Hot ham, kumquat relish and saperavi

Given the intense contagioiusness of Omicron it seemed a good idea to have a low key New Year’s Eve celebration this year which took the form of a really lovely kitchen supper with my friend Jenny Chandler and her family.

(Jenny wrote the great book Green Kids Cook: you can find her recipe for Smacked Cucumber and Crispy Green Salad with Zingy Ginger Dressing - which is EXACTLY what I feel like eating after 10 days of stuffing myself - here.)

On the night though she cooked a simple, delicious dish of ham poached in ginger ale with lentils (for luck in the new year), cavolo nero and a fresh zingy kumquat relish. I’d taken along two bottles to compare, a 2014 Cousino Macul Finis Terrae a mature blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah from Chile and, on impulse, a rich Georgian red, a 2018 Orgo Saperavi which went brilliantly well with the dish, especially the kumquat relish. Orangey flavours, it appears, need that kind of vibrant brambly fruit. Dolcetto, I suspect, would also work as would Bonarda.

Incidentally I’d tried the wine a year or so ago and found it slightly disappointing but it absolutely sang on the night.

Other good matches for Saperavi are slow cooked Wagyu beef and, you may be surprised to hear, roast grouse.

What else to match with Christmas ham

Glazed bacon ribs and Meursault

What do you pair with a classic Irish dish of bacon and cabbage? Guinness might the traditional answer but when the bacon is celebrated northern Ireland butcher Peter Hannan’s amazing French trimmed dry cured bacon rack, glazed and cooked on the barbecue and served with an outrageously creamy parsley sauce then something a little more extravagant is called for.

But Meursault? How does that work? Well pork goes at least as well with white wine as red but it’s really all about the sauce. Cream absolutely loves chardonnay and with a sauce of this richness a classy burgundy like the 2012 Vincent Sauvestre Meursault Clos des Tessons we drank with it* is the answer. It was just stunning.

Two other matches that worked well were a deliciously refreshing medium dry 4.5% Meadow Farm Irish craft cider and - more unexpectedly - a dark, exotic blend of nero d’avola and nerello mascalese from Cantina Cellaro in Sicily which had an unusual taste of cloves which were of course the link to the ham. Would any nero d’avola work as well? I’m not sure it would but it would certainly be worth a try.

*From Robb Brothers in Portadown

Parma ham and figs with Malvasia

I’ve always tended to go for Prosecco with Parma ham but last week I found an even better wine pairing - Malvasia.

I was actually in Parma on a two day press trip looking at both parma ham and parmigiano reggiano (aka parmesan cheese) which gave me a chance to taste ham of a quality we rarely get in the UK. The best, which we ate at a lovely traditional restaurant called La Greppia, was 33 months old and came from a top producer called Pio Tosini.

The owner, Maurizio Rossi, buys the hams at 14 months, takes delivery of them a few months later then ages them for a final few months in the restaurant cellar. They are, of course, freshly sliced which makes all the difference.

The taste and texture of the ham were so sweet and delicate that it was obviously critical that whatever wine we drank with it shouldn't overwhelm it. Maurizio, who has an 800 bin cellar, suggested a bottle of the Lamoretti Colli di Parma Malvasia 2008, a deliciously aromatic white with an almost peachy flavour. It was good with the ham on its own but absolutely stellar when it was combined with fresh figs - one of the best pairings I’ve come across this year.

The following day we tried some more ham (at a different restaurant) with the sparkling version of the same wine which was also good. It also went well quite well with parmigiano reggiano but there are more rewarding matches for that, I think, about which I’ll be writing in due course.

* You can buy Pio Tosini's ham from Natoora in the UK and - would you believe - from Amazon in the US!

* I travelled to Parma with the Discover the Origin campaign.

Charcuterie and young Syrah

Last week I had lunch at my new favourite London hangout, the wine bar Terroirs which is run by a partnership including the quirky and original Caves de Pyrène. It's a place that you'll absolutely love if you're a Francophile: it feels just like a Parisien wine bar - without the surly service. The food is also cracking but as we'd resolved to kick off the new year by splitting a Vacherin Mont d'Or, as you can read on my cheese blog The Cheeselover, we didn't get a chance this time to sample chef Ed Wilson's robust bistro food.

Our meal kicked off with some really fabulous charcuterie - some of the best I've had in London, which we washed down with a bottle of Vin de Pays de L'Ardèche 2007, a vibrant young Syrah from Hervé Souhaut of Domaine Romaneaux-Destezet that was exactly right with the silky, sweet fat of the Lardo di Colonnato and some fine prosciutto and salami from Cinta Senesi.

Like many of the other producers that Caves de Pyrène handles, Souhaut is a natural winemaker who uses only organic and biodynamic winemaking techniques - his wines are widely available in the US and elsewhere if you check out his site

Surprisingly, as I have a strong preference for crisp dry whites with Vacherin, it also went with the cheese, mainly I think because of its own crisp acidity and lack of intrusive tannins.

It was one of Douglas Wregg's ('Caves' web maestro and restaurant advisor) favourite wines of 2008.