In search of the perfect steak wine

This report on a steak and wine tasting I did at Hawksmoor Spitalfields back in 2007 is now over 10 years old but the advice still holds good. It's quite a long read though so for more concise steak and wine matching advice head to The Best Wine Pairings for Steak.

"When my son Will was born in 1977 I couldn’t have imagined that 30 years on we’d be sitting together in his restaurant discussing food and wine matching. But as co-owner of an award-winning American-style steakhouse and cocktail bar, Hawksmoor, he and his restaurant manager Nick Strangeway (now with Hix restaurants) were the ideal people to help me decide what makes the perfect steak wine.

The plan was to see what impact cooking steak for different lengths of time had on the bottles you choose. Nick was also of the view that we should see what effect different cuts made which, fascinatingly, proved as significant as the cooking time.

Ironically Will and I started from unexpectedly different standpoints: Will being of the opinion that more mature, classic wines such as Bordeaux and Rioja were the best match for steak while I favoured younger New World reds with firmer tannins. We both had cause to revise our views.

Fillet

Meat at the restaurant is sourced from one of London’s top butchers The Ginger Pig from Longhorn cattle raised in North Yorkshire so even the fillet was exceptionally full flavoured, but its smooth, soft texture made it the subtlest of the steaks we tasted - “the kind of steak to serve with a salad for a light lunch” as Nick put it.

I don’t normally think of Pinot Noir as a match for steak but the best pairing by far when it was cooked rare, was the most elegant of our wines, a classically silky, seductive 2001 Daniel Rion Vosne-Romanée. A 2002 Au Bon Climat ‘Knox Alexander’ Pinot Noir tasted slightly too sweet but worked better when the flllet was served medium-rare and had acquired more caramelisation (at which point it slightly overwhelmed the Vosne-Romanée) It was also good if you served the fillet with béarnaise sauce (see below). The medium-rare fillet also went particularly well well with a Guidalberto 2005, the second wine of Tenuta San Guido, again a beautifully balanced wine with a marked level of acidity, a much more important factor in matching fillet than tannin, at least when the meat is unsauced.

Bone-in sirloin

Sirloin, in Nick’s view, is the ideal cut for serving blue because it has so much flavour of its own it doesn’t need to rely on caramelisation. This was where I thought our most tannic wine, a blockbuster Montus La Tyre 2005 Madiran from Alain Brumont would score. It was a fair match, but the barely cooked meat had the effect of unbalancing the wine and making it taste slightly sweet, as it did a 2003 Châteauneuf-du-Pâpe from Château La Nerthe. The two outstanding matches were a 2000 Ridge Monte Bello and a 2001 Pichon-Longueville, both still quite youthful so the barely cooked meat had the effect of making them taste at their peak.

The Pichon-Longueville and Ridge also showed well when the sirloin was cooked medium-rare, as did a very attractive 1996 Château St Pierre St-Julien which surprisingly turned out to be one of the star wines of the tasting. We both found a 2004 Catena Alta Malbec and a 2004 Turkey Flat Barossa Shiraz tasted slightly too sweet.

Rib-eye

Rib-eye has more fat than other cuts so Nick advises his customers to go for a slightly longer cooking time to allow it to integrate with the meat. It makes for a juicier and more flavourful steak. Here it was fascinating how much difference the cooking time made. When it was served rare it paired best with a 2003 Champin Le Seigneur Côte Rôtie from Jean-Michel Gerin and a 2003 Collazzi Toscana (a ‘cut price super Tuscan’ according to Nick), both generous, ripe and full-bodied.

Once it was cooked medium-rare both those wines showed more youthful angularity and the smoother Châteauneuf-du-Pâpe and Catena Alta Malbec became the better matches. When it was medium/well done, the longest cooked steak we had in the tasting, it changed again, tuning in with the riper, more fruit-driven wines from an inexpensive 2004 Hawk Crest Cabernet Sauvignon to the Ridge Monte Bello. The Vosne-Romanée we’d enjoyed with the fillet, by contrast, didn’t taste as remotely as good.

Hanger/bavette

Severely steaked out by this stage, we only tried one serving of hanger (served rare) just out of interest to see what the chewier texture of this favourite French cut would do. We liked it best, appropriately enough with two of the more inexpensive wines, a 2005 I Bastioni Chianti Classico and a gutsy 2004 Domaine de la Renjarde Côtes du Rhône Villages the one for its acidity, the other for its rusticity.

Overall conclusions

This tasting was a real eye opener with both Will and I revising our cherished opinions about wine and steak. In a nutshell - and it is a gross simplification because it doesn’t fully take into account different sauces and sides - if you like your steak rare stick to leaner, more classic wines whereas if you like it better done (and therefore more heavily caramelised) go for riper, more fruit driven ones. If you like fillet, try red burgundy, Pinot Noir or a modern Italian red, with sirloin drink cabernet or merlot, especially red Bordeaux, and with rib-eye go for a Châteauneuf, Côte Rôtie or other Syrah or Shiraz or a top Tuscan red.

Of course it doesn’t quite work out like that in a restaurant, as Nick pointed out, as people order different cuts and want them cooked different ways so you need to find wines that perform well overall. Our most consistent bottles proved to be the ‘96 Château St Pierre St-Julien (Will’s favourite), the Collazzi (Nick’s favourite) and the Ridge Monte Bello (mine). The Catena Alta Malbec also showed well though it wasn’t our favourite wine with any of the steaks.

Disappointments were the much lauded 2004 Turkey Flat Barossa Shiraz which tasted too simple and sweet with many of the steaks (a bit of bottle age would have helped) and the Rioja in our tasting, a Marques de Vargas 2002 (much to Will’s disappointment, being a big Rioja fan). The cheaper wines, while pleasant, were largely out of their league leading us to the conclusion - and this is something that Will and I can agree on - that it’s not worth drinking minor wines with steak. At least that’s going to be our excuse from now on . . .

This tasting was based at the Spitalfields branch of Hawksmoor at 157 Commercial Street, London E1 6BJ Tel: 0207 247 7392. They have since opened branches at Seven Dials in Covent Garden and Guildhall in the City.

Sauces and sides - what difference they make

• Béarnaise - a new world Pinot Noir or even an oaked Chardonnay if you prefer white wine to red

• Creamy mustard sauces - red burgundy usually hits the spot especially with fillet

• Peppercorn sauce/steak au poivre - southern French or other blends of Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre, Malbec, modern Tuscan reds like the Collazzi

• Red wine sauces e.g. marchand du vin - top red Bordeaux and other Bordeaux blends

• Ketchup - better not but if you must, a modern, young Chianti Classico or Zinfandel

• Rich potato dishes e.g. gratin dauphinois - tips the balance towards Cabernet or Cabernet blends

• Creamed spinach - depends on the amount of cream. Spinach is slightly bitter which will accentuate sweetness in a wine but cream will counteract that. Should be relatively neutral in its effect compared to the flavour of the steak.

This article was first published in the October 2007 edition of Decanter.

The 10 best wines for spring and early summer drinking

The last two days have been quite, quite beautiful, starting mistily, basking midday in an unseasonally warm sun and finishing with an extended dusk that announces that spring is finally here. I immediately want to eat lighter meals: the new season’s vegetables are not quite in yet but I can at least plan for summer and that means a spring clean of the cellar, pushing the full bodied reds to the back and assessing what whites, lighter reds and rosés I still have lurking in the racks.

Now is the time to drink up any lighter wines from last year that may have slipped my notice and make a shopping list for the weeks ahead.

The idea of changing the wine you drink with the season, just as you change your diet and your wardrobe still meets some resistance. People tend to ‘like what they like’ when it comes to wine, drinking the same bottles right through the year. The more pronounced acidity and palate weight of lighter wines may not be to your taste. But try them with the right kind of food and you’ll see how perfectly tuned they are to the flavours of spring.

Sauvignon Blanc and Sauvignon blends
What more is there to say about Sauvignon Blanc? Only that there is much more variety than ever before and that quality seems on an unstoppable upward curve. Try those from South Africa if you’re not familiar with them. And revisit white Bordeaux and other Sauvignon-Semillon blends.
Best food pairings: goats’ cheese, asparagus, grilled fish and other seafood, dishes flavoured with coriander and dill

Grüner Veltliner
No sign of the Grüner bandwagon slipping off the rails. It’s still every sommelier’s darling - less demanding than Riesling, more sophisticated than Pinot Grigio (though see below). Drink young.
Best food pairings: Light Asian flavours e.g. Asian accented salads and noodle dishes, Vietnamese spring rolls

Albariño
Another fashionable option, Spain’s feted seafood white, which comes from Galicia in the North West of the country, has the intensity to cope with most light fish preparations. A good wine to choose in fish restaurants.
Best food pairings: shellfish, light fish dishes, spring and summer soups e.g. gazpacho, tomato salads

Chablis and other unoaked or lightly oaked Chardonnays
If you’re a Chardonnay drinker, time to change the register from oaked to unoaked or at least subtly oaked. (Those rich buttery flavours will overwhelm delicate vegetables and seafood unless they’re dressed with a rich butter sauce.) Faced with competition from the new world, Chablis is better quality than ever and a good own brand buy from supermarkets. Watch out for offers.
Best food pairings: oysters and other seafood, poached chicken, creamy sauces, fish and vegetable terrines, sushi

Dry Riesling
Like Marmite Riesling tends to polarise wine drinkers - some love it, some hate it. There’s no denying though that its crisp, fresh flavours and modest levels of alcohol it makes perfect spring sipping. If it’s the sweetness you’re not sure about stick to Alsace Riesling, German kabinett Riesling or Clare Valley Riesling from Australia. If it’s the typical kerosene flavours it can acquire with age, stick to younger wines.
Best food pairings: Smoked fish especially smoked salmon, crab, trout, smoked chicken, salads,Cantonese and lightly spiced south-east Asian food

Pinot Grigio
The tide of insipid, cheap Pinot Grigio has given the wine a bad name but the best examples (mostly from the Alto Adige) are elegant minerally whites that deserve a place in your cellar.
Best food pairings: antipasti, light seafood pastas and risottos, fresh tomato-based pasta sauces

Prosecco
The Veneto’s utterly charming sparkling wine, softer and more rounded than Champagne. It mixes fabulously well with fresh summer fruits such as peaches and raspberries as in the famous Bellini
Best food pairings: A perfect spring aperitif or to sip with panettone

Light rosé
I say light because so many rosés now are little different from reds in their levels of alcohol and intensity. Not that that style doesn’t have a place (it’s a great wine to drink with barbecues, for example) but it can overwhelm more delicate flavours. At this time of year try the lighter, less full-on styles from Provence and elsewhere in the South of France or from the Rioja and Navarra regions of Spain.
Best food pairings: Provençal-style dishes such as salad Niçoise and aioli (vegetables with a garlic mayonnaise), grilled tuna, mezze

Light Loire reds
Well, actually not so light if you look at the 2005 vintage but in general Loire reds which are mostly based on the Cabernet Franc grape are light and fragrant, perfect served cool. Examples are Chinon, Bourgeuil and Saumur-Champigny.
Best food pairings:
Seared salmon and tuna, grilled chicken, goats' cheese

Young Pinot Noir
I stress young because you want that bright, intense, pure raspberry fruit rather than the slightly funky notes you can get with Pinot (especially red burgundy) that has a couple of years’ bottle age. The most reliable place to find it currently is in the Marlborough region of New Zealand. Chile, California and Oregon have some appealingly soft, fruity Pinots too, though again, watch the alcohol and serve lightly chilled.
Best matches:
Seared duck breasts, salads that include fresh or dried red berries or pomegranate seeds, seared salmon or tuna.