Crab pasta with chilli and Mission (Pais)

The one thing you’d think you could be sure of is that white wine would be the best pairing for crab but a meal last week at Toklas in London proved that isn’t necessarily the case.

The sommelier Agustina Basilico recommended a glass of 2019 La Malinche Mission from Sabelli-Frisch’s Somers Vineyard in Makelumne River, California.

Despite being only 12.5% it was intense enough to carry the spicy tonnarelle* with crab and chilli without contributing any jarring notes of its own. I think the fact the sauce contained a fair amount of brown meat also helped. 

Mission, which is known in Chile as Pais, is an appealingly light wine, comparable as the importer Wanderlust Wine says on its website to a light Grenache.

It’s fruity but quite tart (think redcurrants and cranberries) and could be lightly chilled.

Unfortunately it seems to be out of stock in the UK currently though you can buy the 2018 if you’re in NYC at Village Wine Merchants  for $29.99. (I was actually amazed the 2019 was still so fresh.)

Or obviously go and drink it at Toklas

For other crab pairings see The Best Wines to Pair with Crab 

*Tonnarelle is a like a slightly thicker, squarer spaghetti and can be used in similar dishes. You can buy it from Sous Chef in the UK.

I ate at Toklas as a guest of the restaurant. (In case you’re wondering why I was eating chips with pasta they were served with my colleague’s Dover sole!)

Langoustine with calamansi and a Greek white

This week’s match of the week is the perfect illustration of the fact that the flavours of a dish that should suggest a wine pairing as much as the main ingredient.

The dish in question was a variant of one of the regular items on the menu at the uber-fashionable, Michelin-starred Dorian in Notting Hill: a tempura langoustine tail, with pale ale and ginger mayo, calamansi (a Filipino citrus fruit that’s like a cross between a lime and a mandarin) and chilli sugar. 

I wouldn’t have been sure which way to go with it but the sommelier came up with an excellent pairing of a Cretan white wine, Dafni, from Lyrarakis’ Pasarades vineyard which had citrussy notes of its own that echoed those of the sauce.

White Bordeaux and albarino would have worked too, I reckon.

You can buy the 2023 vintage from Hedley Wright in the UK for a very reasonable £13.99 and for £15.99 from Cambridge Wine Merchants which is still good value for a wine of this quality.

For lobster pairings (which are similar to langoustine) see Wine with Lobster: 6 of the best pairings

Radicchio, almond and pecorino salad with Soave

Soave, as I’ve pointed out before, is an incredibly versatile food wine but it rarely goes as well with anything as it did with this salad at one of my favourite Bristol locals Sonny Stores the other day

It was based on a selection of radicchio leaves and almonds both of which echoed the nutty tones of the 2022 Pieropan Soave we were drinking by the glass. The other ingredients were pecorino and balsamic vinegar which offset the characteristic bitterness of the leaves.

But it also went very well with the farinata (chickpea pancake) and speck we’d also ordered and with the ravioli stuffed with La Tur (an Italian triple creme cheese) and hazelnuts that followed it.

The wine is quite widely available although the current 2023 vintage is considerably more expensive than it was last year although Abingdon Fine Wine has the ‘22 on offer for £13 which is a bargain considering it’s generally selling for £19-20 now. And Hennings has half bottles for £10.63. 

Own label Soave is still good value though. Tesco has a good one in its finest* range for £8.50.

For other salad pairings see Which Wine Pairs best with Salad?

Moroccan salads and vin gris

Wine is by no means served in all restaurants in Morocco so the idea of going so far as pairing it with specific dishes is equally if not more unfamiliar.

But they have a style of rosé called vin gris or gris de gris which is a versatile partner for many Moroccan dishes especially salads. It’s more like a white wine than a rosé with just the palest pink tinge.

We had a Moroccan wine, the 2023 Eclipse Les Deux Domaines made from grenache with a selection of salads including eggplant (aubergine) lemon and coriander, purslane salad and Taktouka (cooked peppers and tomatoes) at an excellent Marrakesh restaurant called Shabi Shabi.

This isn’t that selection but the light was so low I didn’t get a decent photograph of it but here’s a similar offering from the restaurant at the Musée de l’Art Culinaire Marocain which, like many Moroccan restaurants, doesn’t serve alcohol.

It would also go well with a vegetable tagine or 7 vegetable couscous.

It doesn’t seem to be available in the UK but you can find similar wines from the Languedoc in the South of France.