Match of the week

Laksa and Riesling

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on August 9 2010 at 10:52

Laksa is one of those dishes you hesitate to pair with wine being both a soup and really spicy but the pairing I came across at the Pegasus Bay wine dinner at The Providores the other night was spot on.

One of the reasons I think it worked so well was that the chicken that had been used to make the laksa had apparently been smoked and smoked food is generally good with Riesling. It was also aromatic rather than fierily hot and contained - I would guess - a fair amount of coconut milk which tends to ease in a wine pairing.

As I’ve mentioned the Riesling, the 2008 Pegasus Bay ‘Bel Canto’, was already acquiring those appealing limey, kerosene notes which chimed in perfectly with the flavours of the soup. (You might think that you’d go for a simpler, less expensive Riesling with this sort of dish but in my opinion it was the intensity of the wine that made the match work so well.)

It’s not widely available but you should be able to track down a stockist through New Generation wines in the UK (info@newgenerationwines.com) and Empson USA in the US (nbarber@empsonusa.com). For other stockists see the Pegasus Bay website.

Image © FomaA - Fotolia

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