Match of the week

Spicy prawns and Chilean riesling

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on July 9 2018 at 10:24

Last week I hosted a fabulous wine dinner at my local Indian restaurant Nutmeg in Bristol. We’d had the opportunity to have a run through beforehand and I was really happy with all the wines which were chosen in conjunction with their supplier Talking Wines.

If I had to pick out one pairing it would be one of the starters - Madras Jhinga - a king prawn cooked with black pepper and shrimp paste which went brilliantly with a zesty 2016 Novas Grand Reserva riesling from Chile’s Bio Bio valley, proving yet again how well riesling can handle spicy food.

But that’s typically not how Indian meals progress - the prawn was part of a line-up of four starters including an octopus onion bhaji (yes, really! SO good) a chicken tikka and tandoori rabbit. You could of course have drunk the riesling with all of them but I think the Domaine des Tourelles Lebanese rosé we had as another option worked best across the board.

What the tasting underlined is that wine can be just as good if not a better partner for Indian food as lager, especially when it’s executed to this high level and - interesting point to note - when the dishes are dry rather than heavily sauced. That definitely helped.

Disclosure: I was paid for conducting the tasting but not required to write this post or undertake social media for the restaurant.

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