Challans Duck and Château le Puy

It’s easy to be so cocky about a wine pairing that you cease to leave your mind open to other possibilities. So duck has always led me to burgundy (or other pinot noir) rather than Bordeaux. But last week’s spectacular meal with Château Le Puy at Hélène Darroze at the Connaught convinced me that mature Bordeaux can be just as delicious an option.

It wasn’t just any old duck mind you but a Challans duck, much prized in France for its tenderness and depth of flavour. It was served with endive and, I subsequently discovered from the menu, rhubarb though that wasn’t really detectable in the dish.

9 great wine matches for duck

And the deep, sensuously velvety wine, the 2009 vintage of the Chateaux single vineyard Barthélemy for which they are trying to get a separate appellation, would have shone with practically anything to be honest. The vineyard is farmed biodynamically and the wine made with without sulphites, fining or filtration. (I’d love to give it blind to anyone who dismisses all natural wine as faulty or ‘cidery')

There were some other fascinating wines and pairings during the meal too - their extraordinarily deep-coloured rosé 'Rose Marie' with a dish of lobster with morels and vin jaune, a chocolate and coffee dessert with a wine, Detour des Isles, which is treated like a madeira and travels round the world before being bottled and the discovery that the 2015 vintage of their white Bordeaux Marie Cecile which is 100% semillon was the perfect match for our cheeseboard.

The experience had a particular poignancy for me in that my late husband introduced me to Le Puy and we shared the fabled 2003 at one of our favourite restaurants La cour de Rémi which was always our final stop in France at the end of the summer holidays. He would have loved this extraordinary dinner.

I ate at Helene Darroze as a guest of Chateau le Puy. The restaurant has a vertical of of their cuvée Emilien on the wine list.

Roast beef and Bordeaux

OK, this is one of the most classic wine pairings in the world but none the worse for that.

I was treated to lunch at The Wine Society on Friday following a tasting through some of their latest releases. For those of you who aren’t members and haven’t been there it occupies a rather unlovely '70s (I’d guess*) building on the outskirts of one of Britain’s unlovelier towns, Stevenage. In a private dining room which looks like - and probably is - a conference room they provided a totally resplendent roast dinner including perfectly cooked roast beef, Yorkshire puddings, gorgeously crisp roast potatoes and parsnips and carrots, beans and broccoli. (We Brits love a shedload of vegetables on the side)

With that they served two venerable reds - a 1998 Chateau La Mondotte Saint-Emilion and a Penfold’s 707 from the same vintage. Interestingly there was no qualitative difference between the two wines, except perhaps in stayability - the 707 dropped off slightly before the Mondotte which was still astonishingly fresh but both were mellow sweet and delicious. There was no obvious old word/new world contrast - it was more like comparing two wines from the right and left banks of Bordeaux.

Why does beef work so well? Well it’s deeply savoury, not too powerful - the vegetables are by and large neutral. It’s the perfect backdrop to a fine wine - As the Wine Society would know. Both had been decanted a couple of hours beforehand.

Incidentally The Wine Society, which I'd advise anyone to join, is not just about such rarified treasures. One of the best value wines I tasted on the day was their own 2015 Corbières at £7.75 which I encouraged the friends I was staying with to buy and which rapidly got demolished over the weekend. It’s fabulously vibrant blend of carignan and grenache that would make great everyday drinking. And obviously go well with beef too ….

*Turns out it's 'an unlovely 60s building, extended in the 70s, 80s, 90s and 100s' according to the Wine Soc's PR, Ewan. And it IS a private dining room not a conference room ;-)

Grilled ox tongue with radishes and Mr Thirsty vin de soif

As soon as I heard Will Lander of The Quality Chop House and Portland had opened a new restaurant, Clipstone, I couldn’t wait to check it out - and I wasn’t disappointed.

Mind you it should be good. Will is the son of restaurant critic Nick Lander and wine writer Jancis Robinson and with a pedigree like that if he can’t get the food and drink right, who can?

Mr Thirsty Vin de Soif

Two of the dishes I had were top notch including this plate of grilled ox tongue with radishes and crème fraiche which was fantastic with one of the wines we had on tap, the appropriately named Mr Thirsty vin de soif which they were selling for a very reasonable £5 a glass.

It comes from Fabien Jouves of Mas del Périé in Cahors, a man who obviously likes to stir things up. (He also has a wine called You Fuck my Wine!) This one is a blend of malbec and merlot with a little tannat and cabernet franc. It’s made without sulphur and unfined and unfiltered - so it is a proper card-carrying natural wine but deliciously vibrant and juicy.

I also tried the fresh, citrussy Bernardo Farina Verdejo 2015 from Castilla y Leon which sells for an even more reasonable £3.50 and went brilliantly with a ‘crudo’ of char, peach and ‘cultured cream which, judging from Instagram, looks like becoming Clipstone’s signature dish, this summer at least. (Char is a fish for those of you who haven't come across it before).

I wasn’t quite so keen on the scallop flatbread with walnut pesto and lemon zest - the base was a bit dense and the scallop got lost among such punchy flavourings - but early days. Two runaway winners out of three isn’t half bad and it’s a really cool little place. Go!

Clipstone is at 5, Clipstone Street London W1W 6BB. 0207 637 0871. The wines come from O W Loeb.

Roast turkey and Chivite Coleccion 125 reserva 2001

A bit of a departure with the turkey this Christmas - a magnum of Chivite Coleccion 125 from Navarra we unearthed in a cellar sort-out the other day. It's based on Tempranillo with a proportion of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon - I'm not sure what the percentages were that year - but was probably at the optimum moment for drinking - the fruit still bright but super-smooth and beautifully in balance.

I know I tend to recommend other options with turkey but this hit the spot perfectly coping with a rich spicy stuffing and bright, sharp cranberry sauce.

What made it work? Three main things, I think: the level of alcohol (13.5%) - not too alcoholic but powerful enough to take on the many different flavours on the plate, pure, intense but in no way cloying fruit and smooth, integrated tannins. And a magnum is always fun.