Match of the week

Middle eastern-style lamb with grilled vegetables and a natural red wine

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on January 16 2018 at 08:25

We all know that roast lamb is a great pairing with red wines but the assumption is often that it’s prepared in a classic French way so it was interesting to note over the weekend that if you give it a middle-eastern spin exactly the same applies

The dish was a fantastic plateful of food cooked by a chef friend of mine Chris Wicks: rare-roasted rack of lamb with a herby couscous salad, grilled vegetables and a yoghurt and tahini dip - all generously scattered with pomegranate seeds.

We drank a couple of reds with it - one of my favourite natural reds, the 2013 La Poudre d’Escampette, a vibrant blend of grenache and carignan from Alain Castex formerly of Le Casot de Mailloles in the Roussillon which I remember buying at a wine fair in France for about €16 or €17, The 2015 which is now sold under the Les Vins de Cabanon label is selling for roughly double that (it’s currently on offer at Buonvino for £28.80 although a company called Gourmet Hunters appears to be selling the 2016 for £19.10. (I’m not sure he has access to the same fruit though since his Casot de Mailloles days but the point is not so much the specific wine but the fact that this vibrant natural style of red really suits this kind of food, picking up in particular on the bright crunchiness of the pomegranate seeds.)

We also drank a magnum of 2005 rioja which paired well with the dish as rioja pretty well always does with lamb but I preferred the lighter wine.