Match of the week

Goosnargh duck and elderberries with a Canary Islands red

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on November 7 2017 at 08:33

Visiting two gastronomic restaurants that offered food and wine pairing in the Lake District last week (Forest Side and Hipping Hall) I’m struggling to pick out the stand-out match but I think it has to be the fabulous combination of the local Goosnargh duck with a wine I hadn’t tried before - the 2015 Tajinaste Valle de la Orotava from Tenerife that was served as part of the tasting menu at Hipping Hall.

The duck - which was fabulously tender - was simply served with elderberries and hay-baked turnip, the elderberries being the dominant note which chimed in with the lively peppery wine. The wine comes from an estate of the same name (Tajinaste is an indigenous flower), some of whose vineyards go back to 1914. It’s made from the local Listan Negro and retails at £15.99 from Hay Wines.

Other matches I was struck by were a white Dao with a dish of warm smoked beets and sheeps’ curd, and a delicate English white, Limney, from Davenport Vineyards with a dish of glazed monkfish and grilled cos. (Forest Side paired beetroot with an exotic Xinomavro rose from Domaine Ligas in Pella Greece)

If you're into food and wine pairing these are terrific places to visit.

I stayed at Forest Side and Hipping Hall as a guest of the hotels.

If you’d like be able to check out all the food and wine pairings on the site you can buy a bundle of credits here to access my premium content.

And/or for regular updates on what and where I’ve been eating, drinking and travelling sign up for my weekly newsletter Eat This, Drink That, Live Well.