Pairings | Amber wine

The best food pairings for orange wines

The best food pairings for orange wines

More and more people have been drinking orange or amber wine but what’s the best kind of food to pair with it? In this post, I’ll guide you through the best food pairings for orange wines, drawn from my own experiences and tastings.

What type of food pairs with orange wine?

What type of food pairs with orange wine?

Donald Edwards finds a clue in the traditional Georgian food that was served at a dinner at the Notting Hill restaurant Colchis recently.

Aubergines with walnut sauce and amber wine

Aubergines with walnut sauce and amber wine

It’s hard to pick out one pairing out of the multitude of dishes we were served with amber or orange wine during my first visit to Georgia last week but I’m going for one we barely ever failed to find on the table - grilled aubergine with walnut sauce.

 Thai food and orange wine

Thai food and orange wine

Orange wine wouldn’t have been the first pairing I’d have turned to with Thai food but what I love about this business is that there are always opportunities to revise your opinion

Grilled lamb chops and ‘orange’ wine

Grilled lamb chops and ‘orange’ wine

One of the most striking things I’ve noticed during my few days in Rome this past week is how white wine seems a better match for the local food than red does. Even with red meat like lamb? Strangely, yes.

Spanish ham and orange wine

Spanish ham and orange wine

There were other dishes on the table* - but it was the jamon de Teruel, a lesser known ham from Aragon in Spain, that was the standout pairing with the orange wine I was drinking last week.

Okonomiyaki and orange wine

Okonomiyaki and orange wine

Our experience of Japanese wine is so limited in the UK that it came as quite a surprise to find three wines I would never have expected in a small restaurant and natural wine bar called Pasania in Osaka - a pinot noir, a kerner and an orange koshu.

Duck liver, bacon and onions with orange wine

Duck liver, bacon and onions with orange wine

There’s still a lot of suspicion about orange wine with many in the wine industry taking the view that it’s faulty rather than, what it actually is, a different style of wine.

Camembert-style cheese and amphora-aged Bacchus

Camembert-style cheese and amphora-aged Bacchus

I’ve long felt that white wine is as good, if not a better match for cheese than red but it takes chutzpah to serve it at the end of a wine dinner as Mark Hix and Rob Corbett of Castlewood Vineyard did at an event I took part in last week at The Fox Inn at Corscombe

Tongdak (rice-stuffed chicken) and orange wine

Tongdak (rice-stuffed chicken) and orange wine

Continuing in the spicy food vein of last week, this time I was eating at a Korean restaurant called Bokman in Bristol.

Braised cuttlefish and artichokes with orange wine

Braised cuttlefish and artichokes with orange wine

This week’s match of the week was a toss up between this pairing of orange wine and braised cuttlefish at Emilia in Ashburton and a delicious tuna and crab taco with a cracking margarita at Zapote in Shoreditch but I reckoned you know that tacos (fishy ones especially) are great with margaritas and it’s always a struggle to know what to drink with artichokes.

Cramele Recas Orange Wine

Cramele Recas Orange Wine

If you thought orange wine was the exclusive province of hipster natural wine bars, think again - one has just gone on sale in Aldi. And while most cost nearer £20 than £10 this one is on sale at a very affordable £5.99.

Koftas with tahini and orange wine

Koftas with tahini and orange wine

I’ve been enthusiastically cooking from Sami Tamimi’s and Tara Wigley's new book Falastin this past couple of weeks and made their recipe for koftas with tahini, potato and onion over the weekend during a Zoom cooking session with a couple of pals in Bristol.

Puff pastry baked–Camembert  with quince and roasted garlic

Puff pastry baked–Camembert with quince and roasted garlic

This is one of the many enticing recipes in The Orchard Cook, a beautifully illustrated book I was sent by photographer and food writer Stuart Ovenden and which provides inspiring ideas as to what to do with autumnal fruits such as apples, pears and quince.

Sauerkraut and orange wine

Sauerkraut and orange wine

I could of course have written about wine pairings with schnitzel this week having spent four days at Austria’s major wine fair VieVinum in Vienna but it merely confirmed my view that grüner veltliner is a pretty unbeatable match. (Along with beer!)

Octopus with orange wine

Octopus with orange wine

Orange wines - white wines that are made in a similar way to a red, leaving the juice in contact with the skins - have become increasingly popular in the last couple of years, proving impressively versatile with food.

Miso-glazed cabbage and orange wine

Miso-glazed cabbage and orange wine

The way things are looking I don’t imagine there will be many standout matches of the week over the forthcoming months given that I’m out and about much less than normal. But this one, from Trivet in Bermondsey last week is truly excellent.

Sausage rolls and orange chardonnay

Sausage rolls and orange chardonnay

I admit orange wine is the last pairing I would have thought of with a sausage roll. Especially a high-end orange wine like Radikon’s.

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