturday apart from Christmas and other holidays. Certainly worth taking advantage of at that price.

For more conventional caesar salad pairings see here 

For other monkfish wine matches click this link

For venison pairings visit this page

I ate at Mauro Colagreco, Raffles as a guest of the restaurant.