Match of the week

Roast lamb and unoaked grenache

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on March 31 2025 at 09:56

Roast lamb goes with practically any red wine you care to drink with it but grenache is a less common pairing than, say, cabernet sauvignon or tempranillo.

It might also strike you as unusual that this dish was from a dinner at Tillingham winery in Sussex who you might have thought would have had their own red but it had sold out so they’d listed this intriguing organic grenache from Domaine Julien d’Abrigeon called Coquelicot (meaning poppy)

According to Vin-Clairs, the online retailer that sells it in the UK it’s made from fruit that used to go to the great Rhône producer J Chave for whom d’Abrigeon used to work.

It’s a beautifully balanced vibrant red that wears its alcohol lightly but had the richness and structure to stand up to the red wine and rosemary jus that accompanied the lamb along with some seared wild garlic, morels and crispy potato skins (as well as mash, which delighted this potato lover!)

It was made with indigenous yeasts and very little added sulphur so basically classifies as a natural wine though it was gloriously clean and pure.

With that back story though it should come as no surprise that it costs £30.40 a bottle although interestingly it’s under £20 in the US (at K & L). Taxes on wine in the UK are brutal.

For other lamb pairings see my Top Wine Pairings for Lamb

And for other grenache pairings, The best food pairings for grenache

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