Pairings | Grüner Veltliner

What type of wine pairs best with Vietnamese food?

What type of wine pairs best with Vietnamese food?

Sunday marked not only the start of the Chinese New Year but the Vietnamese New Year celebrations too - known as Tet. As in China there are certain foods which are traditional to the occasion such as pickled vegetables and candied fruits, none of which are particularly wine-friendly but in general I find Vietnamese food, with its milder heat and fragrant herbal flavours easier to match than Thai (although I haven’t had such extensive experience of doing so).

Velouté of asparagus with Grüner Veltliner

Velouté of asparagus with Grüner Veltliner

It's been a while since I've posted about soup - it's notoriously tricky to match with wine - but this weekend I came across a great combination at a new restaurant in Bath, the oddly named Menu Gordon Jones*

Grüner Veltliner and salt cod

Grüner Veltliner and salt cod

I came across this unlikely combination while I was flying back from Argentina with the Brazilian airline TAM* who have this year decided to inaugurate a Brazilian menu in business class devised by a woman chef called Ana Luisa Trajano. And quite right too.

Artichoke barigoule and grüner veltliner

Artichoke barigoule and grüner veltliner

So maybe Austria’s signature grape grüner veltliner is the perfect pairing for tricky-to-match artichokes?

Weingut Brundlmayer Grüner Veltliner Alte Reben 1999

Weingut Brundlmayer Grüner Veltliner Alte Reben 1999

A cellar clear-out at our French house this week unearthed this neglected treasure from 1999. I couldn’t imagine that it would still be drinkable having travelled from England to France when we moved most of our belongings here six years ago.

Tuna tartare with wasabi aioli and Prager Grüner Veltliner

Tuna tartare with wasabi aioli and Prager Grüner Veltliner

Not last week's match, actually but a great one from a couple of weeks' back just before I went to Paris and which got overlooked.

Asparagus salad and Grüner Veltliner

Asparagus salad and Grüner Veltliner

I’ve been in Vienna for the past few days so couldn’t really avoid eating asparagus. Not that I wanted to. Austria’s white asparagus is one of the highlights of the spring and early summer so we grabbed any opportunity we could to wolf it.

Sea bass carpaccio and Grüner Veltliner

Sea bass carpaccio and Grüner Veltliner

The other day we went to Il Vino d’Enrico Bernardo, an innovative new restaurant in Paris run by the world’s best sommelier in 2004 which has just won a Michelin star. The unusual aspect is that there is a wine rather than a food menu. You choose what you want to drink and they create a dish or a menu around it.

Fish curry and Gruner Veltliner

Fish curry and Gruner Veltliner

Last week I hosted a tasting for Bristol-based spice company The Spicery in which we explored a number of different wine pairings for different styles of curry - including an Indian Shiraz!

The 10 best wines for spring and early summer drinking

The 10 best wines for spring and early summer drinking

The last two days have been quite, quite beautiful, starting mistily, basking midday in an unseasonally warm sun and finishing with an extended dusk that announces that spring is finally here. I immediately want to eat lighter meals: the new season’s vegetables are not quite in yet but I can at least plan for summer and that means a spring clean of the cellar, pushing the full bodied reds to the back and assessing what whites, lighter reds and rosés I still have lurking in the racks.

Pairing wine with Szechuan (or Sichuan) cuisine

Pairing wine with Szechuan (or Sichuan) cuisine

Just as you think you might have got to grips with matching wine with Chinese food along comes a regional cuisine like Szechuan which is twice as challenging, as I discovered at a wine dinner at Flinty Red in Bristol. Flinty Red has closed since I originally wrote this post in 2012, but the wine pairing lessons remain.

Seamus Mullen's kale salad with apple, toasted pecans and yoghurt and dill vinaigrette

Seamus Mullen's kale salad with apple, toasted pecans and yoghurt and dill vinaigrette

I've never really 'got' kale but this delicious salad would convert anybody. AND it's healthy too!

Pot-roast chicken cooked in herby crème fraîche

Pot-roast chicken cooked in herby crème fraîche

A really lovely, summery way of cooking roast chicken from Olia Hercules beautiful new book Summer Kitchens.

Which wine to match with Dover sole?

Which wine to match with Dover sole?

When you have a fish as fine as Dover sole you don’t want to mask its delicate sweet flavour in any way. Here are my suggestions for Gordon Ramsay’s recipes in the Times today.

Cold sesame noodles and weissbier

Cold sesame noodles and weissbier

Thanks to my friend Signe Johansen of Scandilicious I finally got to Koya in Frith Street the other day - London’s food bloggers most popular noodle haunt and the winner of last year’s Observer Food Monthly’s Best Cheap Eats award.

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