Meursault and black truffle crisps

Food is always a secondary consideration when you’re enjoying a really great bottle of wine but you don’t want anything to detract from it either.

So the choice by my neighbour and fellow wine buff Ruth Spivey of these Torres Spanish black truffle crisps with a very special bottle of 2008 Coche-Dury Meursault that we’d managed to persuade my pal and podcast collaborator Liam Steevenson to share with us, was inspired.

It was everything you would hope a mature Meursault would be, sumptuous, creamy, savoury, developing layers and layers of flavour in the glass. You never want to finish a wine like that - and you never forget it.

Given his generosity with the Coche I feel honour bound to mention we had a glass of Liam’s latest release, a deliciously, crisp, saline Alvarinho called Céu na Terra from Vinho Verde as a palate sharpener which would in any other circumstances have stolen the show. Especially, with seafood.

You can buy it from Red & White for £16.95. Which is a bargain compared to the £500-odd you’d pay for a bottle of Coche, if you could even get your hands on one. (And no, Liam didn’t pay anything like that!)

You can buy the crisps - and I would - for around £3.95 a 125g pack in good delis or online from Ocado for £3.49. They would also be very good with a decent bottle of Cava or vintage champagne.

Mature Marlborough chardonnay with modern Japanese food

I don’t often go to wine lunches or dinners, preferring to experiment with a range of wines from more than one country and producer with the food I’m eating but I couldn’t resist the temptation of trying New Zealand producer Astrolabe’s wine with the food at Sake No Hana in London's St James's.

The restaurant describes its food as 'modern authentic Japanese'. Although the presentation is classic the flavours and saucing are bold which is maybe why the 2014 Astrolabe Province Marlborough chardonnay stood out as the surprise star of the meal.

It was outstandingly good with a dish of aubergine with roasted sesame miso sauce, a tataki of beef with sesame and egg mustard sauce, tuna with truffle and black cod with yuzu and pretty good with the tempura prawn and beef with shiitake mushrooms. The only dishes it didn't work quite so well with were a very simply prepared tuna tartare and the sushi which went better with their lighter pinot gris.

When I came to think about it afterwards I was struck by how many of the ingredients were umami-rich with miso, sesame and truffle playing a key part in the flavour of the dish - which was, of course, the element that made the chardonnay, which was barrel fermented and aged in French oak, shine.

The fact that it wasn’t the most recent vintage helped too - the wine had had almost 4 years in bottle. And was served cool rather than icy cold which tends to numb the flavours in a mature wine like this.

Astrolabe also suggests the more conventional food pairings of poultry, pork and light game, creamy seafood and pasta dishes, mushroom risotto and paella (though I’m not quite so sure about the latter!)

Hic! wine merchants still has the wine for a very reasonable £15.75 if you feel inspired to try it for yourself or £17.80 from Armit Wines.

I ate at Sake no Hana as a guest of Astrolabe.

Truffled egg toast and Bianco di Custoza

I was sure I was going to be featuring the splendidly retro Brown Windsor Soup and Madeira as my match of the week this week - a combination suggested by Ben Austin of number1wino for the underground supper club I went to on Friday - but sadly I left the Madeira at home by mistake. (Ben, who went the following night, said it was a treat.)

So it's the truffled egg toast and the Monte del Fra Bianco di Custoza I had at Spuntino earlier in the week which is probably much more to your taste.

Bianco di Custoza, like Soave, comes from the Veneto and shares many of the same characteristics - fresh, smooth, slightly almondy, infinitely versatile. This particular one is a blend of Garganega (which accounts for half the blend), Trebbiano Toscano, Tocai, Cortese, Chardonnay, Riesling and Sauvignon. You can read all about it on the Slurp website from which you can buy it for a very reasonable £8.95

The truffled egg toast was a bit like a Buck Rarebit (a Welsh rarebit topped with an egg) only more subtle and delicate (I'd guess the cheese was Fontina) and, of course, truffled. A brilliant bar snack in a very cool bar. And a dark one as you can see from the quality of the photo.

A glass of Champagne, I must admit, would also have worked very well.